MLK Day's March on Michissippi's (Michigan's) Dictator Gov. Rick Snyder's gated estate/mansion

Well over a thousand citizens from all around Michissippi (Michigan) rallied to march on Martin Luther King Day to Rick Snyder's gated estate. They were motivated by the racial implications of Snyder's imposition of dictatorial control over predominately Black communities in Michigan.

The Emergency Manager "plantations" established by Snyder's Legal Beavers and legal corporations (under his direct control) have begun the re-enslavement of Michigan's poorest citizens, people largely living in governmental units racially abandoned to minorities. These units are now being systematically stripped of the rights of citizenship-for their "own good" by a business-first Big Boss-Rick Snyder.

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It boils down to voting rights, civil rights, and local control of local affairs. The growing sense of inequality imposed by the GOP-dominated Michigan government, having total control of all three branches of state government, is bringing the public outcry to a boil.

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Bill Moyers outlines the current national, intense and growing sense of inequality. Moyers writes below that Americans are just now "waking up" to the danger posed by the impacts such Snyder's have on working people, the 99%:

Waking up is right.

Waking up to the reality that inequality matters.

• It matters because what we're talking about is what it takes to live a decent life.
• If you get sick without health coverage, inequality matters. If you're the only breadwinner and out of work, inequality matters.
• If your local public library closes down and you can't afford to buy books on your own, inequality matters.
• If budget cuts mean your child has to pay to play on the school basketball team or to sing in the chorus or march in the band, inequality matters.
• If you lose your job as you're about to retire, inequality matters.
• If the financial system collapses and knocks the props from beneath your pension, inequality matters.

I (Bill Moyers) grew up in a working class family. We were among the poorest in town, but I was rich in public goods.

I went to a good public school, played sandlot ball in a good public park, had access to a good public library, drove down a good public highway to a good public college, all made possible by people I never met. There was an unwritten bargain among the generations - we didn't all get the same deal, but we did get civilization.
That bargain is being shredded.

The occupiers of Wall Street understand this. You could tell from their slogans.

A fellow young enough to be my grandson wore a t-shirt emblazoned with the words: "The system's not broken. It's fixed." That's right. Rigged. And that's why so many are so angry. Not at wealth itself, but at the crony capitalists who resorts to tricks, loopholes, and hard, cold cash for politicians to make sure insiders prosper and then pull up the ladder behind them.
Yes, Americans are waking up.

• To how they're being made to pay for Wall Street's malfeasance and Washington's complicity. Paying with stagnant wages and lost jobs, with slashing cuts to their benefits and to their social services.
• And waking up to the grotesque Supreme Court decision defining a corporation as a person, although it doesn't eat, breath, make love or sing, or take care of children and aging parents.
• Waking up to how campaign contributions corrupt our elections; to the fact that if speech is money, no money means no speech.

So the collective cry has gone up loud and clear: enough's enough.

We won't, as I said, know for a while if this is just a momentary cry of pain; or whether it's a movement that, like the Abolitionists and Suffragettes, the populists and workers of another era, or the Civil Rights movement of our time, gathers force until the powers-that-be can no longer sustain the inequality, the injustice and yes, the immorality of winner-take-all politics.

See Related Interviews on which this Essay is based and a Related Op-Ed:
Jacob Hacker & Paul Pierson on Engineered Inequality (Jan 13, 2012)
America Wakes Up to the Reality: Inequality Matters (Jan 18, 2012)


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Michissippi (Michigan) 2011 in Review: Political & Commercial Oppression Inverts Local Control

Michissippian TeaPublican Super Majorities have struck a death blow to the heart of Local Control/the sovereignty of Local Option-freedom whereby local political jurisdictions, typically counties or municipalities, can decide by popular vote...and govern concerning issues within their borders. C. G Bateman, in Nicaea and Sovereignty:

"For centuries past, the idea that a state could be sovereign was always connected to its ability to guarantee the best interests of its own citizens." .

Thus, if a state could not act in the best interests of its own citizens, it could not be thought of as a "sovereign" state." Michigan is no longer a sovereign state (by this standard: "the best interests of its own citizens"). State government that acts in the best interests of its citizens honors and respects local control at the community level.

Michissippi has backslid downward into a state run by, for, and in control of the demands of big business (Business Leaders for Michigan & The Michigan Chamber of Commerce), rich One Percenter elites, and heartless inexperienced and under-qualified political hacks.

Heed the warning of Ayn Rand in this regard:

"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force."
-- Ayn Rand

TeaPublicans have established Lansing Central Planning and Dictatorial Control in this terrible year of reckless and extravagant partisan/corporate legislative advantage. The rights of Michissippi's minority have been trampled into oblivion- popular sovereignty has been legislated away.

In our republic government is under the control of the people, or some significant portion of them, the citizens retain sovereignty over the government not vice versa.

Michissippi has in one tragic year reached what Ayn Rand would call a state of "inversion." All is not well as we enter the new year and more radical right mischief and corporate merrymaking at working people's expense.

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Probity and Politics: Justice Markman in the Hot Seat

Michigan State Supreme Court Justice Stephen J. Markham's probity is in serious question and he doesn't even get it. In his "Statement Denying Motion to Recuse in Emergency Manager Case."

Steve Markman makes his own case against his recusal. In a biblical sense, if not in a strict-what will Michigan law allow sense - Markman should "avoid the very appearance" of conflict and the evil/corruption that may be associated with going forward on Snyder's requested EMF ruling.

In campaigning in the past with former Chief Justices Mary Coleman and Elizabeth Weaver questions would arise from citizens about the justice's stances on various questions, usually some "moral issue" and both ladies would always decline comment or conjecture. They had no wish to telegraph or indicate before-the-fact how they might rule on an issue however hypothetical. They were ethically intent upon preserving the highest standards for probity.

Justice Markman, however, prior to being elected to the Michigan Supreme Court reveled in stating his opinion on rulings that would involve business interests. His most often quoted, pet topic-at the time, the case of the McDonalds' too hot coffee. Markman ridiculed the substance of this case and belittled its importance. As it turned out, McDonalds was serving extremely hot coffee, particularly unsuited to drive up/drive thru service, in a container and under a condition that caused scalding burns. The corporation was loath to change its method of brewing because , it was said, the replacement of the brewing equipment would be of a too high cost. Thus, they persisted in selling and packaging coffee with a serious burn capacity willfully ignoring the harm such over hot coffee could inflict on customers.

Steve Markman thought this case was a hoot, a frivolous legal action of the type he personally would not condone or approve if elected to the Michigan Supreme Court he clearly projected.

At a Republican event, Markman was asked about his association with the Federalist Society. What is the Federalist Society? Is it sort of like the AAA, a service that renders help to its membership if they go into a ditch? "No," replied Markman, "it is like the ACLU." There you have it. Markman, early on, understood and knew that he was constructing a persona as a potential Michigan Justice that would fit the Federalist philosophy, which in Markman's estimation was the equivalent/equal to that of the aggressive ACLU-a group known for its activistism and pursuit of issues from a strong perspective and tight philosophy.

Likewise, Markman knew that he would be in pursuit of a set of "values" which he demonstrated through his ridicule of the "Too Hot" McDonald's legal case. The partisan audiences he addressed in his campaign (to be elected for the first time to the Michigan Supreme Court) fully understood that he had a set opinion framework and was telegraphing his future decisions based on his modeling of the McDonalds' legal case.

Markman lost his probity then, and now his test of probity-as a "too political" justice-comes to the forefront again via a conflict of interest involving Markman's wife and her state/political position.

This time in by remaining ready to rule on this attempt by Rick Snyder to preemptively/via judicial activism-have Markman and the other justices decide in advance the outcome of any lower court rulings " the survival and validity of the TeaPublican's assault on voter franchise and local government authenticity and survival under his dictatorial Emergency Finance Manager legislation/regime.

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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.


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Allowing "Bad Things" that Destroy Our Public Institutions be Dignified as "Revolutionary / Re-inventive" Public Policy - Why?

Why are we allowing “bad things” which destroy our public institutions to be dignified as “revolutionary/re-inventive public policy” such as is now being ram-rodded into law by radical /hard core TeaPublicans presently in power?

Political tools, in and of themselves, are neither innocent or guilty.

We use our politics in whatever way we choose. There is power lust, ambition, privilege and preference, the possibilities of reprisals and self-seeking and much more...

Where does the danger of malfeasance enter in? Do they derive from the attributes and tools of politics or from the character of the politicians and their twisted principles.

Some in our society, because of their inherent civic weakness and proclivity for manipulation and skullduggery, cannot be trusted with public office, and cannot be allowed the use of public office--which brings with it the powerful tools of politics. You do not allow children to play with dynamite! Nor should tyrants and bigots to be allowed the power to abridge democracy as with Snyder's dictatorially enhanced Emergency Finance Manager Act.

In addition to the merely untrustworthy "them"--the self-serving, or power groveling puppets of moneyed interests--there are the obviously evil subversives, corrupters, etc. What might they do with the tools of political power? They probably would not do much differently than they are already doing in the business world or as crafty religious shaman. If they are really successful at being manipulative, they already have their own techniques which work very well. But these personalities, given power in a weakened democracy, in a time of deep economic crisis; where citizens by default and ignorance have capitulated their franchise (to participate in civic affairs): there we find the unscrupulous politicians play on indifference and will constitute a real danger.

If by chance radical revisionists are using the influencing tools of the press, media, and the bullypulpit afforded their high office, they either do it unconsciously or they already have acquired the necessary techniques of undue influence and propaganda.

The country is well on its way to a showdown of conflicting values: it's all part of the "cultural wars" lusted for by the demagogues and hard-core religionists and anti-tax wingnuts. The power of persuasion is the key to the kingdom for these folk. 3/4 of all Republicans watch FOX Cable news exclusively!

That takes care of the politicians and the ideologues, but what about the ordinary citizens?

This is where "useful" fear creeps in.

What are we doing about this aggressive power play promoted by the use of fear as a political tool?

The power to effect change and make the necessary improvements, the power to stop the abuse and the divisiveness still resides with the citizen.

The voters must overcome their disbelief that American politician can act in such destructive ways as we see some now behaving. Overcome fear with action. Fear is both the root cause and the strength of this radical cultural backlash and "slash and burn" techniques of the Hard Right.

Once you have lost your fear of their ability to manipulate, you are well on your way to taking corrective civic action. Unveiling the demagogue--for the small mind he is--destroys the illusion of power and cuts off his ability to carry forth-empowered by the opportunity our fears present him.

C. G. Jung wrote,

"The evil that comes to light in man and that undoubtedly dwells within him is of gigantic proportions ...He does not deny that terrible things have happened and still go on happening, but it is always "others" who do them..."

"This strengthens the opponent's position in the most effective way, because the projection carries the fear which we involuntarily and secretly feel for our own evil (desires to go) over to the other side and considerably increases the formidableness of this threat."  

-- C.G. Jung, The Undiscovered Self, New American Library, New York, 1957.

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.

Corporate Supremacy: Michissippi’s Reinvention of Involuntary Servitude and EFM Legislated Privatization of Nearly Every Community Asset - “Profitization”

Corporate profitazation: Under the guise of help for the troubled finances of civic institutions Rick Snyder and cronies have devised a quasi-legal device, the office of Emergency Finance Manager to facilitate the "public profitazation" of everything of value in Michissippian community assets.

This "public-to-private profitization" of assets across Michissippi includes currently real property: Public school facilities and real estate, waste treatment plants e.g. Pontiac, brownfield real estate with high value waterfront development potential, public works facilities and equipment, city buildings and auxiliary operations...the list goes on. It's the replacement of "we the people government with corporatism.

This is just the beginning, the number of high value targets for the privatizing zealots in the Snyder/McLellan/Dillon combine is yet to be unveiled. With clever scheming and with grand opportunism known as "disaster capitalism" these greedy men are taking down the state for money and for profit. They represent a very troubling trend toward "corporate supremacy."

Note carefully how this "illegal community asset grab" is unfolding. The attacks are in predominately minority centers and urban pockets of extreme poverty. Who cares? Snyder believes indifference gives his administration license.

The biggest of the predicable goals is the profitization seizure of Detroit's high value public waterworks, a gem of a coup, if it can be pulled off for surrounding suburban jurisdictions especially Brooks Patterson's Oakland County. Strip majority minority Detroit of its one high value asset, and move on to huge tactical advantage and profit for the Corporate Supremacists.

When the lustful eye of pro-EFM backers took a look at Jackson and saw an opportunity to move in last week, Dillon put a quick kibosh on that recommendation. For the Dillon/Snyder stratagem to work, the stripping of assets and the dictatorial take-overs must be in areas of long-term distress, cities and urban centers long under debit problems and "dysfunction."

As long as the EFM process can be portrayed as an aberrant form of "help" - legislative benevolence - and the public continues its cynical opinion of minority "lack of responsibility" for "their" abandoned and troubled areas such as Benton Harbor, there will be little effective protest elsewhere. So just bide the time.

This does not mean that Jackson city and other predominately "white" areas are not on the short list or at risk it; only means those godfathers who set the pace; such as Richard D. Mclellan, will choose the time to swoop in to pluck the low hanging fruit anywhere he chooses, across Michissippi. After all, if there isn't a massive "corporate supremacist" plan, why has Andy Dillon pre-trained over 300 Emergency Finance Managers?

Snyder led "Corporate Supremacy" has virulent and dangerous elements: bigotry and racial bias. What is being legislated from TeaPublican Lansing, with its irresponsible super-majority drunk and high on power, is the equivalent of pushing minorities back over the infamous Edmund Pettus Bridge into Jim Crow Land.

This lingering bias was expressed in the written opine in the Detroit/Mackinac Center News which blamed the recent brown down/blackouts in Detroit on Black political leadership over the past decades. And true to form, the Det/News suggested the solution: Sell off Detroit's Power and Light, municipal power works to the Corporate Supremacists eagerly awaiting another takeover. Never mind that brown outs occurred concurrently in Ann Arbor and in other diversified areas across Michissippi.

All of this fits the Koch Brothers A.L.E.C. plug and play legislation such as has been introduced in Wisconsin. The Kochs want Wisconsin to sell off, privatize, all municipal utilities, let Corporate Supremacists have a profitization monopoly. These same elements are at play here in Michissippi.

In the Holland area, to operate a machine shop inside the service area of the Holland Board of Public Works means getting three phase industrial electric service at a much lower price than that offered by Consumers Energy. Maybe that is because Holland Board of Public Works isn't headed up with a CEO like Consumers Energy's David Joos-who in his last year with Consumers received a salary in excess of $3 million and over his entire tenure, tens of millions in salary and benefits. Consumers customers chipped in for the Joos booty: Every time the lights came on, Joos got his cut!

Oh yes, check out Richard D. McLellan, Mackinac Center's godfather, he has had a turn with ITC Holdings as a board member. ITC is in the power game. ITC is the largest independent electricity transmission company in the nation its holdings includes the Michigan Electric Transmission Company (METC).

On way or the other McLellan is a major player in Michissippi power and how it is supplied. Everywhere you turn in Snyder's Michissippi there's a Nerd business crony, a Corporate Supremacist, getting or planning his accumulating cut.

All this on top of a near $2 billion tax-funded bailout!

Original Post.

Make My School A Prison: An important letter from Snyder’s trash bin

"Please provide for my students in my school district the same way we provide for a prisoner. It's the least we can do to prepare our students for the future."

The following is the content of a letter sent to Gov. Rick Snyder concerning the negative impact of Michissippian TeaPubulican cuts in per student funding as per the Snyder Budget.

Dear Governor Snyder,

In these tough economic times, schools are hurting. And yes, everyone in Michigan is hurting right now financially, but why aren't we protecting schools? Schools are the one place on Earth that people look to "fix" what is wrong with society by educating our youth and preparing them to take on the issues that society has created.

One solution I believe we must do is take a look at our corrections system in Michigan. We rank nationally at the top in the number of people we incarcerate. We also spend the most money per prisoner annually than any other state in the union. Now, I like to be at the top of lists, but this is one ranking that I don't believe Michigan wants to be on top of.

Consider the life of a Michigan prisoner. They get three square meals a day. Access to free health care. Internet. Cable television. Access to a library. A weight room. Computer lab. They can earn a degree. A roof over their heads. Clothing. Everything we just listed we DO NOT provide to our school children.

This is why I'm proposing to make my school a prison. The State of Michigan spends annually somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000 per prisoner, yet we are struggling to provide schools with $7,000 per student. I guess we need to treat our students like they are prisoners, with equal funding. Please give my students three meals a day. Please give my children access to free health care. Please provide my school district Internet access and computers. Please put books in my library. Please give my students a weight room so we can be big and strong. We provide all of these things to prisoners because they have constitutional rights. What about the rights of youth, our future?!

Please provide for my students in my school district the same way we provide for a prisoner. It's the least we can do to prepare our students for the future...by giving our schools the resources necessary to keep our students OUT of prison.

Respectfully submitted,
Nathan Bootz
Superintendent
Ithaca Public Schools

Original Post.

Teaparty leader: The More We Pay Attention - The More Hopeless it Can Seem, Political Parties Only Exsist to Get and Keep Power

Commentary on Wendy Day piece "The four phases of the Tea Party" on Detroit / Mackinac News web site Michigan View on May 18, 2011

Opines Wendy Day, Common Sense in Government, Day was instrumental in the first of Michigan's Tea Party organization:

"Politicians will lie and manipulate us. They will go to Lansing and Washington and make really stupid decisions....

"We marched into the streets in 2009 full of vigor and hope. We were angry and ready to do battle with someone. For a year we developed our groups and tryied [sic] to learn all we could about how to save our Republic - but then we realized things were not changing as quickly as we hoped."

Wendy summarizes her views:

"Our country wasn't going to be saved in one election cycle. The battle is almost too big to wrap our arms around and the more we pay attention, THE MORE HOPELESS IT CAN SEEM. Politicians will lie and manipulate us. They will go to Lansing and Washington and make really stupid decisions.

"Tea Party groups have worked to find a path that they think will lead to some success. Some groups are working to change the Republican Party from the inside. BUT THEY ARE FINDING THAT POLITICAL PARTIES ONLY EXIST TO GET AND KEEP POWER. The Republican Party is committed to electing people with "R" behind their name."

This being said: What does the Tea Party do about the new huge income tax levied on the citizens of Michigan? What does the Tea Party do to limit the current rapid expanse of State Control over local government? What is the Tea Party's official position on the radical expansion of state dictatorial powers as in the alarmingly expanded office of the Emergency Finance Manager?

Now that the Tea Party has been instrumental in the election of many Michigan Legislators: What power of influence does it have over the new legislature? We thought it was the purpose of the Tea Party to limit government and prevent new taxes.

Were we wrong?

Original Post.

Ante-Dictatorial EFM: Setting the Benton Harbor Record Straight

The Other Side of the Benton Harbor EFM Story, One You'll Not Find in Michigan's Corporate Media

Wilce Cooke grew up in Benton Harbor, Michigan. He was elected as the city's Mayor twice. Here's his account via "Mayor of Benton Harbor Sets The Record Straight About Takeover By Emergency Financial Manager", in the Rochester Citizen on April 28, 2011:

"The Mayor said that over the years the city of Benton Harbor has lost its tax base of retail and agricultural businesses. 'At one time we were called the Shenandoah of southwest Michigan. We had seven or eight different foundries. We had the largest outdoor fruit market in the world and we had all the retail stores downtown here in Benton Harbor. Urban renewal came in and displaced a lot of individuals and white flight, we lost our tax base. So with no tax base, you can't run a city on property taxes alone when your residents are unemployed.' Cooke said.

"During Cooke's first term as Mayor from 1982-1989, Cooke said the city was in a similar position financially, but he said there was one difference; he had control of city council. When Cooke left office, there was a million dollar surplus. The city had a very aggressive marketing program and brought in a new financial manager and the city was on the rebound.

"The city's government has been portrayed in the media as being incompetent. Cooke responded to that charge saying, 'It's stupid to even say that. You can't say that this council is incompetent. The theory that Benton Harbor's city council members have absconded with money is that. You have never read yet where they said that we have stolen anything. The council doesn't have any money. That's handled by the finance department, the finance people, not by the city council. We do approve bills, but we don't handle money.'

"'When I was Mayor in 1980, we did bring in a new finance director, a new city manager, an economic development person. We brought in all new people to handle what we had to do and we did a great job. In 50 years this city hasn't run so smooth. I was out of office for 17 or 18 years, the city got right back in the same position.'"

"Cooke was re-elected in 2004. When Cooke was re-elected, he says he set up a meeting with Governor Granholm showing her his plan to solve the problems in Benton Harbor, 'What did they give us, a faith-based director and a financial manager.'

"When asked what is the biggest misconception about what has happened in Benton Harbor, Cooke replied, 'The corporate media has gotten it all backwards. They don't want to tell the truth. THEY SAY MILLIONS OF DOLLARS HAVE COME TO THE CITY OF BENTON HARBOR. MILLIONS OF DOLLARS HAVE BEEN SENT, BUT IT DIDN'T COME TO THE CITY OF BENTON HARBOR. IT WENT TO NON-PROFITS WHO RECEIVED THE MONEY. KELLOGG'S SENT IN $25 MILLION. IT DIDN'T COME TO BENTON HARBOR. IT WENT TO AN AFFILIATE OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE. (emphasis added)

They had the money. They received the money and they disbursed the money. Millions of dollars came through, but not through the city government itself, never seen any of it. And that's a matter of record and I dare them and challenge them to go and prove otherwise.'"

Read the Rochester Citizen article by Bruce Fealk.

Original Post.

Snyder, the Socialist, Takes on Local Democracy Calling it a "Status Quo" That Needs to Be Radically Re-invented.

Response and commentary concerning Michigan Governor Rick Snyder's education plan announcements and Nolan Finley in "Gov's dozer knocks down another wall" in the Detroit News on April 28, 2011.

Nerd Snyder fool-heartedly takes on the Status Quo: Snyder trades the normal and healthy, reliable services provided by your local school board opting imperiously to impose a "socialized" state-run bureaucratic system, jammed with top-down mandates of the kind long-backed and sought by anti-public school activists and opponents.

Add in Snyder's draconian cuts to school funding designed to manhandle local units. Then top that off with the Snyder's outright thief, by political trickery and manipulation, of an existing school fund surplus over $600 million and a healthy up-tick in sales tax revenue of producing another $500 million toward school funding and we have the stage for a Snyder Shortage Snafu of epic proportions.

Rick Snyder is under a grand illusion related to his personal "accomplishments": "My staff keeps trying to slow me down," Snyder says. "They joke that if I get everything done the first year, what am I going to do the next three?"

Look carefully at what Snyder labels "Reform." We've been diddled on that concept before by John M. Engler and now "reform" in many forms of disenfranchisement. is back as what Nolan gleefully calls "Bulldozer" Snyder.

Reform of education should yield in an improvement, for students, not the hatchet job Rick and old-order Engerlites in his cabal are enforcing.

Grand Rapids School Superintendent Taylor sees the Snyder education "reforms" as further imploding his already tattered district. More Charters. More profit for J.C. Huizenga? He sees more public tax money going down to "no return for community" privateers' bottomlines. As Bernard Taylor sees it use of public tax money for faux public academies is heading his Grand Rapids Public Schools to relegation as the almshouses of the very poor and the greatly disadvantaged. But the Republicans have the new formula for improvement: Just send in Mrs.Coswell and McMillin, they have special understanding and superior understanding for care of the needy...NOT!

Rick Snyder is not an expert on education and the team that he assembled was top heavy with perennial critics: "school funding raiders," pro-voucher teammates of Betsy DeVos' national crusade, anti-teacher association ideologues, and Michigan's craven insurance interests-out to harvest ever more profits via "takings" from teachers.

According to our sage Nolan Finley: Snyder "couldn't care less about political ideology. He's all about the bottom line." Right on, Nolan. You got it right! Thus, Snyder fits well with Betsy DeVos and other raiders of public funds for private profit.

One curious source of media misinformation and statistical manipulation about public schools is EAG (Education Action Group)

One weasely wise guy, MI GOP state committee member, Ryan Olson, a greenpea novice/clumsy outside-shill for the Mackinac Center (kid brother of Dr. R. Olson, previously in charge of education policy at the Mackinac) is worthy of a second look at his front EAG. Olson has a partner in his efforts, Eric Doster (Board Member of Betsy DeVos' Great Lakes Project and also a MI GOP lawyer. Olson and Doster have been "placed" to become an "outside source" for/and of wild anti-public education activism. Perhaps you recall a national news exposé; Ryan's attempt to pull an contrived and deceptive "Acorn Video Event" by lying to, and then taping a New York University professor, under false pretenses, in order to gain national attention for himself. Olson's crude activities (Thug Watch) are funded by secret backers and scooped by all-too-willing, lazy news sources looking for controversy, have uncritically used Olson's embarrassing and ambitious attempts to smear and demonize the teachers in every way he can.

So to say that there is no interest in Snyder's hard right ideological attacks on public education from Snyder is to mis-underestimate the power of this aggressive coup against public education. It's all part of a much larger, "state legislature centered" attempt to forever alter the future of your beloved and cherished neighborhood school and diminish and punish faithful teachers for the work they do mentoring your children and grandchildren.

Snyder, the Socialist; Takes takes down Local Democracy Calling it the Status Quo. Local control, an ideal and a vital system, needs to be radically "Re-invented." So sez Snyder!
Original Post.

Tea Party Principles Oppose Centralized Government

Governor Rick Snyder's regime is "Centralized Government" moving Michigan top-down into corporatist-style consolidation of local governance and affairs; centralizing power away from our neighborhoods directly into the hands of a few "smarter-than-thou bureaucrats dispensing "our money." Local taxes are taken from us, then doled back to us under bureaucratic, tight, and complete centralized Lansing control.

Centralized government, which Tea Party supporters oppose, is being put in place with a superior and arrogant attitude: "We, bureaucrats and lawyers alone, know best what is good for you."

Snyder's CEO delusion: You hired me to run Michigan like a business organization; just do as I say. I'm now totally in charge.

Forget local control, the right of self determination, and the importance of free elections, my "Man, the EFM (Emergency Finance Manager), has his instructions from me, do as we say or your units will be taken over and your local/civic assets sold off as we decide.

"The greatest advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science and literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government." -- Milton Friedman

Original Post.

Tea Party Mantra: Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!

Tea Party fans must defend local freedoms, not surrender them to little dictators...With EFM's there is no Freedom !

One of the important and little noticed "abilities" given the Emergency Finance Manager, who has acquired control of a school district in a "finance emergency"- so determined, by Dillon or Flanagan-is the control of the curriculum. Meet a known Emergency Finance Manager: W. Howard Morris, of whom The State Board of Education comments, "The law gives the Emergency Financial Manager (EFM) authority over all fiscal matters of the school district, supplanting the school board. EFM had ultimate responsibility for all financial, operational and CURRICULUM MATTERS since there was no superintendent." (The EFM, W. Howard Morris, replaced the Superintendent and the voice of the people).

"At every hour of every day, I can tell you on which page of which book each school child in Italy is studying."
-- Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), Italian dictator during WW2

Original Post.

Coercion does not become Rick Snyder…..

A wise word to Rick Snyder on the use of the new and revised Emergency Finance Manager (EFM) scheme, as rushed into law, and now available to blackmail and harass local governmental units, top-down, from Lansing:

"...if we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion."

-- Friedrich August von Hayek (1899-1992), in Nobel Laureate of Economic Sciences (1974)

Original Post.

Snyder Leading a State in Rebellion

Tea-Publicans are mired in placid subservience to Imperial Corporatists such as: Amway, the Koch Bros., and Wal-Mart; all these and others are to be found hand-in-glove, sponsoring and bankrolling radical take-overs by right wing coups in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and elsewhere.

This is national movement utilizes the Koch empowered and funded Tea Party, other right wing corporatists and operatives, and it's going forward (spurred on by Murrdock's FOX News), determined to sweep the nation clear of all their political enemies' access to shared power. Their goal, Karl Rove's vision: A ONE PARTY NATION.

1) Radical wealthy have taken over our cities streets and the local economies: (shuttering the local, mom & pop establishments) 2) Economic Elites moved our commerce to a "private place,"(the Mall-No public discourse or debate/no campaigning allowed) 3) Profiteers having stripped our public schools of viability by unequal proto-segregationist educational apartheid (for profit, faux public Academies)and tax starvation 4) Radical revisionists have removed Affirmative Action from colleges and the workplace 5) Sweatshop mavens have now destroyed Collective Bargaining 6) Anti-fair banking and investment standards tycoons have stolen taxpayer trillions to bail out banksters and multi-national Corporations (GM & Chrysler) dumping additional hundreds of millions back on taxpayers 7) Wild-haired Wall Streeters-fat with loot from "betting against" America's success - have reaped unbelievable bonuses from taxpayers' funds A revolutionary Tea-Publican rabble moves on toward civic discord and disaster.

It's no wonder we, as a people, are losing control of citizen government.

Look long at the national register of who owns what, and by what percentages they control that massive wealth.

The richest are now in control of a great imbalance of wealth. Wealth is all powerful in America. Democracy, as we knew it, is now at the tipping point. In Michigan it's been lost to the coming corporate ownership and control of local units of government under the EMERGENCY FINANCIAL MANAGER scheme, enhanced with many dictatorial powers and no voter recourse.

Today, the polling place is run like a stock company election. We believe we have a system of one man, one vote. It took generations to achieve that maturing understanding of the rights of the individual to participate in one nation under God with liberty and justice for all. Slowly, nearly imperceptive the needle on the dashboard of democratic rights and privileges has suddenly fallen off the dial.

Now the effective power in politics is all about who's got the money, who has access to creating legislation: A.L.E.C. It's no longer one man one vote, now it's who owns the most shares, the more shares the greater the voting power. It's he, who has this larger "economic power" to control the vote and the corresponding degree of power and influence, who is more and more often the winner. One man, one vote has been shown the door.

Once left, now right, once up, then down, once monarchy, then republic, once pro-corporatist, then friendly fascist.

The "clever dogs" of the Ayn Rand (author, The Virtue of Selfishness) cult and school of privatizing public policy, long burrowing away in the background, are having their day. FYI -- This crowd includes many who were rooted in Socialism and some who admit to being former Communists such as Marvin Olasky, The Politics of Disaster, and Father Bob Sirico, Grand Rapids Acton Institute.

How could such revisionist radicalizers, as are besieging America, pull off this nationwide corporatist coup? Answer: Ignorance of the systemic dangers.

Never has Lansing government been more dominate and intrusive; attacking the right of the individuals, as now under Snyder. Never.

Snyder's Michigan, a state in rebellion, is out of citizen control. 

Original Post.

Snyder’s Going for the Ignoramus Title: Worse Than, More Disliked Than Engler

Michigan GOP'ers have seen the scope of the Koch Bros. attempted legislative coup that has swept the country and are beginning to distance themselves from both the Koch Brothers and the self-determined Nerd, Rick Snyder and his authoritarian CEO anti-public interest mindset; they do this purely out of political self-interest and a delayed, but growing sense of deep concern for the common people of their state.

Snyder is being taken down; note the following:

1) Approval rating dropping like a boulder: Snyder's approval may sink lower than that old pro-pol John Mathais Engler, who sunk to below 20% in public support, but Engler was a pro, he had the savvy and the backing to regain the upper hand due largely his superior cunning, strong arm political practices of the kind Snyder totally lacks.

2) Pushing ALEC "handout" legislation to appease the Koch Bros. et. al. has put Snyder in a very ugly national light and perspective. The precious Michigan Environment and natural assets are beset with undercutting legislative rollbacks which serve best the short-term interests of polluters, plunderers, and corporate developers.

3) Unable to speak in public places without protests or citizens with strong complaints, Snyder has cut himself off from the state's "work-a-day" citizens.

4) Snyder lost his ability to politically defend his huge business bailout; using school and retiree resources directly funneled to corporate buddies. There's no salable rationale for his BILLION PLUS GIFT TO BUSINESSES. Repeatedly asked to provide estimates of jobs that will yield from his radical tax shaft & shift, neither Snyder or Calley can give credible answers.

5) Snyder gained an enduring reputation as a CHAINSAW BANANA REPUBLIC STRONGMAN with his near dictatorial powers labeled "Emergency Financial Managers" over and against local affairs of government, even ejecting the voters and officeholders from their constitutional rights to elect and hold office.

6) Outsourcing the heavy burden of axing jobs, benefits, and programs on struggling local units. CEO Snyder is forcing the pain and disruption, and the failure down on the local communities, using the power of BIG LANSING GOVERNMENT.
7) Purposefully cutting schools and universities (20%), ENDANGERS THOSE REMAINING COLLEGE STUDENTS WHO ARE ATTEMPTING TO STUDY FOR A PRODUCTIVE CAREER IN MICHIGAN. These cuts most likely become part of a huge student loan payback schedule that saddle new professionals for near a lifetime.

8) Taxing elders, ESPECIALLY WIDOWS, out of their homes, BY CUTTING ELDER HOMESTEAD PROPERTY TAX RELIEF; MANY SENIORS WILL BE PUT ON THE EDGE OF FORECLOSURE.

9) Making the retirees and seniors consider moving to a "pension friendly" state; RETIREES ARE AN IMPORTANT SOURCE OF CONSUMER REVENUE AND SERVICES.

10) Under the thumb of hardened Englerites and tyrannical Koch organized Tea Party operatives; Snyder is displaying "stubborn" resistance to compromise or collaboration, and certainly excludes Democrat participation on any bi-partisan basis; with the exception of Michael Flanagan and Andy Dillon; two very curious bureaucratic holdovers.

11) RAISING TAXES IN DIRECT OPPOSITION TO A LARGE GROUP OF TEA PARTY ADVOCATES who oppose new and higher taxes will undermine Snyder's appeal to rogue elements in Michigan and engender the hateful vengeance of no-new-taxes Grover Norquist and Newt Gingrich.

12) FORCING 800,000 POOR MICHIGANDERS TO SUFFER AND GO WITHOUT from cut-off assistance in these hard times is unconscionable.

13) Gambling that no one cares if businesses get a "big gift" of 1.8 billion in tax breaks and relief: a gigantic business bailout. More and More citizens see the rank unfairness of this plot.

14) THE MACKINAC CENTER HAS BEEN GIVEN HUGE NATIONAL NEGATIVE MEDIA ATTENTION, for the first time. Now people everywhere know who the elites are who back this negativist anti-union, pro-privatizing/tax piracy propaganda mill. They are: Charles Koch, Amway, Wal-mart/Waltons, Elsa Prince Foundation, Heritage Foundation, and others. A COMPLETE LIST IS NOT AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC, It's a Mackinac Center SECRET. Transparency and full disclosure, no way!

15) FRITTERED AWAY IS THE ALL-IMPORTANT VOTER SUPPORT of cross-over Democrats, Independents, and Moderate Republicans; Snyder has no middle ground support left. Where's Snyder's base? Snyder is going to re-invent Michigan ex nihilo?

16) The newer members of the Legislature who came to Lansing to become personally involved and included in the decisions, as they thought their election entitled them to have a part, are being sidelined. THE CLEVER USE OF THE OMNIBUS STRUCTURE FOR BILL INTRODUCTION AND PASSAGE LARGELY SHUTS THEM OUT of the process. The new members are disturbed by the manner in which the Snyder Team is gunning legislation through; without time for the newer members to have meaningful input and voice.

17) The radical cut back of UNEMPLOYMENT ASSISTANCE; WHEN OVER 300,000 WILLING WORKERS ARE WITHOUT JOBS AND MANY ARE TOTALLY RUNNING OUT OF RESOURCES TO LIVE AND MAKE BILL PAYMENTS is dastardly cruel. The Snyder lead GOP majorities in the Legislature are about to enact the most stingy and least supportive unemployment package in the nation.

Inside sources report: Michigan's hardheaded Nerd, Snyder, gives no any hint of mitigation or personal compromise from his original budget and legislative agenda; instead offers a "cold shoulder and is still pursuing full-bore his pension tax, despite limited support in the Senate GOP caucus." Snyder's Engler holdovers have collapsed in their attempts to talk political sense to the Nerd.

Legislative Republicans are growingly aware they have a giant problem with their back home voters. They have seen the massive blowbacks in Wisconsin and other places. There is a growing sense of creeping panic!

Michigan's Teapublicans are aware that Ohio Republicans are walking-back some of the harshest of the A.L.E.C.- fill in the blank, corporate pandering legislation that Ohio GOP'ers are caught up in.

Michigan GOP'ers have seen the scope of the Koch Bros. backed and heavily funded, attempt at legislative coup that has swept the country. GOP Legislators are beginning to distance themselves from both the Koch Brothers' American Legislative Exchange Council "carry out" bill making and the self-determined Nerd, Rick Snyder. Tough "Nerd" Rick with his authoritarian, anti-public interest, pro-business first, CEO mindset; has copped an attitude which is poisoning Michigan's entire political system.

Rick Snyder is well on the way to the ignominious title: WORSE THAN ENGLER.

Original Post.

Prominent Democrats Profit from Snyder Led Teapublican “Disaster Capitalism”

Why are Snyder led Teapublicans so intent on generously enriching and empowering 3 major Granholm Democrats with local/public tax money? Andy Dillon, Michael P. Flanagan, and Henry B. Cooney, Plunkett/Cooney?

Insults go way beyond bifurcated politics. EFM's can be made emergency ready (with a full quiver of dictatorial powers of life and death over a governmental unit and total discretion over labor and employee rights) in two days, read 20 hrs training, and some spotty follow-up.

Based on the need to know and understand the local problems, accounting, special situations, and find workable solutions this, by itself, ridiculously inadequate training is especially specious and absurd. And over 200 apply? Dozens are already in the training mill, enrolling at a bargain price of $175 each.

The qualifications for public administrators, city managers, department head, and school administrators are highly trained and the standards for their positions; these requirements have been steadily increasing and tightening for decades. And soon a crop of neophyte walk-ons is going to take over in the heat of the coming "Snyder induced financial crisis meltdowns"? This is unbelievable and well beyond nuts!

Now a hoard of would-be, wannabe so called "Emergency Finance Managers"( is being run through a boot camp training mill run by Andy Dillon) makes a complete mockery of prior standards. The direct and drastic outcomes for the failing and failed units, forced to further fail by Dillon and Snyder, will drastically impact the necessary services of the individual taxpayers in ways that will be highly destructive and ruinously failed.

Have we gone this far into "planned failure." Why?

Why would Teapublicans be at all interested in a program (EFM) directly benefiting , granting huge new and undemocratic powers (DetNews: The law authorizes emergency managers to cancel contracts, dismiss officials, and dissolve elected councils and boards in communities and school districts that are operating at a deficit.), and financially enriching Granholm Era Democrats: Andy Dillon, Michael Flannigan, and Henry Cooney CEO of super legal beagles at Pluckett & Cooney-all major players previously in Democrat politics?


Original Post.

Lies, Lies, and More Lies" Detriot News Op-Ed: "Rick Snyder not Anti-Union / Collective Bargaining" - Oh Yeah?

Response to Detroit News Op-Ed "Snyder hasn't earned anti-union label: Nothing he's done so far infringes on collective bargaining rights" on March 18, 2011.

Just a few points on this News Op-Ed:


1. "(N)obody is losing their collective bargaining rights under the emergency financial manager legislation signed into law this week by Gov. Rick Snyder." The honest track was that of Scott Walker in Wisconsin, do what you do to destroy collective bargaining head "on and then call it "progressive." Snyder's team's temerity is to make the "union busting" process loing and drawn out, bone ugly, and extremely divisive. Snyder, in a word, wants to further destroy this state turning one governmental unit against another. This Snyder does with threats and coercion. But he's attempting to sugar coat it with denials of his end purposes.

2. "(T)he charge just doesn't stick to Snyder." -- - "he's said repeatedly he will not follow the lead of governors in Wisconsin, Ohio and elsewhere, and seek to weaken collective bargaining for public employees." Again, the method chosen by the Snyder team is duplicitous and corrupting. Afraid to take on the issue of collective bargaining in a straight forward manner; Snyder chose to do it with a cruel method. Impose shortfalls and revenue shortages at his discretion: Large cuts to school aid, and cutting off Block Grants to local units via State Government Control; out of Lansing. To this, Snyder adds the threatening provisions of a new and severely harsh EFM/Emergency Finance Manager. These SUPER BUREAUCRATS are being trained and put in place with wide and powerful dictatorial digression to destroy local units in an entire variety of ways. Breaking the contracts is not holding the collective bargaining process inviolate.

3. "And nothing in the emergency financial manager law infringes on collective bargaining" The highly paid agents of the Dillion/Flannagan's newly created Plunkett/Cooney friendly "firm run" Realignment Bureau have an unlimited ceiling to their compensation and powers; such as any boss would envy. Local property rights are about to be trashed. To be added to the trauma of an imposed "emergency" is the potential for huge costs to be levied against the local unit to fund the EFM's, further liquidating whatever taxpayer assets might remain. This is a self-feeding fee frenzy.!

4. "The only thing that changes is that if the governmental unit reaches the point of insolvency, the manager can (do what he deems necessary) to balance the books and avoid default, including breaking or rewriting contracts with unions and vendors." The way this entire anti-union, anti-collective bargaining scheme is structured rests on the fact that Snyder et al can and will use directed political decisions to make discretionary cuts in revenue to be tailored to the specific unit(s) they want to push into "insolvency." If and when the public comes to see the carnage Snyder has imposed on their fire department, their policing, their schools, etc. the reactions will be bitter and long lasting. This Snyder, the stubborn, cannot conceive as possible: he holds to a bumper sticker thought: Simple, Fair and Efficient. Rick feels a little "Chris Christie" bullyboy shove and kick will suffice; a loud outcry and then the struggle will all be over. Not so. If one does not fight for what has been their community, their family civic heritage, then what is there left to fight for. SNYDER'S BIG GOVERNMENT SLAP DOWN ON THE WORKING FOLK IS UNACCEPTABLE.

5. "But even that's not so much of a change" In the past we held our noses because the effected units were 'throwaways' areas the rest of the state had turned its back on. Now it won't be just war-torn Benton Harbor or some inner city satellite governmental unit, it will be "your hometown" your first responders units that are callously trashed for the sake of politics and goals set in motion by the ugly remnants of Englerism and the teapartisans with pitchforks.

6. The EFM law "law does not dissolve the unions." Snyder has said he hopes toughening the law, a version of which has been on the books since the early 1990s, will act as an incentive for local governments and their unions to work out deals at the bargaining table to avoid financial emergencies. There are early signs that the strategy is working." Snyder's "incentives" are direct dictatorial actions that will clearly indicate whose in charge and clearly show that the local sovereignty over local affairs is history. Local government is THEIR GOVERNMENT, TOP-DOWN BIG GOVERNMENT FROM LANSING TO CRUSH LOCAL CONTROL. Folks this isn't the way it was supposed to turn out. Tea Party advocates take clear notice, YOU'VE BEEN HAD.

7. "Democratic legislative leaders are fanning the flames by promising a ballot initiative to enshrine collective bargaining as a right in the state Constitution." That would be mistake. That's not the sort of thing that ought to be protected by the Constitution." Here we see a hint of panic in the minds of the oppressors. If the people rise up and become alert to the dangers in Snyder's massive "shift and shaft" from Republicans gone rogue, and if they can mount a political counter-punch, then the top-down game-plan will change. There are measures that can and will be taken to forestall and suppress the mega-harm this novice governor has rolled over into. Snyder is no longer welcome many places and as his EFM's fan out and begin their "corporate cannibalization " of locally controlled governmental units; Tricky Rick may find himself walled up in his castle-like digs in Ann Arbor, unable to go and come without being confronted with hisses and jeers.

8. "There's no reason for unions or local communities to feel threatened by the emergency financial manager law." We expect that communities will have to comply. "make the hard choices necessary to avoid insolvency" "they'll avoid the financial manager as well. "

This News/Mackinac Center editorial is a great and near classic piece of disinformation and propaganda. 

 "Just stay calm." We, who are now well in the advantage, need for you to go about your business of everyday life and let us do what we want. WE IN BIG GOVERNMENT HERE AT LANSING HAVE CHOSEN OUR WINNERS. YOU, THE LOSERS MUST BE GOOD SPORTS AND TAKE DEFEAT(S) WITH HUMBLE RECOGNITION: TO THE WINNERS GO THE SPOILS.

There is one caveat, one moment of truth: Laura Berman points it out 3.22.11, "The Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, D.C., ranks Michigan's business climate 17th in the nation, better than Ohio (46th), Illinois (23rd), Arizona (34th), Wisconsin (40th) or indeed any of its neighbors, but Indiana (10th)."

One has to seriously question: "Just giving $1.8 billion to business brings on insurance that things will improve for the state's budget woes."

"The governor is betting that a proposed $1.7 billion in business tax breaks ("faith-based economics" is what some call it) will right Michigan's sinking fortunes by taxing pensions, cutting state aid to municipalities and putting pressure on public worker benefits."

This novice governor may be dead wrong. What then? Winners may become the biggest losers. Taking $1.8 billion out of the current economic "return-on-the-dollar spent in the local economy pass-around cycle" is a gigantic gamble. Adding $1.7 of it to business, as a reward, does not mean a better economy. It does mean a "fat gift" of short-lived profit for business.

Business may actually be the new "losers"!


Original Post.

An Advocate for Christian Business Addresses Calabrese’s Admitted Lapse of Integrity

In response to the admission of Dan Calabrese that he is willing to break a binding business contract in order to save money (and your business) in times of economic duress, brought on by acording to his own admission; that he over-estimated his profits and under calculated his actual expenses in a down market. (Union entitlement is unsustainable, 3.11.11, Calabrese)

Note: Dan Calabrese's posting "Union entitlement is unsustainable" posted to the Michigan View (Detroit / Heritage / Mackinac News) on March 11, 2011 was removed from the Detroit News website.

Calabrese admits in his recent column it caused him to admit, "you do things - things you sometimes regret." Dan admits, there were "long-term leases I had foolishly signed." His solution? Dan welched on his contract with a provider, and stated, I "told them they could try to collect more money from me if they thought it was worth the trouble."

To understand Dan's self-described method of cutting costs, I turned to John E. Mitchell Jr., Texas business man and a Christian writer. Mitchell offers a thoughtful insight as to how a self-confessed Christian and businessman, such as Calabrese, is held to a higher standard than the non-professing business entrepreneurial:
"If, as Emerson says, "An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man," then obviously the top executives of American business enterprises are very important. They have it in their power to help or to hurt a great many people.

"What are the traits of character do you think should be required, or at least hoped for, in an employer, a manager, the top executives?"

That an Employer Should Be "The head of a business concern should posses certain qualities which set him apart as a leader and clearly indicate his right to the postion he holds. These are qualifications which should be recognized and cultivated.
"A leader should possess real character, the result of a personal relationship to Christ. He leads best who best follows the Saviour. His qualities of leadership will be strengthen and fortified because of personal attention to spiritual realities. A man who sets an unwavering stand as a servant and follower of Christ will able operate from an unshakable foundation in every other area of life.

"It logically follows that, as a man of Christian character, a good leader will also be a man of integrity. He would keep his word. He will be honest in his dealings. He will not shade, hedge, or deviate in word or conduct. He will maintain this personal integrity even though it may involve great cost to himself."

In Michigan's troubling economic times we need moral high ground and integrity. We hope Dan will repent and join the effort to rebuild our state on honesty and integrity as he shares with us the thoughts of his mind.

Original Post.

Promise Maker Michigan Encouraged to Become a Promise Breaker - Deadbeat Provider

We are wearied by; tired of our obligations to those who have long served us in public ways. We would be so much better off if we could strip state retirees of their benefits and health care to improve our own bottomlines.(Union entitlement is unsustainable, 3/11/11)

Note: Dan Calabrese's posting "Union entitlement is unsustainable" posted to the Michigan View (Detroit / Heritage / Mackinac News) on March 11, 2011 was removed from the Detroit News website.

So we find our Michigan View moralist and anti-public cynic, Dan Calabrese saying:

"When the economic environment changed, they (Many units of government in Michigan) wished they could get out from under these commitments, or better yet, that they had never made them in the first place."

This candid admission shows a lack of support for honest commitment and basic integrity. Moral gives way to business practical. When we encourage these units to use a crisis to accomplish what we know is their contractual and socially committed obligations, (due to disaster capitalism and Snyders flawed budget proposals) we rationalize our firm determination to walk away.

Rick Snyder's self-created finance crisis is built atop a monster Bush created economic collapse due to systemic corruption, fraud, and cleverly designed de-regulation stepped down from Washington, D.C. by no-less than former/ousted one term U.S. Senator Spencer Abraham.

Sen. Abraham presided over the very Senate session that lowered the bar on unique and publically indecipherable investment devices and market gambling that had been previously outlawed. These retreats from market regulation, laws that had made illegal by that same body over 100 years previously.

Libertarians are almost certainly to be practitioners of an amoral code. They are highly individual. The well-being of others is shut out as they pursue the neo-Objectivist code of a dangerous Russian-born radical, Ayn Rand (Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum), whose virulent atheist, anti-Jesus gospel/tome was published titled "The Virtue of Selfishness."

Many neo-Libertarians infesting the body politic are the Evil Samaritans; who steer completely clear of those of their fellow humans in distress or need. They're not community-minded.

If being a liberal is by definition being: generous and gregarious, with a mind to community and advocates of the New England Town Meeting, collective good; they are not some say even "evil." They know nothing of the true nature of an organization that calls its members, brothers and sisters-the labor associations that have made the middle class prosper and their children attain to a higher level of education and service do to the brotherhood of association. Never forget the corporate evils of the past which were overcome by solidarity!

Dan thinks he's right. And we know he's "right" alright. Dan often here at the MIView, prides himself being "right of right" As he moves toward greed, he will be less and less troubled by "kicking against the pricks" by God and more anesthetized by his own narrow needs to the more complete exclusion of others outside his "tribe" read; mega-church and weekly Christian Businessman's meetings, Tea Party klatch.

This is why we react with skepticism when we learn that Dan's problems with unions and public employees. His reaction is rooted in the fact they represent employees with a right to organize and enjoy due process. So when things went sour for Dan's PR business, as he has revealed on this blog, Dan clearly resents and resists not having the privilege of his simple "pleasure" -freedom to tap a worker on the shoulder at a perfect moment in the work day: giving the employee a cardboard box and showing him/her the door ala his sacred right; the ability to "hire and fire at will."

We also note, Dan goes farther in his pursuit of "autonomous self-interest." Calabrese tells us; "...when you're deluded into thinking you've entered Permanent Fat and Happy Land, you do things - things you sometimes regret. You sign long-term leases on offices and equipment. You agree to generous union contracts. Hey, the numbers look good!" Dan did this, he tells us, then he decided he was being boxed in by his decision to "go under contract" with his provider at the very time his business was floundering. Calabrese's "out"? Who would believe: Violate/break the binding contract.

Dan: "The problem was that more than half my monthly expenses were from long-term leases I HAD FOOLISHLY SIGNED. I couldn't just sit there and say, 'Cut this, cut this, cut that . . .' I had to contact each of the parties involved and see if I could renegotiate. Some were willing. Others were not."

"The bottom line is this: The business survived, and is still operating today, but only because I recognized it had to be radically restructured, with REGRETTABLE AGREEMENTS renegotiated and certain elements eliminated entirely."

How did Dan accomplish survival of his business?
Dan: "In the case of (the lease company) I sent back the copier early, and told them they could try to collect more money from me if they thought it was worth the trouble. They didn't.

Wrote Calabrese:

"You may conclude from all this that I am a horrible businessman. YOU MIGHT NOT BE WRONG. But the point is that I faced problems that many businesses face every day, and I had no choice but to make adjustments and reform my organization in order to survive."

From this self-narrated story Calabrese draws this wider public conclusion: The State should likewise needs to break it's social contract and long-standing commitment to its career retirees and teachers. Dan's wisdom based on his "business experience" is just walk away. Collect if you can.

Calabrese pontificates:

"No one is ever entitled to anything forever. You (the state and business) do the best you can, given the economic realities in which you operate. You can be flexible when circumstances demand it, or you can refuse, in which case people will find a way not to have to deal with you."

In other words take what is given you (public employees) forget that the State as a retirement obligation to you or the state will "find a way not to have to deal with you."

So the promise keeper State is supported to become the promise breaker, the deadbeat manager of obligations clearly integral to the retiree's retirement fund. And all this based on a faulty logic and a contrived and purposefully exaggerated "economic crisis"; presented by Snyder et. al. as a device to target "political enemies."

How moral is that, Dan?



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