Tea Party Pot Bellies: Michigan's Tea Partiers - What's in their Kettle?

Whistling from their ears, full of steam piped in from the boilers of Koch Petroleum, these angry men and women are pawns of the first order.

Dunces with dulled intellects and greedy with selfish desire to hold on to what little their corporate masters, have deigned to allow them to retain of all their years of work, labor, and endless toil, "Steamed" Tea Party Pot Bellies are in a manipulator's manufactured rage. It's actually one of the saddest stories to be told; it spells out how the public can be conned, hornswoggled, beguiled, into working exactly against what has always been in their best interests, futures, and well-being.

Centers of Civil Discourse Drown Out: American conversation on local concerns in the
corner of the hardware or general store replaced by Big Media and AFP Money
(General Store in Haysi, VA National Archives 1938)

The Michigan TeaPublican (Tea Party Republican) Super Majority back inside the Capitol, all comfy in their leather swivel chairs, faces lit by taxpayer provided laptops, saw an opening to their advantage. True to form,
GOPer's took the easy path: stick to the Corporatist scripts and rad right discipline: Put the burden of revenue off on children, the elderly, the pensioner, the poor, the public servant. By all means protect the business and corporate community!

If only these Republicans strove to serve the real needs of the public as much as they pride themselves in being errand boys/"buds" to business!

What a nunce Snyder is! Says he was "hired" by Michigan to be their "CEO"! Find that in your state constitutions, you uber-strict constitutionalists. It's not there.

Michigan Americans for Prosperity Propaganda Troupes for Senior Citizen as Shock Troops:
Michigan TP'ers at AFP / Mackinac Sponsored Rally in Lansing, MI April 14, 2011 (DailyKos)

Taking a reach-back look at the Lansing Capitol Rally of the Michigan Chapter of Americans for Prosperity (led by Scott Hagerstrom) last spring, one sees photos of row after row of ball capped, balding older white males, supported by carefully placed courtesy folding chairs. They are angry and frustrated waving provocative signs to prove it's just right to be ginned up for projecting anger and blame on someone else and advantage the Rovian Backroom Boys. Steampotters are ripe for backing the blacklash, then when their handlers have taken all the advantage they can, Tea Party Pot Bellies will be toast!

Staring at the ongoing effects of the worst economic catastrophe of our time, the ruinous, failed Bush regime and its unbearable and destructive rampage of eight years (misdirected wars, unprecedented debt, and unequal taxation) was bad enough; not seeing a clear way out, still forced to confront the seemingly intractable flaws and effects of G.W. Bush cataclysm, has left the worried public to sip the bitter dregs resulting from his bad judgment.

Steampotters are forced to stare at a resultant, potential economic and political collapse worldwide. That's too much for a potbellied TeaPartisan under duress and stress. They're ready for a brawl. But with whom? Their neighbors, their grandchildren, the first responders? The cause of their troubles which has them in a kink? They are supporting the very Corporatist interests that have been eroding their nest eggs and killing their democracy. How odd!

Steampotters are damn mad at the demise of their retirement assets stolen by Wall Street and speculators, the trouble their children are enduring, and the loss of their home equity value-stripped as it was in the Bush Bust of 2008. THEY NEED SOMEONE TO BLAME. They are ready to led by the Kochs MEGA-cash-campaigning. As chance would have it, Koch Brothers had shipped in that unsavory character, Dick Morris - and didn't fetish Dick strut his stuff?

Steaming potbellies are addicted to Right's Noise Machine and Rupert Murdock's pap-and-slap
Actually more than 70% of Republicans with cable access watch FOX News exclusively. Nothing satisfies an angry depressed curmudgeon more than more anger and depression. Bad news fuels fear, resentment and aggression.

As dailies, such as the Detroit News and the Grand Rapids Press, slide down the waste pipes, FOX News enriches itself and its Machiavellian owner. An alien with "bought" power and influence. It's a place of influence and profit FOX and Rupert do not deserve.

This is possible because of these same gullible discontents-the more they are depressed the more they want someone else to ante up and bear their far share of load. Many citizens from out the past paid for the infrastructure that was the life-long support of these Tea Party Pot Bellies-now whiners and malcontents.

The whole attitude is: I've got my "little bit" and I'm scared witless it will be lost to someone else. Their mantra: Me, my son John, his wife and my wife, us four and NO MORE. This kind of self-centered selfishness leaves behind both Christianity and neighborhood democracy.

Given permission to lash out and accost others, goaded on by Svengalis re-pleat with talking point books designed to manipulate and exploit exaggerated blame; as long as it distracts the November voters from the Bush Depression (still in bubble wrap) the danger plays right into the hands of the negativists who inhabit both the Detroit News and the dank dens of the deceitful enemies of public life and service.

Warming the Factories of Manufacturing and the Middleclass: Garland Stove Company's
World's Largest Stove, Postcard Detroit MI 1893 (Michigan Historical Archives)

Amway's Richard M. DeVos Sr. and the Brothers Koch are thought to be Depression proof. However, if they can manipulate the TeaPartisans to do the heavy lifting to lobby to remove regulations, and overturn customer protections, and collective bargaining rights, etc. to greatly benefit them and the other greedy Corporatists - this would be perfect timing.

And to assuage the pent-up anger and the angst tearing at the gut of Tea Potbelliers, what do the current Rad Republicans offer?

Actually Harry Truman laid out the genuine GOP "offers" best:

• Republicans approve of the American farmer, but they are willing to help him go broke.
• They stand four-square for the American home - but not for housing.
• They are strong for labor - but they are stronger for restricting labor's rights.
• They favor minimum wage - the smaller the minimum wage the better.
• They endorse educational opportunity for all - but they won't spend money for teachers or for schools.
• They think modern medical care and hospitals are fine - for people who can afford them.
• They consider electrical power a great blessing - but only when the private power companies get their rake-off.
• They think American standard of living is a fine thing - so long as it doesn't spread to all the people.
• And they admire of Government of the United States so much that they would like to buy it.

Harry T. enjoyed the blunt truth of strongly brewed black coffee in a big cup, not a steamy tea made with the deadly Kool-Aid of the Koch Bros. subversions, et. al. served up in a Koch Industries-made throwaway paper cup.

On the Reader:
History on the Garland Company Giant Stove and what happened to this Michigan landmark.
Gazette posts on the Americans For Prosperity run Tea Party Rally April 14, 2011 pictured above in "Greedy Bros Koch-Bought & Paid for Visi-Galts: The Randian Libertarian Spawn - Gleefully Storm the Gates of the People’s House in Lansing, MI" and "Americans for Prosperity’s Cotton Head Grump Out, High on Motrin 800, Fizzles.

Related Posts:
In Detroit: Resentment, Malice & Roaring Opportunism Ride a Wave of Harsh Tea Party Ideology (April 2012) - Revisit Occupy Detroit: the Tea Party is Different – Hank Payne’s Myopic View (November 2011) - The Occupy Wall Street Activists & Grassroots Tea Party Activists Have a Lot in Common (October 2011) - It Was No Frenzy Island: Neanderthals & the Nerd (Republican Leadership Conference on Mackinac Island) (September 2011) - Teaparty leader: The More We Pay Attention - The More Hopeless it Can Seem, Political Parties Only Exist to Get and Keep Power (February 2011) - Saint Ayn - Extolling Great Evil - Used As Source of Tea Party Political Punch Lines

Original.

What the Frack Fellas? Morality and Michigan's Environment - Back When & Now Then

In response to recent hydro-fracking enabling legislation, ad campaigns and spin led by ALEC and Big Oil surrogates in the Midwest (Michigan & Ohio).

"To waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed."
- Theodore Roosevelt, in a Speech to Congress on December 3, 1907

"[Conservation] is the chief material question that confronts us, second only and second always to the great fundamental questions of morality."
- Theodore Roosevelt, Proceedings of a Conference of Governors in the White House, May 13-15, 1908

You Gotta Love Teddy: The Bull Moose Who Went to Bat
for America's Natural Treasures (Theodore Roosevelt National Achieves c.1910)

Memorial Day and its participants, those steadily declining visages of past conflicts like the Spanish-American War of Teddy's day to today's World War II veterans who have been hailed as the Greatest Generation, remind us all that a precious and hard won victory over oppression and an evil corporate-run government in the hands of foreign tyrants was secured by a stupendous act of redemption-not only for America, but the entire world.

One writer has lamented the deterioration of that honor, the tarnishing of heroic valor, the death of that victory, due to the excesses of the corporatist control of all levels of state and federal governance, the sorry state of affairs we now face:

"Back when people were actually almost "free" (immediately after WWII), when public education was not just another empty promise - and the trend in life was toward a better tomorrow for everyone - at that time 'control' was in retreat, and progress was the theme of every hour. Now what we have is control of every idiotic facet of everyday existence - rules for every waking act, every thought that is not controlled is seen as the enemy of the state (the corporatocracy).

"Our entire way of life has been stolen and shall never return to the lazy and hopeful days of living and loving, of joy and promise, with the possibility for doing real and meaningful things with one's own life - not to mention being able to envision a better world for more and more people - whose lives were so far below the levels we enjoyed.

" Instead of that promise, instead of that possibility - what we have now is the outright worship of Mistrust, of Fear, and of Paranoia - along with obscene profits for those who have purchased all the politicians, and who control every facet of this once nearly free society.

"If American life were a sporting event - today's game would be one in which all the officials and the referees had all been pre-purchased by what would obviously be the winning team. Now companies 'police' their own activities, deciding for themselves when they've gone too far - or stolen too much. The original point behind government providing a watchdog over industry - was to keep the playing fields equal - between players and owners."
(emphasis added)

The writer is on the right scent.

Take the following example from a Nation of Change article entitled "ALEC Slips Exxon Loophole into New Ohio Law":

"Wake up and smell the frack fluid. But don't ask what's in it, at least not in Ohio, cause it's still not your right to know. Ohio is in the final stages of making an Exxon trojan horse on hydrofracking into state law, and it appears that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) connected Exxon's lawyers with co-sponsors of Ohio Senate Bill 315: at least 33 of the 45 Ohio legislators who co-sponsored SB 315 are ALEC members, and language from portions of the state Senate bill is similar to ALEC's 'Disclosure of Hydraulic Fracturing Fluid Composition Act.'...disclosure of fracking fluids? On behalf of ExxonMobil?

Frack fluids include unknown chemicals that gas drillers mix with sand and large amounts of water. The mixture is pumped underground at high pressure in order to retrieve gas and oil by fracturing shale formations. These are the chemicals that have caused widespread concern among residents near gas fracking operations; concerns echoed by doctors who don't know how to treat patients harmed by exposure to chemicals that oil companies keep secret. Oil companies like XTO Energy, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, the first company lined up to drill in Ohio's Utica shale."

(emphasis added)

Milking Mother Michigan: Fracking (Shale Sands) Map
of the Lower 48 US States (US Energy Information Agency May 2011)

The blatant use of power and immense amounts of cold, secret cash to push aside the welfare and rightful concerns of the population in order to accomplish whatever is in the Corporatists' self-interest is best shown in the ongoing activity of the Koch Brothers cabal comprised chiefly of the Americans for Prosperity and The American Legislative Exchange Council.

It has become exposed and shown to the public that things so dastardly are being rammed through blindsided/defenseless state legislatures by A.L.E.C. members in those bodies, and ALEC's fellow travelers, that many premiere brands, former sponsors and supporters of ALEC, have bailed out of this corporate-owned and operated 'plug and play' Rad Right legislative mill.

What a blow to ALEC to have Walmart, Coke, Blue Cross and so many other familiar brands and corporations pull out of the Koch Bros. American Legislative Exchange Council. Yet here in Michigan A.L.E.C. powers on. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy joyfully and recently submitted in its own suggested boilerplate legislation, developed here in Michigan, to be promoted by ALEC nationwide.

US Rep. Dave Agema, a Michigan ALEC member and a Rad Right Screaming Eagle, succeeds, with the backing of the Koch's crowd, becoming Michigan's upstart male National Republican Committee member. Little wonder, when over 100 past or present members of the Michigan Legislature are /or have been complainant ALEC members.

Business Trumps Nature Leaving Just Stumps: When Michigan Big Business gets it all - Statewide Clear Cutting of Millions of Acres in the 1880-90's (Upper Peninsula Lumbering Operations Anon c.1880)

How do you suppose Michigan Koch-Heads will handle our fracking questions when the time comes to regulate (OR NOT) the fracking permits and permissions so intensely sought by Koch oil and other such interests? Last century rich investors left the face of Michigan a stubble of stumps, but the fact is nobody knows what toxic fluids flow through far flung fracking pumps.

Michigan families and their many out state guests have enjoyed its wealth of nature, pure beauty, fertile soils, and its bounty and plenty.

Who cares? We care!

Our state, with its tremendous water resources, must care; it's our wonderland heritage won and protected by heroes and workers, farmers and tradesmen, now so blatantly threatened by the overweening Corporatocracy and the greed of the rich and powerful 1%.

What the Frack? Will the Koch Brothers blast TDR off Mt Rushmore too?

On the Reader:

• Michigan grassroots movement website "Ban Michigan Fracking" and Michigan Petition Drive website "Let's Ban Fracking" 
• Key articles on Fracking in The World in "Burning water, contamination and natural gas 'fracking'" (16 May, 2011) and details about the relationship between ALEC and Heartland Institute in "Heartland Institute and ALEC Partner to Pollute Classroom Science" (March 30, 2012) and more MAPS on Oil Spills and Fracking Accidents across the country and in Michigan.
• Teddy Roosevelt and history of "Conservation as Morality" by Jessica Sheffield (January 2011)

Related Slates:
More of Teddy Roosevelt and ALEC in the Gazette.

Original.

Rick Snyder's 'Reinvention": Not the Answer, but Now the Growing Problem

Rick Snyder has exercised disturbing authoritarian means to get to control and inflict re-invention on all things Michigan.

We are now living in Michissippi.

Our great state has been taken down one fragment at a time by the Business Leaders for Michigan, The Mackinac Center for Public Policy, the Michigan Chapter of the Koch Bros.' Americans for Prosperity, and the Michigan Chamber of Commerce.

Rick Snyder in a caricature by Henry Payne Editor of
the MichiganView.com (Detroit News March 2012)

"Nerd" Snyder has been especially adept at extensive use of procedural sleight of hand to ram through his über-corporatist agenda. The amount of shift to business gains over citizen loss has been unprecedented.

Certainly, the hamfisted and conniving John Mathias Engler never reached this level of "revolution," though God knows he tried. Yet it is the format of Englerism that laid the groundwork for this coupe de tat that Snyder has pulled.

Snyder and companies have rammed though a long list of A.L.E.C  (Corporate designed and perfected 'model' legislation in many fragments-backed in large part by the Koch Bros.) directly and swiftly into legislative tax changes, tax increases, deregulation, and give-backs that are already undermining Michigan.

Did anyone notice that tax revenues were reportedly down by $75 million in the most recent cycle...? Just as predicted by this commentator; the removal of over $2 billion in new taxes pension and annuities, the removal of "individual item" pricing at retailers (resulting in loss of jobs and consumer protection), and other reductions in services, salaries, and safety net supplements to children, etc. has broken down the vital chain of customer demand in Michigan.


Snyer's reinvention is not the cure, the answer, formula for deliverance for an ailing Michigan economy in a "one state depression." No, Rick Snyder Reinvention is the PROBLEM!

Snyder's reinventive, revolutionary unconstitutional Enhanced Emergency Manager scheme set up and run by crafty legal corporations and bean counters will show itself to be rife with unbelievable chicanery and potential for white collar corruption.

The central control of Snyder's new "We know best" socialist regime is enough to make even the New York Times' Thomas Friedman jealous.

Friedman has looked at the Red Chinese in the People's Republic and pined aloud. Quoth Hank, Friedman " has been openly jealous of Chinese Communist rule as a way of quickly imposing societal makeovers that force green technologies," or so writes Payne in his personal blog.

Payne sees the sliver in the eye of Friedman, and denies the existence of a rail tie in his own optic.

Michissippi is on the super highway to nowhere and Snyder Inc. has paved the way.

Related Slates:
Rick Snyder’s Relentless Positive Action (RPA) Has Devolved Into Pitiless Regressive Aggression & Trespass (PRAT) - "Tricky Rick & His 'Nerd Herd' Play Dangerous Economic Game in Michigan" - "Nerd Snyder: Nada Jobs "- "Discover Michissippi’s (Michigan's) Corporate Bosses: The Elites Who Now Run Snyder & the GOP Super Majority Legislature" - "The Free Fire Kill Zone: Snyder’s War on Michigan’s Real People"

More on Rick Snyder and Rick Snyder Policy and the term "Michissipi" on the Gazette.

Original.

Hillsdale's Gary Wolfram Elevates Andrew Breitbart - Dean of Defamation - to "Sainthood"

Response to Prof Gary Wolfram on the Detroit / Mackinac News Michigan View in "Ludwig von Breitbart" on March 13, 2012.

Hillsdale’s Dr. Gary must be high on chalk dust. Wolfram's eulogy for Andrew Breitbart was a cold rehash of his idol Ludwig pulled-reflexively from the prof's dusty achieves and yellowing scrapbooks. What exactly connected political hit-man and truth twister Andy Breitbart in Wolfram’s thinking with Dr. Gary's hero Ludwig von Mises?

It must have been a severe allergic reaction to accumulated chalk dust in Wolfram's stuffy cubical at the Rad Right's faint mockup of  a “Harvard”, Hillsdale College, a member of the Poison Ivy League.

Hillsdale College: Leaning right since right-wing Free Marketeers forced
the exit of the founding Free Baptists (Hillsdale Historical Society Archive)

Locked away from everyday reality, Professor Wolfram dwells at this quaint institutional anachronism, hidden away in a small bucolic southeastern Michigan town.

Hillsdale College is more an archetype of civic collapse and failure, retro-progression in quest of a giant need to be noticed in its attempts to pander to the greed of national and international corporatocracy, rather than be a crystalline beacon of higher culture.

Hillsdale exists, in large part, to supply the Too Far Right with pliant foot soldiers such as the murderous mercenary, billionaire scion- Eric Prince of Blackwater infamy.

A liberal arts education seeks to instill a higher sense of history and philosophy into a continuum and expansion of understanding about eternal truth and to build upon the vast achievements and ideals of the progressive human race propelled by the Enlightenment and an ongoing rediscovery of the classic cultures of yore as woven into the march of religion, philosophy, science and human understanding.

Why perseverate? Why ramble on about "liberalism" defined in the enlightenment era as 'the importance of individual liberty and limited government' when what is being espoused at Hillsdale is regression and suppression of modernity and the 'maturing understanding' of the needs and abilities of science and human inventiveness via strangling government?

For chalk dusty Prof. Gary, Breitbart "was an inspiration to those who agree with Mises that 'the ultimate and most profound of the fundamental insights of liberal thought is that it is ideas that constitute the foundation on which the whole edifice of human social cooperation is constructed and sustained and that a lasting social structure cannot be built on the basis of false and mistaken ideas.' “ From this we may try to follow Dr. Gary into believing that Andrew Breitbart was the paragon of TRUTH and ACCURACY.

Here is where Breitbart's notoriety as a crusader in Wolfram’s mind and von Mises' liberalism is seen as versus or against "anti-liberalism," (by which Prof. Gary derides the 21st Century "Liberals"-meaning Democrats and Progressives) and thus becomes lost in that stale cloud of professorial chalk dust.

While Wolfram is perfectly at home seeing himself as a "Classic" Liberal, and not a 21st Century Democrat/Progressive [Boo Hiss] Liberal; the man-on-the-street cannot make the jump Prof. Gary demands. Liberal must always, only mean Democrats.

Prof. Gary Elevates Fellow Traveler, Andrew Breitbart - Dean of Defamation - to Wolfarm’s Constellation of All-Time Ideological ‘Saints’- How Quixotic!

Not to be defeated, Prof. Gary bravely soldiers on. Gary, obviously at grievous personal loss over the death of his grenade-throwing Too Far Right Radical brother, Breitbart) describes his ideological troublemaker and soul-mate as a man labeled by many as "an enemy of the people."  Breitbart earned that exact description by virtue of his relentless partisanship and determination to spin, distort, twist, and invent Breitbart "truth" to fit radical ideology-in the service of the moneyed masters of a growing fascist Corporatocracy.

Andy Breitbart: Lived Large in a Conservative Tub of Small Minds
(TIME posted Bryce Duffy Photo on Brietbart's 'BagNews' 2010)

Breitbart, A Hero to Classic Liberalism? Hardly.
"Governments must be forced into adopting liberalism by the power of the unanimous opinion of the people, claimed von Mises,” proclaims Prof. Gary, emitting a temporary democratic high tone. Then Wolfram goes on to list the areas where Breitbart bent the truth and altered facts to defend a true and genuine anti-classic liberalism-TeaPartisanship given to bottom feeding, dissimulation, and ideological subterfuge he leaves the path of credibility and public trust.

Perez Zagorin, a noted American historian in "The historical significance of lying and dissimilation - Truth-Telling, Lying and Self-Deception" (1996):

"...Since the appearance in 1978 of Sissela Bok's important and widely noticed book, Lying. Moral Choice in Private and Public Life, the concern with lying and deception has continually increased. Bok's work was actuated by worry over declining standards of truth-telling and for this reason apparently touched a nerve. It coincided with the growing skepticism and mistrust felt among Americans and in other western nations about the veracity of governments, officials, and politicians, as well as lawyers, the medical profession, and business corporations."

Just prior to Breitbart's demise, in Troy, Michigan  Michigan Tea Party Republicans (under the spell of and paid & played by the Koch Bros' Americans for Prosperity) hosted one of Breitbart's very last public appearances, shared by Wolfram. This event was at a Koch Brothers pay-to-play sponsored event for Goldman Sach's operative, Mitt Romney, who regaled the Troy/Koch-ish Tea Party elements with his pledges to be one of them.

On the dais was a co-conspirator with Brietbart, Michelle Malkin - a virtual vestal virgin of poisonous venom - in the pursuit of penultimate Rovian truth, skewed to serve FOX's Too Far Right Wingers and corporatist fat cats.

What did the late Breitbart and Malkin bring to the Troy Tea Party Gathering according to Detroit News' Hank Payne?  From his article "Payne in Troy: Tea Party Mitt" February 26, 2012:

"...perhaps most striking was Mitt Romney's extraordinarily detailed, right-wing message perhaps most striking was Romney's extraordinarily detailed, right-wing message specifically tailored for the grassroots conservatives assembled by Americans for Prosperity and warmed up by red meat pundits Michelle Malkin and Andrew Breitbart.”  

This lusty interpretation of the work of Breitbart is shared by non-other-than Sarah Palin:

"With the death of Breitbart, the conservative movement didn't just lose a General " we lost an entire Special Forces Division....But he didn't leave us without the tools and the knowledge we need to fight."

GOT THAT: Brietbart is lauded by Palin as a 'special forces' political/ideological, a high powered hit-man. A deceitful/unprincipled wonk-cum-celebrity in the hunt to bring down America's first Black president.

Is this the “classic liberalism” package that Dr.Gary presents to his nascent ideological apprentice warrior-types in laid back Hillsdale's Rad Right bootcamp?

Bottomline: The Wolfram veneration of Breitbart fails the high ethics and moral high ground test so vaunted by Hillsdale's über-moralizers. The following quote excerpted out of a synopsis in "Andrew Breitbart Dead: Conservative Blogger Dies Suddenly At 43", posted by Huffington Post:

1. "Republican gay rights group GOProud, of which Breitbart was a board member until recently, released a statement saying it was 'stunned and saddened,' and calling him an 'amazing friend and ally.'"
   
2. "Breitbart seldom showed restraint in his vitriol to his critics and seemed to relish in the negative attention his antics earned him. After Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts died in 2009, Breitbart tweeted, 'Rest in Chappaquiddick' and called him 'a special pile of human excrement.' When critics questioned (Breitbart's) tone, he tweeted they 'missed my best ones!'"
   
3. "Breitbart sponsored hidden camera, gottcha attacks on ACORN. Racial in nature, this tactic resulted in a firestorm of criticism. [The embarrassment it engendered stoked up such fierce partisan rants as were heard here in Michigan shrilly mouthed by former State Senator Michelle McManus while running for Michigan Secretary of State.] The edited Breitbart video featured 'some ACORN employees appearing willing to support illegal schemes involving tax advice, misuse of public funds and illegal trafficking in children.' Ultimately the Government Accountability Office cleared ACORN of criminal activities. None-the-less "public pressure led Congress to block previously approved funds from going to ACORN and to stop future payments. Roughly 10 percent of ACORN's funds came from federal grants and the group eventually disbanded."

Just another of Breitbart's tactical 'special forces' successes against Blacks and Obama? Of course.

Carry on Prof. Gary, elevate Brietbart and thereby lower the national bar for truth and civility. How "ill-liberal" in an anti-von Mises pro-Breitbart declination can Wolfram be?

On the Reader:
Read the Detroit / Mackinac News / Michigan View's "All Star" review of Brietbart's 'legacy' including the canonization by Rep. Thaddeus McCotter:

"There was no stopping Andrew Breitbart from fighting the good fight with every fiber of his soul. Good bye and God bless, Brother Andrew. You are loved and mourned and ever remembered."

Related Slates:
"Michigan View's Gary Wolfram Resurrects 18th Cent. Racial Bigotry in His Vision of Economic “Freedom” (ala Adam Smith)" - "Prof. Gary Wolfram of the Michigan View Let’s His Little Light Shine On Greed" - "Our Guides to the Bottomless Pit: Wolfram, Von Hayek, Lewis F. Powell, & A.L.E.C."

More responses to Gary Wolfram and other on the Michigan View on the Gazette.

Original.

Nerd Snyder: Nada Jobs (Governor Rick Snyder: No New Jobs for Michigan)

Michissippians are increasing feeling mounting pressures in their personal financial stress and nervousness about their futures; not only their own futures, but those of their children and grandchildren. They are frustrated and angry with Rick Snyder, who promised to be a quick and thorough solution to the state's economic downturn and its one state depression.

Snyder promised moderate and reasonable re-inventive, pro-active scenarios designed to cure our economic ills and now for one entire year, the one MAJOR area of greatest concern: JOBS, Snyder has been purposefully neglected. Meanwhile, anti-family, anti-worker, anti-public service mavens carve out entire sections of our economy for private gain.

WE GET IT NOW
Let things go south/go sour as far as possible, then come in with radical disaster capital style-solutions. We got the Wild West of American Legislative Exchange Council Corporate "put and take" legislation: Everything business wants, nothing for the 99 % who are essentially all of us.

2011 was the year of the TeaPublicans and Snyder played both ARSONISTS AND FIREMEN with the economy and the general welfare of our citizens. They ravished and defiled democratic principles.

NO JOBS and attendant UNSUSTAINABLE LEVELS OF UNEMPLOYMENT face the nervous populace and Nerd Snyder smirks at us; just wait he has a plan! We have been promised on jobs and an upsurge in manufacturing, yet the Nerd is NADA on progress in this area!

The TeaPublican SuperMajority in Lansing is on a vicious rampage; delivered in large part by outside forces: Dick Armey, Charles and David Koch (KOCH, DAVID (NY), donated $988,604 to MI GOP related PAC's) pushed the Americans for Prosperity, its efforts headed up by Ruppert's/ FOX's infamous Dick Morris. Capitalizing on angry people, who would come out to shout and banish side arms, gin up their neighbors at the breakfast bar or the local dive-they succeeded in pulling off a classic astroturf rebellion-the Michigan legislative elections of 2010. This was and is a one time event!

These TP/ non-participating Libertarian-leaning curmudgeons in biker garb and beer caps are a natural extension of ABATE and fans of the aging, amoral, obscene/punk/pundit /rocker, Ted Nugent. Their Bagger Themes: We Got Ours! We fight all taxes. Just leave us alone. Michissippi: A state inhabited by these types and some nearly three dozen radical, armed, extremist militia groups is headed in a hellacious and destructive direction.

Allowing TeaPartisans who pander and pony up to the Corporatocracy has not brought relief from unemployment nor has it resulted in new industry, manufacturing and or jobs. In fact, one of the corporations represented on the Board of Directors for Business Leaders for Michigan, American Axle, is pulling up, leaving a gapping hole in Michigan's manufacturing base and with the loss of 500 jobs (on Snyder's ticket) that's a move that has a multiplier of at least 6 additional jobs lost elsewhere in the economy. That's as many as 3,000 Michigan JOBS GONE!


Original.

Michissippi: A Rotten State of Affairs - A Brief Overview

Michissippi is currently in a rotten state of affairs:

- Over 500,000 unemployed in Michigan - No Snyder Jobs Plan in place. "Nerd"onomics freaks out.

- A "service economy" in a flat spin. Service? Do it yourself, or do without!

- A-blame-it-on-the-victims mentality (Read Henry Payne in "Peters' failed compassion" 10.4.11)

- Henry Payne quotes Rick Snyder for his assertion:

"In fact, as revealed by Governor Rick Snyder... MOST game the system: over 20 percent of welfare recipients are on welfare 11 years or more, 70 percent for 8 years or more. THIS ISN'T A LEG UP - IT'S A WAY OF LIFE." 

ASK: Just where is a "job" for a urban Detroit welfare recipient going to come from in this Michissippian economy?

When you hear the Tea Party rabble cheer and jeer at the mention of capital executions or the cut-off of medical benefits spiked by yells of "Let'm die;" where will the support for heating, food, and sheer survival come from, if we where to follow Payne's support for Snyder's intended (cut them off) course of action? The obvious answer; a reverse migration of the poor to another place. Payne's intended solution: Pick up and leave. Will Hank be throwing in for a "one way" ticket?

- Thinly disguised racial undertow: 80% single mother births in Urban Detroit-evokes the angst and anger that resides in a bigoted heart. "Compassion" applied is here a dirty word as we see in Henry Payne's attack on Congressman Peters for his "compassion."

Sez Payne:

"Living in posh Oakland County, Peters & Co. use welfare as a Cadillac bumper sticker to advertize their compassion. Divorced from the mean streets of Detroit, they never do an accounting of welfare's unintended consequences in destroying the family and creating a permanent underclass that is dooming generations of children to poverty."

Put them out and let them get jobs, this is the Payne mantra.

To which Mayor Bing replies," "'I wish we could have pushed off this decision (Snyder's cut-off of aid to the poor 2/3 of whom are children),' says Bing, fearing the effects of a tight jobs market."

Here is an historic clip about how cutting welfare goes in Michigan: "Who gets welfare? Despite prevailing stereotype, whites, not blacks, collect greatest share of public aid dollars":

"Michigan welfare officials, for example, dumped 90,000 people from its general assistance program last year (1991) to save the state $250 million. Unfortunately, a majority of those clients, as is the case nationwide, are poor Black men living in urban areas with staggeringly high unemployment rates. Many of these men suffer from physical or mental disabilities. Without welfare benefits, they face a grim future."

"The question of who gets welfare is one that society would do well to ponder. As it stands now, poor Black Families are up against the burdens of systematic racism, urban warfare and limited paths leading up and out of poverty. And many working class and middle class Black families are a paycheck away from joining their poorer brothers."

"The welfare question goes to the heart of individual attitudes about race, class, values and beliefs. Those judgments, often made by the power-brokers who shape public policy, rarely coincide with the sensibilities of the poor. HOW THEY DECIDE WHO GETS WELFARE CAN IRREVOCABLY ALTER THE DESTINIES OF GENERATIONS OF IMPOVERISHED PEOPLE."

- Michigan - a failed state - with over 35 radical groups operating in state; this coupled with the resurgence of the lone-wolf Michigan Militia. We are in trouble friends, REAL TROUBLE.

- The rise of the aristocrat John Birchers: Charles and David Koch ($25 billion each/sons of Fred Koch, founding supporter of The John Birch Society) funders and facilitators of Americans for Prosperity which is currently very active in Michigan with activists Dick Morris, Kyle Olsen, et al who roam the swamp looking for more muck. American for Prosperity (AFP) and the Koch-backed American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are having a "pig at the trough" field day with Michigan lawmaking, providing corporatist "plug and play" legislation to be passed directly into state statues. Charles Koch ran for U.S. President on the platform of: "the abolition of Social Security, the FBI, the CIA, and public schools."

- Old "Dirksonesque" John Gizzi, the Detroit News' new "regular" columnist since his recent appearance at the GOP Mackinac Leadership Conference, pontificates on the far, far Right. John Birch is now mainstream at the Detroit News.

- Saul Anuzis, the Human Events' touting leader (former GOP state chair) of the rad-right in organized Republican Politics, continues to eviscerate what remains of the party with his multiple petty power plays.

- Richard Studley & gang at the Michigan Chamber are busy digging trenches and preparing phosphorous grenades in their Right-to-Work hand-to-hand warfare.

- Snyder's' poison pills: Removal of billions of dollars of disposable income from the retired, teachers, service personnel, firefighters and police; this means a huge loss in "demand" for commercial businesses: No customers.

THE SNYDER'S SOLUTION IS THE PROBLEM. NERDONOMICS WILL FURTHER DESTROY CUSTOMER'S PURCHASE POWER. As we go forward, this removal of income will be year after year. WHO CARES IF YOU PAY LESS TAX ON BUSINESS EARNINGS, IF YOU DON'T HAVE THE BUSINESS INCOME (BASED ON DEMAND) UPON WHICH TO PAY TAXES IN THE FIRST PLACE?

- TeaPublican Central Planning - Michigan now operates much as A TOP-DOWN SOCIALIST STATE: Those Teapartiasns, currently in office, know best what the rest of us may do, may earn, and may receive in the way of assistance or opportunity. They tell us how to work, what to earn, and what part of health care "burden" will be ours to shoulder.

- Michigan's local control, local option, and right-of-self determination is now surrendered to a new "friendly" fascist concept: The Emergency Finance Manager (EFM) regime.

- Snyder announces his desire to be a "lame duck" thus leaving the state essentially politically "leaderless" and adrift in the "perfect storm." If the Nerd is tired and despondent now, think about how long it will be before his one and only term is up? That is an economic and leaderless political eternity.


Original.

It Was No Frenzy Island: Neanderthals & the Nerd (Republican Leadership Conference on Mackinac Island)

The rogue elements comprising the Americans for Prosperity (AFP/Koch Bros. Political Arm) had a bodacious and oversized party on Mackinac Island last Saturday night after the Mitt Romney speech at the Biannual Republican Leadership Conference. Loud, crowded, and a must-be-seen-there event, the AFP bash (with a live band) topped off the behind-the-scenes manipulation of the Nerd's first island confab.

In nearly every conference event there were mentions of Right-to-Work, crack downs on unions/collective bargaining, bashing of teachers and other public servants, no new taxes, and lots of talk about rolling back taxes e.g. personal property taxes. Any mention, however slight of these topics brought out the hooters, hoopers and the clappers were especially loud and bodacious, over-powering and dominate. Any mention of breaks for business brought on swoons and loud applause.

The plaid-shirted ordinary folk, who are the core of the ill-defined Tea Party, the anti-brain bucket ABATE bikers with oiled leather, colorfully patched vests, were noticeably absent. Gone too are the long hair, long, ankle length gingham-dressed fundamentalist women folk with suckling babies. The aggressive independent Libertarian, Hillsdale College crowd and Alumni were, however, everywhere present.

What had the greatest potential to excite the Neanderthals was raw red meat; finding it in the presentations and in the standard speeches was hard, like picking over old, stale offal. The Nerd, Governor Rick Snyder, wants a cap on outward shows of incivility-blame-laying and extraneous and counter-productive partisan exaggerations and accusations.

To the Nerd's credit, he wants to stay focused on results and achievements toward what he has set out as the "doable" goals of his plan. In his Friday night speech he emphasized this point to the sound of one hand clapping.

The Nerd doesn't support the Neanderthals and their voracious appetite for carrion and bloodletting, raging politics. Flying flint spears and crude arrows of personal media attack-ad assassination were left to be mentioned off center dinner stage, at pundit/spin doctor panels.

In spite of the Nerd's savage legislative attacks on the poor, the public service providers, and the old/retirees on pensions; Rick Snyder persisted in his low key, CEO (self-defined) manner.

The Nerd has a set of goals and is ready and anxious to get on with the next pre-planned project: his new health and wellness proposals. Snyder is convinced emphasis on reducing the fat on the belt lines of Michiganders will result in "real savings" in the future.

The Neanderthals are seething at the Nerd's health concepts and are ready to cannibalize the Nerd's proposed health and wellness program. They see it as egregious government overreach to wipe out "individual responsibility" The grunts, the snorting, and hoof-to-ground (dust-up-hove-pawing) were everywhere-the undertow.

The Nerd has suggested, received, and signed into law; a "$400 million dollar assessment on health insurance claims" which is designed to relieve the corporate insurance companies of a "6% use tax on Medicare managed care" organizations-the "broad-based claims assessment" tax. The NEW TAX will be on everyone (little people) who have a health care claim. It's a classic case of shift and shaft. TeaPublicans are being besieged with legislation addressing those laws and regulations, taxes that defeat and confound their previous outrage and anger. Snyder has thrown them some "pickin's," some scraps. But the cave dwellers want more.

What are the TeaPublicans to expect, their TP supporters, being Neanderthals, they were purposefully chosen by Dick Morris and the Brothers Koch to lead the sheep to slaughter, to effect obfuscation and confusion, paving the way for the more ambitious and all-pervasive AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE EXCHANGE COUNCIL (ALEC) to sweep the bill writing slate with pro-corporate "put-and-take" bills they are pressing into pro-business legislation across America.  

To Morris and handlers, Neanderthals are simply "tools."

With the Neanderthals in tow, it is intended there will be little resistance; after all the TeaPublicans control the entire apparatus of Michigan governance and see no limits to their power and ability to do as they wish.

So after Snyder's homily, Chief Justice Robert Young, Henry Payne (See "MACKGOP: YOUNG GIVES 'EM RED MEAT") took to the podium with a zip-lock bag of bits and kibble, freeze dried red meat, intent upon getting the thrust and plunge spear carriers tuned up in a warpath frenzy. Henry Payne's plaintiff pout, "It was a stark contrast to a governor who never mentioned Obama's name once in his speech."

However, it was then too late to make Young's desired impact; to get the Neanderthals to chant and stomp. The main act was over. The dinner guests were sliding back their chairs and deep in yuck-yuck. Young was drown out with meet-and-greet, and the exit sounds of attendees rushing out, headed to Cuban cigars and Jack Daniels in the big tent at the Grand Hotel's Jockey Club-the sponsored late-night past-midnight bash.


Original.

Smart A.L.E.C. in the Michigan: The secret is There is No Secret… But Oh Yes, There Is!

Smart A.L.E.C. - Current AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE EXCHANGE COUNCIL NATIONAL CHAIRMAN (one Noble Ellington - a Louisiana Bourbon Republican) POURED SNAKE OIL ON THE SCANDAL THAT IS BREWING NATIONALLY OVER CORPORATIONS DICATATIONG AND WRITING LAW/RESOLUTIONS.

See Original INTERVIEWS in "National Chairman Of ALEC Responds To Report" in PART 2, also See PART 1 "Who's Really Writing States' Legislation?".

Beyond evasive and condescending, Noble Ellington misrepresented and dissimulated the clever lies A.L.E.C. uses as a blanket defense: There's nothing to hide, There is no secret, everything is ordinary and out-in-the-open, there nothing to raise concerns about A.L.E.C.'s operations.

Compliant ALEC MEMBERS (IN PLACES LIKE MICHIGAN) THEN SIMPLY XEROX ALEC's "MODELS" IN TO STATE LAW WITH LITTLE OR NO SUBSTANTIVE CHANGES - in some cases exact word-for-word verbiage.

Investigative writer Beau Hodai, DBA Press, outlines the A.L.E.C. method of operation and details on its rise to a bill writing factory-for the far-nutters who bow and scrape to serve the Corporatocracy now attempting a coup in America's heartland.

Reports Hodai:

"The group (A.L.E.C.) also claims more than 250 "private sector" member corporations and special interest groups. Though ALEC refuses to make its private (or public) sector membership lists available, known members include: ExxonMobil, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Corrections Corporation of America, AT&T, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, TimeWarner Cable, Wal-Mart, Phillip Morris International, the National Rifle Association and the Heritage Foundation (co-founded by ALEC founder Paul Weyrich)-to name a few.

"The functions of ALEC (a national organization, incorporated in Illinois and headquartered in Washington, D.C.) are subdivided into state leadership teams; in each state one lawmaker serves as ALEC's "public sector chairman," and one corporate representative serves as the "private sector chairman."

How does A.L.E.C. get its tentacles around Michigan Law?
In Michigan, a genteel young woman from an unsuspecting, bucolic southwest rural hamlet, Senator Tonya Schuitmaker-R, was the A.L.E.C. point person a year ago. And before Schuitmaker, a turn or two ago, it was former Rep. Mary Ann Middaugh-R long-time Lansing insider and legislator, also from this rural area, who also had a turn heading up the A.L.E.C. subversion of the state's legislative process. Others like another former legislator, Jason Allen, Traverse City was the state chair. (Allen and Schuitmaker in turn took political contributions from ATT & T - a major ALEC corporate member.)

JUST HOW DOES THE MASSIVE CORPORATE AGENDA & SPECIAL TREATMENT MAKE IT INTO LAW IN MICHIGAN?

Beau Hodai explains:

"ALEC is comprised of nine "task forces" on which both private and public sector members serve: 1.) Public Safety and Elections; 2.) Civil Justice; 3.) Education; 4.) Energy, Environment and Agriculture; 5.) Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development; 6.) Telecommunications and Information Technology; 7.) Health and Human Services; 8.) Tax and Fiscal Policy; and 9.) International Relations.

"These task forces form the core of ALEC's legislative operations. Each task force generates "model legislation" that is then passed on to ALEC member lawmakers for introduction in their respective state legislatures."

"ALEC does not make its model legislation available for public inspection."

"According to ALEC promotional material, every year member lawmakers typically introduce 1,000 pieces of task force-crafted legislation. About 17 percent of which become law. In 2009, for example, ALEC claimed a total of 826 pieces of introduced legislation nationwide, 115 of which were passed into law-slightly below the average at 14 percent."

A.L.E.C: A Corporatist Pipeline With Access & Control of Public Lawmaking
How important is this pipeline of bill preparation, direct presentation and passage to those hundreds of corporate CEO's who belong and support ALEC? From the best information we have, they calculate it is worth spending tens of millions to get a prescriptive or proscriptive bill passed into codified state law.

Investigator Lisa Graves, adds in:

"According to ALEC's IRS filings, over the past three years it has raised $21,615,465 from corporations, foundations, and other sources, and just over $250,000 in dues paid by state legislators, amounting to slightly more than 1 percent of its income."

Writer Hodai expands this number, over a "10-year period, ALEC REPORTED $54,504,702 IN 'GIFTS,' 'GRANTS' AND OTHER CONTRIBUTIONS FROM ITS CORPORATE AND SPECIAL INTEREST MEMBERS."

FOLKS WE ARE TALKING SERIOUS MONEY HERE

For one of the largest contributors and solid backers, THE INFAMOUS KOCH BROTHERS, this kind of ready and obedient bill writing and passage is an invaluable asset. Of course seen in light of their reported net worth of around $40 billion, this entire effort is chump change.

Hodai again:

"David Koch also currently chairs the AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY FOUNDATION (AFPF), formerly known as the Citizens for a Sound Economy Educational Foundation (another prominent ALEC-contributor), largely funded by CKF and Koch Industries. Joining him on that board is Koch Industries Executive Vice President Richard Fink, who is also the former executive vice president of the Mercatus Center, yet another Koch-funded, right-wing ALEC public policy member."

"In 2003, AFPF incarnated two more foundations: AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY AND FREEDOMWORKS. As noted in AFPF's 2003 tax records, the group paid U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) $429,583, via FreedomWorks, as a "consultant"--his first year salary as chairman of FreedomWorks."

"As Kate Zernike noted in our October 2010 cover story, "Tea Party Confidential," Armey and the group's president Matt Kibbe wrote an op-ed article in 2007 proposing the Boston Tea Party as a model for putting grassroots pressure on a central government. She writes, 'Presaging Tea Party tactics in the summer of 2009, they described how Samuel Adams packed town hall meetings with his supporters to drown out Tory voices and used each new British policy or tax as 'an excuse to rally new recruits to the cause of American independence.' They wrote, 'Adams was the first American to recognize that 'it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather, an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.' "

Beginning in 2009, FreedomWorks was instrumental in creating THE FAUX-POPULIST TEA PARTY. The mainstream media uncritically hyped the scores of Tea Party tax day protests orchestrated by FreedomWorks and the National Taxpayers Union (another Koch-funded ALEC group headed by former ALEC executive director Duane Parde), thus HELPING ENABLE UNPRECEDENTED REPUBLICAN LEGISLATIVE MAJORITIES IN STATES ACROSS THE NATION.

Bribe-like "gifts," junkets, western fishing trips, meet and greets, golf and other recreational outings, as well as a peck of "perks" are judiciously labeled as legislator's "scholarships" and festoon A.L.E.C.'s saprophytic methodology; all this using their tax-sheltered 501 (c) (3) as a cover for this kind of inspirational bonding. A.L.E.C.'S Senior Director of Public Affairs Raegan Weber firmly asserts that just as ALEC claims "scholarship funds" disbursed to lawmakers are not "gifts"" as 501(c)(3)s cannot give gifts to politicians" so too does the group deny any involvement in the formation of legislation or in lobbying activities.

On October 29, 2010 (following a wave of critical coverage spurred by 'In  These Times' reporting on the organization's role in disseminating model legislation closely resembling Arizona's SB 1070), in a memo addressed to its public sector chairmen, ALEC offered this explanation of how its role in creating "model legislation" does not violate the group's not-for-profit status reports Beau Hodai of DBA Press:

"Laws are not passed, debated or adopted during this process and therefore no lobbying takes place. That process is done at the state legislatures. ... Just like teachers, farmers and ranchers, senior citizens and other groups, businesses have the right to representation and to inform legislators about their industry." 

SAY WHAT?
A.L.E.C. spends tens of millions on "scholarships" for legislators and judges. Lavish entertainments and other entertainment"perks," but this (according to A.L.E.C. spokespeople) is not extraordinary. But, wait, it is very extraordinary; "(T)eachers, farmers and ranchers, senior citizens and other groups" do not have this great, decades-long inside track, slick mechanism to "meet and greet" in the extravagant, lavish manner A.L.E.C. (a taxpayer assisted, tax exempt 501(c)(3) tax-exempt, "not-for-profit" organization does and can.) The American Legislative Exchange Council has this clever, quiet system to subvert the stateside legislative process in many states, including Michigan.

No way do "teachers, farmers and ranchers, senior citizens and other groups" have the equal "privilege" of having favorable legislation funneled directly into bill language (fill-in-the-blanks models pre-crafted by A.L.E.C. lawyers and corporate wordsmiths), new law language and content introduced in the various legislatures with a friendly wink & nod, no (traditional) lobbying involved. And as of late in Wisconsin and Michigan, the A.L.E.C. generated "off the shelf" bill "drops" get fast-tracked into law when the moment is right.

A.L.E.C. CUTS THE CORNERS VERY CAREFULLY AS TO THE FEDERAL GUIDELINES FOR 501(C)(3)'s.

Again, Hodai, DBA Press:

"It is important to note, however, that these scholarship fund awards are not supposed to be used as campaign contributions, per ALEC's 501 (c) (3) status-even though, according to data compiled by the National Institute on Money in State Politics, this did not stop ALEC member lawmakers in Wisconsin, Kansas, South Carolina, North Carolina, Iowa, Mississippi, Michigan, Indiana, Missouri and Georgia from reporting ALEC funds as campaign contributions during the 2008 election cycle. These funds, distributed over 15 lawmakers in these 10 states totaled $17,113 in contributions ranging from $400 to $3,097."

SO WHAT GIVES?
According to election records for the most current cycles where they are available the following Michigan Legislators/representatives who got direct campaign funding from corporations members of and backing A.L.E.C.

For example - Let's look at who got money from A.L.E.C.'s member AT&T in Michigan:

1. Tonya Schuitmaker

2. Bill Huizenga

3. Jason Allen

4. Mike Rogers

As researchers continue to discover other recipients of A.L.E.C. largess, more money and influence connections in Michigan will come to light.

More on ALEC in Michigan can be found here and here.
Original Post.

Tweetal Dee & Tweetal Dumb: Jacques & Olson - Putting a Strangle Hold on Michigan's Legislative Agenda

Ingrid Jacques & Kyle Olson, Dee and Dumb, are squawking about organized teachers. And what do they know? They're paid hacks for the anti-public school aggressors and the TeaPublican faction now with a stranglehold on the Michissippi legislative agenda.

In "Union Backlash" in the Michigan View on July 6, 2011, Ingrid references EAG ( Kyle Olson’s Education Action Group).Just a few mouths ago, Kyle Olson, kid brother to Dr. Ryan Olson, who headed up Mackinac Center's education division, came out of nowhere and helped form a "front group, EAG"; a not so clever shell operation for the raging ideological and Profitization forces in opposition to local schooling.

The EAG incorporator is closely associated with Betsy Prince DeVos, anti-public schools maven (SEE: EAGTruth.com) :

"EAG is a front group for the Michigan Republican groups that seek to expand the use of publicly funded vouchers for private and religious schools. A closer look reveals broad GOP leadership connections:

Eric Doster, EAG incorporator
"Eric Doster, a Lansing lawyer, has been General Counsel to the Michigan Republican Party for 15 years. Doster served on the advisory board for the Great Lakes Education Project (GLEP) PAC and his home address is listed as that of the group's treasurer. The GLEP PAC is a creation of Dick DeVos that advocates vouchers and charter schools."

"Doster represented U. S. Rep. Tim Walberg in his recall fight, represented Citizens for the Protection of Marriage in 2004, and was appointed to the Judges' Retirement Board in 1996 by former Governor John Engler. He is a member of the ultra-conservative Federalist Society."

Kyle Olson, EAG sole staff member
"Kyle Olson, a former Lansing lobbyist, was district director and campaign manager for Republican Gerald Van Woerkom's campaign for state Senate in 2002. He is also a member of the Republican State Committee. In September 2007, he joined other prominent Michigan Republican activists at a Grand Rapids airport during a visit with Vice President Dick Cheney.

Olson's brother Ryan is (was) the Director of Education Policy for the conservative Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

Far from being a group of "citizens and school board leaders," Doster and Olson's passion is working to elect Republicans. That's okay, but don't try to hide behind a "nonpartisan" label."

Provocateur Betsy Prince DeVos apparently has developed an apparent need to show that the anti-public effort was more widespread and active than several others, produced by hundreds of millions spent with such efforts as Capitol Confidential, Ken Bruan, the Education Report, a "faux pro-public schools rag" that is sent to teachers (free of charge ala the MEA Voice-a house publication) in order to communicate a "false and misformation" messages directly to teachers; in hopes of breaking some of the teachers off from their preferred professional organizations-the effort's ultimate goal.

Kyle OIson was recently pictured in the far background at the of the AFP (Koch Brothers Americans for Prosperity) rally at the Capitol in Lansing, lonesome and alone, largely unknown. None-the-less Olson was a presenter and a participant a the podium, he also added in with his showing of Kids Aren't Cars video in a nearby meeting room. Kyle is a eager understudy to the nefarious, sex fedish addict-turned big moralizer and trash talker, the Koch' Bros. operative, Dick Morris of FOX fame.

Olson's group (essentially made up of just Olson and a Michigan GOP attorney) made it from secret formation of EAG (Olson's Education Action Group) out of nowhere, to the front pages of Booth papers; The EAG materials were published with Olson's facilitation to "shock" the public with an exhausting listing of salaries for teachers and for their association's staffs derived by efforts of the Mackinac Center, but attributed to EAG for expanded effect.

Undercover Olson: Misrepresenting Himself, as a Student, to Trap a Professor
Kyle Olson was also given to delusion that he could make the national news scene with his "gottcha interview" and video which he procured by going to NY city; falsifying his identity and purpose to a well-known, elderly professor, from whom he hoped to derive "shocking" revelations in the pursuit of his desperate need to rise to fame: utilizing the identical MO of the Acorn video gottcha deceptions and brouhaha of the year before.

EAG lacks transparency and openness according to EAGTruth.com:

"EAG's Thug Watch' is a launching pad for personal attacks against anyone who disagrees with its agenda."

"The EAG's Articles of Incorporation filed by Republican Party General Counsel Eric Doster give only vague details of the EAG's funding sources: 'The corporation is to be financed under the following general plan:CONTRIBUTIONS FROM CORPORATE FOUNDATIONS AND PRIVATE FOUNDATIONS."
(emphasis added)

More recently, Kyle Olson has been a frequent anti-public school "guest" commentator on Andrew Breitbart's "chop shop" website.

One wonders who really prompts these two, Kyle Olson & Ingrid Jacques. Are the ideas they espouse all their own or are they the convenient, underpaid, younger faces for older muck?

Original Post.

Snyder's Re-Invention: A Right-to-Kill-Jobs State Called Michissippi (Michigan)

A civic crime has been committed. Extravagant power plays by Rick Snyder and the Union Bashing and Anti-public service reprisalists, now holding power, as in the manner of the TeaPublican SuperMajority; have crippled the state's economy and gutted the very systems that have to power to restore the economy.

Gone are good pay jobs with benefits. The loss is equivalent to the loss of a Michigan city the size of Bay City. Were Bay City swept away by a Joplin, MO type tornado it would be a humongous tragic disaster. It is an economic disaster. One would have to assume that these state workers (38,000) did nothing to support or service the state and that their dismissal is inconsequential. It is not. The loss of health coverage, money to meet the mortgage, food for the table, transportation and a myriad of other essentials, these public servants are in deep trouble. Each of the 30,000 also represent a multiplier effect. It isn't just one person out of a job, it's a direct blow to their domestic units.

Fanatic forces such as the Koch Brothers Americans for Prosperity and Richard D. McLellan's Mackinac Center major influence have acted quickly and early on in the Snyder tenure to set things in compliant order to further their own cronies' profit-centered agendas. Therefore Snyder has killed positive upward economic trends that were there coming from Granholm's years of pro-active leadership. Jennifer worked to create jobs, Snyder is a JOB KILLER!

Snyder is a jobs killer genius.

Michigan can't wait for things to work themselves out utilizing the results of politics centered on revenge and retribution so endemic to the Mackinac/AFP playbooks. These things don't work out on their own.

Snyder should take an honest look at his regressive, negativist, and anti-jobs Engler-holdover team: Stratified/Highly-paid payrollers with no vision for the positive. They are little more than Corporate favoring saboteurs-who care nothing for the Middle Class and public service and who's "expertise" amounts to taking the State down destructive dead-ends.

Snyder is too mired in his own narrow concept of corporate management details to provide the vision Michigan needs. Rick has actually taken the economy from Critical to Fatal.

The Nerd's relations with massive numbers of Michigan citizen sectors is totally disastrous.

Snyder isn't a political operator who can negotiate with the workers of this state in good faith nor can he build stronger ties to officials in state and county governments-whom he has put under great pressure to do the real dirty work of inflicting suffering and job loss on those who actually run the state and local units of government service day to day.

Snyder is disdainful of other politicians who do not see him as an omnipotent CEO but as a governor with limited constitutional power, and it's cost Rick key allies in the fight to restore the Michigan Economy.

It was a huge mistake on Snyder's part using scare tactics, exaggerating the state's revenue short fall and the condition of pension and health care funds to frighten residents into thinking that cutting a gigantic slice of the business taxes would be the best route to jobs. The loss of over $3 billion dollars of citizen buying power and discretionary spending will even blow back on the joyful business lobby so pleased with their Snyder Bail Out.

A temporary (emergency) rise in the state's income tax of about 1% would have tided the state over and provided the basis of recovery and done so without reducing the state to economic rubble with Snyder's infamous "Atomic Bombing" of state infrastructure and operations, the revenue starvation of local units by the complete cut-off of state provided Revenue Sharing-the give back of local tax dollars to operate local service and maintenance of infrastructure.

By killing roughly 38,000 jobs, encouraging municipal leadership to kill or axe nearly every city service the populace depends on, The Nerd comes off as petty and aloof and MORE PRONE TO "DICTATORSHIP" THAN LEADERSHIP. Top-down state control of every detail of local community life is not sustainable nor advisable.

Reshaping the state's weaken economy is a decades-long process, Michigan residents should have confidence that it's progressing. But that is not the case. THE GOAL IS JOBS, GOOD JOBS, JOBS THAT RESULT IN REAL PROGRESS AND STEADY OUTCOMES ARE THE TARGET.

Doing pro-active things, being collaborative and not combative with public service, would convey the message Michigan has a future. In the same light, killing jobs and therefore putting families off health care (multiply 38,000 by the average size of a state employee household for those dismissed, fired, state employees and realize this is a HUGE ECONOMIC HIT). State employees are summarily out of work in a jobless economy, many will be facing foreclosures, and bleak desperation.

SNYDER HAS JUST CREATED AN ECONOMIC DISASTER OF THE FIRST ORDER. Worse yet, killing state jobs, only to deliver those same jobs to for-profit operators handpicked by Snyder to substitute in lower quality and irresponsible and unnecessary middle management (not directly answerable to the community) is a tragic civic blunder.

All this mistakes one would naturally expect a Certified Nerd to make.


Original Post.

Hatred for Teachers: The Radical Right has created a defining Moment in Michigan; TeaPublicans have institutionalized HATE

Hatred of public school teachers has been a constant underlying theme of the organized, hateful ideologues for a very long time. It didn't start with Ronald Reagan's commitment to abolish the U.S. Department of Education (just established by Pres. Carter), but that sentiment and the "bold-but-brash" actions of Reagan in PATCO spiked the direction things would go from there on. Ginned up on the anti-unionism that is part of radicals' cherished "Freedom," this mindset is "Give us the freedom to do things that are off the scale of civic good, if that's what we demand."

Many of the "Republican" radicals and near anarchist Libertarians have sought to go the distance on outrageous legislated reprisals: e.g. Eradicate the public school teachers' unions and now, as under, Rick Snyder, abolish Detroit's public school system entirely. 

No place has seen as much bitterness and vituperation and anti-teacher unionism "gotcha" come into play than Michigan in the last 30 years. The poster boy for this raw reprisal and the bone-ugly has been John Mathias Engler, a rural farm boy from Beal City, who serves as the crude archetype of "in-your-face" legislation and bitter rhetoric. Engler is the prototype, mold, from which such curmudgeons and bullies as N.J.'s Chris Christie, mirroring Engler, have emerged.

Add in major monies: Amway's cash-flushed aggressive anti-teacher/union darling-Betsy DeVos, the community-busters: right-wing Think Tanks-- the Koch brothers CATO and sub-group Americans for Prosperity, and foundations of the Scaife, Olin, Bradley, Smith-Richardson, and Walton families--whose leaders have publicly indicated their desire to completely eradicate taxpayer-financed public education. And there are dozens more.

Add in religious groups against mainstream American beliefs: the zealot Christian Re Reconstructionist movement, James Dobson (who trumpeted long and loud: "Take your children out of public schools." Expand the list with wild-eyed radicals such as disgraced and criminally indicted extreme-right savant, Mark Siljander, the former Jerry Falwell, and a host of others who misuse the public's interest in religion for private political purposes revolved around personal power and control of wealth. Much of this movement had apartheid, a revival of the old segregationist academies of the Jim Crow South as its highest priority.

Add in the disinformation factories of Heartland Institute, the Heritage Foundation, Michigan's Mackinac Center, the Center for Free Enterprise, FOX News, Rush Limbaugh's daily rants, and many, many more and hate becomes the basis of published fact.

So now one party, the TeaPublicans of Michigan, has a strangle hold on all four (4) branches of state government. There has been unleashed a grand scheme contrived by radicals such as Grover Norquist and Newt Gingrich to use federalism, state power, as they envision it, to make massive blitzkrieg on legislative policy and governance at the state level and thereby circumvent and handicap the role of national and federal powers in areas where they are at odds. At the state level these burrowing ideologues can utilize their "new found" majorities to terrorize all "enemies" and are being ginned up to do so.

The moment to act on the hatred stoked-up against the role of teachers in their own affairs and the place of teacher influence in education policy-making has come to a volcanic episode of uncontrolled anti-public school legislation. These Know Nothings, whose revisionist efforts would set back the profession of teaching into the 19th Century, know full-well what they are attempting to do. There can be no reasoning with carnal rage as seen in recent committee and floor behavior.

They are attempting exterminating, purging the influence of teachers in every governmental realm they can conceive. As one watches the introduction of anti-teacher bills into the Lansing docket, it is clear that the anger and the vituperative and bitter intent of this out-of-control radical majority, a lockstep cabal of extremists, will continue unabated until the public becomes fully and clearly aware of the vast harm and danger their polices present to our families, our communities, and our children.

A FINAL WORD
Underlying all of this hatred and push to seize control of teacher's rights, compensation, working conditions, and to marginalize their influence is the real reason the Mackinac Center has spent millions to usher in this bitter and resentful moment. In many ways their deep angst and corruption is the source of all that ails the Michigan psyche.

Certain insurance elements invested in the MacCen are backing and infesting the secretive work of Mackinac Center. They are salivating over the prospect of fees and contracts for privatizing educators' insurance. They are the same tight group that wrestled the successful and lucrative Michigan Accident Fund away from the state early in the Engler Era. Multiple millions are there for MacCen competitors of MESSA to harvest and profit from, via the power and the thrust of the present anti-teacher environment headed-up currently and pushed behind the present Capitol scene by former REP. WAYNE KUIPERS, a cunning operative who has a double-edged axe to grind with teachers.

No longer in elective office, yet armed with a seething resentment, KUIPERS soldiers on for himself and for a nasty group of backroom men intent on profitization from Michigan's economic crisis-brought on in part by their own incompetence and inabilities to face the challenges presented business and state government in the 21st Century.

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Rick’s Re-Invention: A.L.E.C.’S Corporatist “Disaster Capitalism” on the Rise

Behold the Nerd's brass knuckled attacks on public education; more brazen and destructive than Engler's hamfisted assaults. Ugly is on the rise, again.

Rick Snyder using the American Legislative Exchange Council crip notes, can't make a move without A.L.E.C. First, the beefed up EFM's (dictatorial powers given Snyder appointed one man rule set against the rights of local government under Michigan's "local option") and now systemic attacks on teachers (all categories) and the very foundations of Public Education (rules, privatization, and operations).

Michigan has become an infamous "Mean TeaPublican" battleground state. 

Scott Hagerstrom, the Michigan Director of the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity (AFP). Hagerstrom made it clear, it's the Kochs, working directly through A.L.E.C., who are aiming to "take the unions out at the knees." This belligerence started in Wisconsin and now it's spreading across the country.

Snyder's in a world of trouble. Snyder's causing the kids of this state, our kids, to go into panic. Their schools, bus transportation, art & music, sports programs, band and field trips, advanced placement classes and/or ability to take a class at a near by college or university while still in high school-all this and more, much more is on the cutting table.

The concepts that are the core of the Snyder program (to reinvent by destroying what we have, to rebuild in the mode Rick dictates) use the metrics and formulas of A.L.E.C. a heretofore unknown far right, Koch Bros. et. al. think tank controlled and funded by major corporations.

Here is a partial list of A.L.E.C.'s other corporate backers, those we know of from Wikipedia: " American Nuclear Energy Council, American Petroleum Institute, Coors Brewing Company, Texaco, Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America, Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, VISA, Exxon Mobil, the National Rifle Association, Amway, and others.

Groups critical of ALEC claim that the organization is controlled by the entities that fund it, subsequently promoting donors' agendas and goals, along with attempting to advance legislation which favors their interests."

The American Legislative Exchange Council is a political/ideological powerhouse, second to none. It calls corporate-serving shots nationwide. Most recently the power of A.L.E.C. has been laid bare in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio, although A.L.E.C. subterfuge and "mainlining" of "just-fill-in-the-blanks" corporate written and approve legislation for states has been brought to the public's attention.

A.L.E.C.'s activities are so widespread and endemic to the lawmaking processes of state legislatures across the country, and for that reason are so ACCEPTED BY IGNORANCE OF THEIR PURPOSES AND OBJECTIVES, the public finds it hard to believe such a group exists. But they do. Consider: "ALEC has approximately 2,000 legislative members representing all 50 states, as well as more than 85 members of Congress and 14 sitting or former Governors who are considered 'ALEC alumni'" as per Wikipedia.

Thus as Snyder attempts to roll out his jaundiced version of what's good for your child in Michigan's public schools it is only fair that we begin the process of ferreting out who's underwriting these "re-inventive" concepts and coughing up the statistics of the kind that Snyder uses to make his full-frontal, brutal raid on our neighborhood schools.

If you love outsiders dictating to Michigan who, what, when and where about your child or grandchild's education you will want to follow the revelations coming about Snyder's the sources behind Rick's snide attacks on schools and the teachers who teach. 

As A.L.E.C. purposefully puts Michigan schools in the worst light possible, Snyder accepts that flawed data. His response, "It's a fact." No, governor, it's as filtered and reported by A.L.E.C. and staff doing the insidious work of the anti-public schools crowd. The 2008 A.L.E.C. Education Report barked our public schools, placing them at the near bottom with the right-to-work paradises, the Gulf states, such as Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. These are states with significant minority student populations. A.L.E.C. reports highlights states on the boarder with/or closer to Canada to the north: Minnesota, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Montana, where minority students are far less concentrated; these states are ranked highest. No genus is needed to find an important factor in those findings.

A.L.E.C. employed ideological bully William Bennett to head up its annual education report (He's the harsh critic of public education, whom Reagan put into the Carter established Department of Education to obfuscate and destroy as much as possible of this far right-hated federal cabinet post). Bennett also runs a for-profit business. K-12Inc is Bennett's idea of what he would like to do to profit from public education, especially through the means of privatizing as much of its functions as possible.

K-12Inc also has had amongst its shareholders those well-known parochiaid/voucher mavens, Dick & Betsy DeVos. So, as one can see, Snyder's vision informed and directed by The American Legislative Exchange Council is a retread-a far right coup. It isn't the re-invention ideal as Snyder proclaims: it's retro-pursuit of the long-standing disenfranchising goals designed to destroy America's great institution, free public education. In this process the harsh critics have found a willing pawn in Snyder.

A.L.E.C.'s long march goes on, as the public will see. For Dick & Betsy, the Koch Brothers (backers and funders of A.L.E.C.) and the mom & pop family-business-killers, the Waltons of Wal-Mart, public education is a target of great opportunity for quick profit and power lust.

The next major attack is already underway; again funded and cheered on by Betsy DeVos. It's her dismemberment and undermining of public universities and colleges. Who would believe anyone, much less Republicans, would literally stoop so low as to turn government and the taxpayers against our local schools so much a part of Ovid, White Pine, Monroe and Alpena where community and kids matter so much.

Republicans cannot hate teachers and professors and at the same time hold a dishonest honest claim to care about students.

The Michigan TeaPartisan's radical and aggressive punishment attacks on educators are a clear indication of a very low-class mentality, festooned with haranguing diatribes, and the extremely rude conduct on the part of select TeaPartisans during education hearings in Michigan's legislature; all centered on crashing down on education and educators. Such is the sorriest of sights.

Snyder's A.L.E.C. centered education plan is a tragic lose - lose for Michigan's kids.
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Koch Brothers Sock-puppet: Michigan’s Teaparitasan Scott Hagerstrom Speaks Bluntly

"TAKE THE UNIONS OUT AT THE KNEES SO THAT THEY DO NOT HAVE THE RESOURCES TO FIGHT THESE BATTLES." - Scott Hagerstrom, Michigan Director of Americans for Prosperity

That's the game plan for Michigan from the Koch Brother bullies.

Today the Teapublican Majority in the Michigan Senate is expected to vote on H.B. 4215; a vicious Union-Busting Bill, very thinly disguised and presented in an opaque way.

Closely quizzed by voters from their districts, neophyte Teapublican members of the House are at a loss to explain what is actually in this bill and they, because they did not vet it properly: Failed to appraise, verify, or check for accuracy, authenticity, validity, the content and intent of this bill. Some have lamented, we had no intention of becoming embroiled in such low live politics when we came to Lansing to make a change for the better.

They're not yet even able to comprehend the ramifications and impacts it makes on the local communities that will be ravished by its contents, they need more time.

Still Snyder and his Englerite cronies are pushing hard for this bill now; while lying about its true negative effects and what its true purpose is.

Were there more public hearings and town halls where the public (which has had far too little information given them by media and no adequate time to contact their representatives) given a chance to gauge the impact, the Senate would not be acting today.

Denying the citizens a full and fair chance to appraise the bill and its negative and dictatorial impact is a very bad way to end Snyder's aborted honeymoon with the state. Rick's positive numbers are dropping like a giant Petoskey stone into quicksand.

The crazy of crazies about this rush to put-into-law is exactly a prime example of what the Tea Party faction HAS ATTEMPTED TO SAFEGUARD BY TAKING TO THE STREETS: With loud calls for local control and sovereignty, the right to appraise, verify, or check for accuracy, authenticity, validity, accounted for in the most direct way, these are VERY things that concern the Tea Party about their taxes. H. B. 4215 is one of the exact things Tea Party folk have taken up strong protest to stop cold.

NOW, TODAY, THE TEA PARTY IS BEING BETRAYED, right at home level H.B. 4215 cuts them down at the knees.

Do they know that they are being Shanghaied by these Tricky Rick shenanigans?

Scott Hagerstrom, associated with the extremist wacko Kalamazoo Jack Hoogendyk, claims to work with over 50 Teapublican Groups, as a Koch paid anti-union agitator, hired by Koch's Americans for Prosperity. The Koch Brothers want what they want. The Tens of Billions Brothers Koch have churned up Wisconsin and now they move on to Michigan having paid the eager Hagerstrom do Kochs' dirty work.

Moreover, today Scott Hagerstrom should listen to his mentor former Senator Hoogendyk, "this fight in Wisconsin will eventually lead to similar battles across the country, including Michigan as legislatures and governors deal with severe budget shortfalls." And even at that Jack is intelligent enough to know that Rick Snyder is on very thin ice.

This is true not only in regard to the extreme trauma H.B.4215 brings to local government elected officials (about to be put under the gun by the high powered lawyers at Pluckett/Cooney) but even more so with Snyder's attempts to tax retirement and pensions. Hoogendyk cites the Mackinac Center's harsh criticism of Tricky Rick's effort to clinch his argument his radical overhaul of Michigan's tax structure: Snyder's "move charges a retiree with a $40,000 annual pension $1,700 a year for choosing to remain in Michigan rather than move to sunny, income tax-free Florida."


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