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.

Nerdonomics on Stifle: Rick Snyder's Michigan Dashboard Disaster

No new jobs, no new jobs action, more taxes for many, fewer discretionary dollars to spend in the Michissippian Economy.

Across the state a stark realization is dawning in these early days of 2012.

The Raw Truth:

"Many companies will see significantly lower tax bills or pay no business taxes at all in 2012, thanks to a switch from the Michigan Business Tax to a new 6 percent corporate income tax that kicks in Sunday and falls mostly on large corporations with shareholders. Businesses can expect to pay $1.1 billion less in taxes this year and $1.7 billion less in 2013, according to estimates. Two-thirds of companies will pay no state income tax at all."

Source: Kathy Barks Hoffman, Associated Press in "New state tax rules good for business: Some residents, though, will end up paying more this year".

So a raft of second tier businesses in Michigan will escape paying any business taxes (THAT'S ZERO BUSINESS TAX) in a continuing crucial season of low revenues and serious budget shortfalls for all Michigan units of government.

On the other hand the LARGE CORPORATIONS WILL PAY MORE. In other words the manufacturing sector, so vitally important to Michigan's future and long-term well-being will be paying more. What sense does that make? Ask the Nerd. Snyder's Relentless Corporatist Action has fissures and fault lines. This state is in for a crude and rude economic ride, inflicted by Snyder's muddle-minded self-delusion.


The Nerd's A Victim of His Own Unreality
Snyder's policies are NOT positive; they are stubbornly False-Positive Snyder style. Can we afford a neophyte governor who is in deep denial and suffers from self-delusion? Snyder's abysmal approval rating tell it all!

We think Not.

Michigan according to A.P.'s Hoffman:

"Residents born between Jan. 1, 1946, and Dec. 31, 1952, will have all retirement income liable to tax whether it's from a public or private pension, 401(k) or IRA. Exemptions can be claimed for up to $20,000 for a single filer and up to $40,000 for joint filers. Above those levels, retirement income will be taxed at the state income tax rate of 4.35 percent. When these residents turn 67, the $20,000/$40,000 exemption applies to all income, not just retirement income. The exemption is eliminated if a taxpayer claims a deduction for a military or railroad pension. This will affect about 230,000 returns."

"[Michigan] Residents born after 1952 will see all retirement income taxed as regular income until they turn 67, at which point they'll qualify for a senior income exemption of $20,000 for single filers and $40,000 for joint filers on all income. A taxpayer can forego the $20,000/$40,000 exemption and instead deduct 100 percent of Social Security income. A taxpayer claiming the $20,000/$40,000 exemption can't claim the deduction for Social Security or the standard personal exemption. This will affect about 150,000 returns."

En total this means 380,000 returns will be under the gun of Snyder's re-invention: The Nerd has hatched a scheme: UPWARD INCOME RE-DISTRIBUTION.

CATCH THIS: IT'S A Snyder Invention: RADICAL UPWARD RE-DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME-BILLIONS GIFTED TO SNYDER'S BUSINESS CRONIES.

What could be more insulting, unfair, or cripplingly regressive in Michigan's hour of need?

Those who follow these prognostications criticizing Nerdonomics will credit this blogger with accuracy on the issue of Snyder's corporate and Chamber of Commerce pandering. The results in a profound hit on Michigan's retail commerce and customer demand; at least $1.1 BILLION LOST, BILLIONS OF LOST PURCHSES IN 2012 AND $1.7 BILLION LESS CUSTOMER SPENDING ONGOING INTO 2013.

The more frequent confused and sad look on the Nerd's public face elicits neither sympathy or support. More loss of family spending power, more costs for such things as college tuition and services are bone grinding. And at the same time; the chocolate on the DeCon: Amid this historic one state depression Snyder and the heartless and stoneheaded rampage by the TeaPublican Know Nothings, comes down to this sad blow. Michigan deductions for community foundations, food banks and university services...Summarily eliminated. Insult added to injury!

Snyder's Re-Invention: Relentless Aggressive Political Stupidity: It's Michissippi Rising RAPS !


Original.

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.

Original.

No Rights for Teacher Union Organization: Randy Richardville’s TeaPartisan Teacher Rights Libel Legislation

Randy Richardville's crude lawmaking revenge on Teacher's Professional Organizations is based on a specific TeaPartisan Teacher Rights Libel. Don't expect Richardville to accurately represent the role of teacher organizations in the school workplace. He's not well-informed as to the actual conditions in today's education.

Much of the rationale foisted on the public by Richardville libels the real facts and demeans a great profession. If you are a devoted teacher there is NOTHING BETTER YOU WILL EVER DO.

Richardville's vilification of Michigan Teachers en mass, in his high-handed, brutal fashion (faux-right to work regs,) is a complete verification of the untrustworthiness of this TeaPublican dominated Michigan Government-its small mindedness. It's actions fly in the face of the honorable actions of former Governors (e.g. Gov. George Romney - who signed into law the collective bargaining that ushered in a golden age of teaching and professionalism 1965-1990) and legislators; statespeople-who understood and accepted the right of teachers to act as professionals and have a defined voice in their day-to-day classroom efforts, entering the learning place day-after-day to nurture and mentor pupils in their educational journeys and meet their individual/special needs.

Those who demean this sacred vocation are unworthy of credulity or voracity.

Richardville's ongoing Rad Right assault on teachers; discriminates against them with his "Teacher-Right-to-Work" prevented-the-right-and-privileges-of-collective-bargaining-via-organizing-professionally." Richardville's targeted legislation is a frontal assault; summarily, arbitrarily, discriminating against a targeted set of professionals held to be political enemies of the TeaPublican coup. The coup attacks teachers in a spasm of meanspiritedness and unvarnished partisanship.

This anti-union action is the bottom of the loathsome profit-takers' chum bucket: just one of many attacks the TeaParty rabble has brought into the restored peoples' house, Michigan's historic Capitol. This is a dark and foreboding hour in those chambers.

Richard Studley and the tassel loafered lobbyists over at the Michigan Chamber of Commerce are in a state of heightened euphoria. This Richardville action fulfills one of their most coveted goals (SEE "Strategic Union Avoidance - How to Remain Union Free").
:

These malingering TeaPublicans, led by Richardville, are anathema to democracy, fair play, and local control. They are fringe dwellers who are in-fact out of control. They're totally out of step with the majority of the public-running wild in spasms of vituperative spiels and led about by the American Legislative Exchange Council (plug and play) control of the direction lawmaking in Michigan. Specific language is spooned fed to them by corporations, most based outside Michigan. A.L.E.C. members slip it into bill submission and press for its passage into law.

"Nerd" Snyder has, with the aid of over 90 past or present Michigan A.L.E.C. members, moved in a direction dictated by the top 1% of the nation's wealth holders, the mega-rich elites: Koch Bros, Walton Family, DeVos Family, Bradley Family, and a plethora of others - just as rich and influential-determined to profit/privatize at the expense of the middle class; of which TEACHERS are in integral and important part.

Richardville dutifully represents these vast monied interests with vigor. What about his local community? Those local teachers he has demeaned and attacked? How can Richardville claim to represent those who are his constituents?


Richardville Lays Out His Plan of Attack on OFF THE RECORD

HOST TIM SKUBICK TO RICHARDVILLE: Right to work?

RICHARDVILLE: Uh, not Right to Work. No, uh, I'm not a believer that that's going to transition the economy at this point. However, I will look at some other things, maybe a subset of that. If you pay dollars into a public school system, you send your kids there, you want to participate, I don't know that you necessarily need to be a part of a union in order to work or teach in the school district.

SKUBICK: So "Right to Work for Teachers".

RICHARDVILLE: I would call it the "Right to Teach" or "The Right to Participate" in the education system.

SKUBICK : Put that in a practical way. So that means that the MEA wouldn't get members or how would that work?

RICHARDVILLE: Well, they could still offer their membership but it, uh, it wouldn't be a forced membership. They would have to recruit and do their work off-campus.

DETROIT FREE PRESS REPORTER CHRIS CHRISTOFF: Why would single out schools for that? Public schools?

RICHARDVILLE: Well, because right now, the public schools are the one that are in dire straits and I believe that those unions and those workers that are out in the day-to-day, you know the teamsters, the engineers, the carpenters, the building trades, they've already had a significant effect from this economy. They're paying more for their health care, they have less hours, they're getting less pay.

They've had that effect directly.

What's happened in the public schools and, in some cases, the public government in general, is that that economic impact hasn't hit. And so we're making those adjustments for that reason.

SKUBICK: Is this an anti-MEA move?

RICHARDVILLE: No, no, not at all.

SKUBICK: An attempt to get even?

RICHARDVILLE: No, but we do have to "

SKUBICK: You're not trying to take on the MEA, right?

RICHARDVILLE: I don't think taking on any union has anything to do with what our agenda is.

SEE: 1. "Senate Majority Leader Richardville Takes Aim At MEA"

SEE 2. Off the Record, September 9, 2011.

The Off the Record transcript shows the shallow and uninformed mind-set of Richardville. His denial of the TeaPublican's obvious vindictive intent and obfuscation are affirmations of his own true motivation. He's a "tool" of forces so overwhelming, he cannot defend against their influence and survive.

Senator Richardville is a sell-out to the elites who are pulling down Michigan and also America. Cocksure of his devotion to corporate directed radical ideology, Sen. Richardville is profoundly wrong. Richardville will be well-remembered as an anti-education cutout lacking depth and dimension.

This dust-up; a spade of threatening, boorish, and angry anti-teacher legislation polluting the halls of lawmaking; and demeaning our premiere helping profession-those who are mentoring the young-rests with Richardville and his off-the-rails TeaPublican legislature.

Even though Rick Snyder may veto this Teacher/MEA/R2W legislation, if it's put on his desk, the damage done to these politicians will be long-lasting and with direct impact on the ability of these pols to retain or seek further office.

A Republican cannot go against the historic conservative tenets and time-honored standards of the GOP, local community, and the community's finest citizens and not suffer many serious repercussions of its own making.


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.

Positively Insane: Nerd Rick Snyder Doesn’t See or Comprehend His Role in the Systematic Decimation of Michigan

Snyder is one sad soul with a painted-on clown's happy face. He's so "into" his "nerdship" that he's unable to see how trapped and controlled he is. Rick Snyder came to the governorship with positive expectations, he was going to be "always positive." By putting a faux positive spin on every tough question or politically motivated legislative move, the Nerd was going to "Polly Anna" the state out of its one state depression. "Nerd" Snyder doesn't see or comprehend his key role in THE SYSTEMATIC DECIMATION OF MICHIGAN

Snyder did not understand or know the history of those "crony" operatives he embraced as advisers and staff- hold-over Englerites, American Legislative Exchange Council - A.L.E.C. bill delivery boys, and Mackinac Center types. The Nerd did not rightly comprehend or appreciate the fact THAT IDEOLOGUES ARE NOT TRIFLED WITH FACTS OR PUBLIC PROTEST-ROAD BLOCKS TO THEIR GOALS.

Swept Along by Corporatocracy
Snyder is unable to deal with the Far-Winger American Legislative Exchange Council (A.L.E.C.'s) ability to dominate much of the nation with pro-corporate "Plug & Play", fill-in-the-blank bill generation that amounts to a national coup by the Radical Right.

Now Michigan's "nerd" governor is neutralized and neutered in a very profound way. If "just one" of the some two dozen recall efforts succeed, there will be a huge political sea change says political soothsayer, Bill Ballenger, editor of Inside Michigan.

We all are on our way to pay BIG the price for Snyder's advanced "nerd" affliction.

Rick Snyder slip-streamed the voters with his brazen method of avoiding the revelation of what he would do to "reinvent Michigan," even refusing to fully present or debate his radical proposals in public.

Most crossovers and independents had high hopes, as did former Gov. William Milliken, that Snyder would move Michigan forward in a truly communal and common sense way-that's why they voted for him. Snyder was to be a breath of fresh air. The voters had no idea that Snyder would become the handy dandy "tool" of the Tea Party faction-backed and funded by conniving Corporatists such as the Brothers Koch, "Rotten" Murdock, and spinmeister Karl Rove.

Reinvention-A Catch Word/Canard
Do we need to re-invent the wheel? No, we have the wheel and it works. Did we need to so savage the governmental infrastructure and the legislation underlying our state-giving a huge, unprecedented TAXPAYER FUNDED BAILOUT TO BUSINESS AND CORPORATIONS?...NO.

A temporary Michigan income tax hike of less than one-half a percent would have covered the state deficit and prevented the coming economic and educational carnage.

As the details unfold; as they are being published now across the state,  we find that taxpayers are taking a very uneven and egregious hit with new taxes.

The Michigan House Fiscal Agency analysis reports:

• A couple with 3 children making $110,000 annually will take a tax hit of $190 while a couple making $55,000 will take a hit of $549 in NEW TAXES.
• A couple with 2 children earning $250,000 will pay $989 MORE IN TAXES because they will lose personal exemptions for joint filers earning over $200,000.
• A couple married with 2 children and making $34,000, less the removal of earned income credit, will pay MORE IN TAXES to the tune of $396.
• A Michigan retired couple, born after 1952 with $53,000 in income and property taxes of $4,000, will lose their entire homestead credit and pay Michigan Income Taxes on all of their pension(s) which will mean a whopping $3,130 TAX INCREASE. That's enough to make the couple decide to move outstate and take their remaining assets with them.

Take these TAX HITS watchdog TeaPublican Nut-Wingers. This is A MONUMENTAL VIOLATION OF T.P. BASIC PRINCIPLES. It's the dreaded Snyder/Chamber of Commerce taxpayer funded Business BAIL-OUT. Are TP'ers (Tea Party followers) going to simply roll over and take this duplicity? Or will they fight back?

Nerd "Positive" claims his gargantuan tax increase is not a tax increase. The way he sees things, in his rose colored world, shifting nearly two billion dollars away from businesses and corporations and on to elders, the middle class, and the poor is "not a net tax increase." Thus, in Nerd Speak, those who are being hit with paying a whopping new state income tax increase are delusional. Go figure!

The Nerd is being classically the "nerd" we all are familiar with: A quirky personality with a one track mindset, one who relentlessly and "positively" pursues his own version and vision of things, to the utter exclusion of all true facts or reality.

Rick Snyder, in self-labeling himself as a "Nerd," sent a signal that was clearly misread by the public. This nerd is out of control, as is his legislative Super Majority of tax hating wing-nuts. Theirs is a world of unreality and economic disaster for all of Michigan.

Michigan voters have THE RIGHT OF RECALL.

The recall paperwork is filed and approved.

O.K. LET'S ROLL....


Original Post.

KKK Era Ghosts Arise In Snyder’s Newly Re-Invention: Michassippi

Michassippi Miasma: "Muscular" Anti-Public Service TeaPublicans join forces with "Muscular Christianity" in a crusade akin to the KKK's zenith of power and influence in Michigan during the 1920's; A time when an estimated 17,000 Klansmen marched openly on Lansing in a bodacious show of social force and powerful influence.

A trove of names and paraphernalia were found, hidden a former Newaygo minister's attic. It was a revealing 1920's collection of who and how well-placed in the community local KKK's men were. This event is a clear and timely reminder of the cyclical outbreak of Michassippi religious and political fanaticism.

Diehard TeaPartisans in the state legislature are steely well-defended against all reason or compromise by very the rise and the backing of this current (but historically familiar) outbreak of another militant Know Nothing frenzy (TeaPartisanship) and it's accompanying Koch Bros.-backed CORPORATIST RUSH TO USE GOVERNMENT TO DESTROY GOVERNMENT. The "muscular" movement is well underway here in Snyder's re-invented state: Michassippi.

Trouble Is Emerging
Swept along and cleverly manipulated, the TeaPublican's militant, arrogant and ignorant, movement has become the "tool" of the State Chamber of Commerce and affiliates; men who would risk endemic damage to our new Michassippian infrastructure and gamble with the potential for serious social unrest in the centers where more and more of the underclass are ghettoized while using this their "opportunity" to make selfish gains. This risk is intensified by this greedy and parsimonious group of individuals willing to "risk it all" for-a few more dollars on their bottom lines.

TeaPublicans Are Takers, Not Givers
Key to this fanatical effort (co-opted by power driven business and corporate interests) are the deadly determined "muscular" Christian types. These are the hardhearted who have succeeded in seizing control of the state's traditional Republican Party for their sectarian and private causes and agendas.

Never far below the surface is the ugly reality of an intense Cultural War targeting enemies and politics outside the acceptance of these "muscular" theoloticians strict world of "liberty." These battles are feeding and augmenting their aggression toward targeted "others."

These Zealots' worldview is set against what they characterize and condemn as the present state of affairs, as they view it: "feminized" politics and religion. "Nanny State" is but one of their favorite and oft repeated terms of derision highlighting their angst.

Michassippi's TeaPartiasns are the "Strict Father" types, "muscular" men who must "put their foot down," take total control, and sternly discipline the "Nurturing Mother" elements in our state- those who would seek to care for and attend the needs of others-especially in this our hour of great need.

According to Dome Magazine's Eric Freedman, Michigan: Hate Magnet?: "the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit national civil rights organization, says 35 hate groups (are active in Michigan)- more than in any other Midwest state..."

A newly published account of this "forgotten" evil smudge on our state's radical past is found in the following according to Freedman:

"A new book by historian Craig Fox describes Michigan's KKK movement after World War I, focusing on rural Newaygo County and its strong anti-Catholicism. Given the clandestine nature of the organization, its diversified organizational structure and the destruction of most of its records, there's no precise figure on the number of "Invisible Empire" members across the state during that period. Estimates ranged from 80,000 to as high as 875,000."

"As it had done elsewhere, the Klan swept across Michigan like wildfire, an extended recruitment drive seeing the hooded order arrive in villages, towns and cities through the state during the summer months of 1923."

The influence of the KKK in Michigan was so strong that Frank Boles, at Central Michigan's Clarke Library, reported, "...that for a few short years in the 1920s, the Klan exerted a strong political influence on Michigan and was close to electing Klan members to the highest political offices. A referendum on banning private education was even proposed by the Klan. Boles writes:

" The ban on private education was directed primarily toward Roman Catholics, the KKK target of choice at that time."

"It (Michigan's 1920's KKK) was a broadly based organization which was mostly anti-immigrant and anti Catholic. A lot of people felt that way, and they were not perceived as fringe or kooks."

The Role of the "Muscular Christian" in Harsh Right Politics

Observer Austin Cline helps us see how this "muscular Christian" archetype works into our present states' politics and helps to explain the bitterness and the vengeance wreaked upon public servants and advocates for the Public Good-the high ground of a Commons "in the service of everyone."

Under Michassippi's "Muscular TeaPartisan" rampage and the hour of power facilitated by the "Leave us Alone" Libertarians-touting "liberty" to be and do as they please-all others outside their circle of concern, "be damned," has come to signal terrible the beginnings of the most radical and extreme regime ever seen in Lansing.

Outlawed are the very themes of social justice and democracy-in their most American form. Enter now the realm of "power and might," money and control espousing: business is basic. They are "lording it over" care and service "the nurturing element" which is essential to lives of working families and to the existence of those less fortunate in this troubled economy.

There is much to learn from Cline about this devolution into radical conflict:

"Because Muscular Christianity focuses on replacing feminine qualities with masculine virtues, it necessarily involves attacks on women in the church. The attacks may be subtle, but there is an inevitable denigration of everything associated with women. By insisting that Jesus, God, and the Christian church are masculine and specifically not feminine, the message is sent that feminine qualities are inferior to everything masculine. Women are also blamed for problems in the church."

It is logical and easy to see that "muscular Christian" far right christo-polticians and others - so deeply infiltrating Michassippi's theololitics; with the help of the "muscular" theoloticians - expands this rabble's condemnation of the "feminine." Their condemnation includes public school teachers. Mentors and education instructors are derided as "soft" and lack the stern discipline of a "muscular." All this harks back to authority such as is found in the 19th Century industrial model of leadership and rigid order: "I'm the boss, you are the peon." When educators and teacher complain of the lack of support and the "muscular radicals'" cuts in revenues and public support - such as they are currently facing; they are called "Wimps" and "Whiners"

So we turn again to Austin Cline for a summation to enlighten the place we find ourselves. We are midstream in our present and accelerating race to the bottom of the nation on the basis of Rick Snyder's re-invention of our former Arsenal of Democracy into a stripped down Snyder led Michassippi:

"Muscular Christianity was founded upon a radical, as well as theological, distinction between supposedly masculine and feminine values. Because of this, it was possible for fundamentalists opposed to modernity to transfer what they disliked about modernity to the "feminine" category. THUS WOMEN BECAME BEARERS OF ALL THAT WAS HATED ABOUT THE MODERN WORLD WHILE MEN WERE INVESTED WITH EVERYTHING GOOD AND POSITIVE.

"A significant impetus behind the assault on women and modernity was the feeling that women had encroached upon traditional male spheres like the workplace and colleges. Furthermore, women's leadership in the churches had harmed Christianity by creating an effeminate clergy and a weak sense of self. All of this was associated with liberalism, feminism, women, and modernity.

"Although examples of something like muscular Christianity can be found in ancient Christianity and in Europe, it is primarily an American phenomenon and an American fundamentalist reaction against the modern era of equality and liberty. Muscular Christianity pushes masculinity in part by pushing traditional hierarchies and traditional structures of authority - structures which, naturally, are run and controlled by men. FIGHTING AGAINST THE "FEMINIZATION" OF CHURCH OR SOCIETY IS, THUS, A FIGHT AGAINST THE LOSS OF TRADITIONAL PRIVILEGES AND POWER. (emphasis added)

"Indeed, the development of fundamentalism and later the Christian Right can be described, at least in part, as a reaction against equality and an attempt to defend or restore traditional privileges. Because so many privileges are bound up with traditions which themselves are tied closely with religion, it's natural that assaults on traditional privileges will be seen as assaults on religion.

"IN A WAY, THEY ARE AN ASSAULT ON RELIGION - RELIGION IS PARTIALLY TO BLAME FOR THE PERSISTENCE OF UNJUST PRIVILEGES IN SOCIETY. JUST BECAUSE INEQUALITY AND PRIVILEGE HAVE RELIGIOUS BACKING DOESN'T MAKE THEM EXEMPT FROM RATIONAL EVALUATION AND CRITICISM." (emphasis added)

The all out attacks on workers rights, public education, and public service now under "full steam ahead" in Michassippi are clear signals of a deeper flaw and a more fundamental evil. If we could recall DIETRICH BONHOFFER he would doubtless agree with Cline:

"Traditional masculine qualities played a very important role in Nazi rhetoric, so of course Nazi Christians preferred a masculine Christianity over a feminine one. True Christianity, they claimed, was manly and hard, not feminine and weak. Adolf Hitler described Jesus, "my Lord and Savior," as "a fighter." His Jesus, and the Jesus of German Christians generally, was a militant warrior fighting for God, not a suffering servant accepting punishment for the sins of the world."

Specifically, TeaPublican's specious attacks on public education target and punish women more than men. Over 65 % ,and higher percentages, of public school teachers are women and women have become the "easy/soft" targets of choice for the greedy and the evilly ideological anti-public sector business and religious types.

Teaching women are high value targets in the Michassippi take down of public education and teacher rights and privileges by the states elected TeaPublicans and fellow travelers.

Original Post.

Dan Calabrese’s Scripture of the Day

Dan, we've been praying for you, we thought you would surely want to join this Christian business network:

The U.S. Christian Chamber of Commerce. Here's today's helpful scripture from their web site:

"(F)or it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life - in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing."
-- Phil 2:13 - 16

Dan, you will be greatly helped in your troubling journey dealing with worldly shortcuts which can tempt a businessman. By association with others in the USCCC, you will find those who can help you find your way back to basic values and a Christlike model for your business(es).

The USCCC's motto/Mission statement will be a helpful guide:

"To preserve and advance the Judeo-Christian principle-based system of free enterprise in America by elevating Christian-led organizations to a new standard of operating excellence so that we would truly become God-honoring and culturally-impacting."

To jump start your new journey to peace with God in your business dealings, we recommend the following article:

THE DECLINE OF ETHICAL BEHAVIOR IN AMERICAN BUSINESS
By Greg Northrup, contributing writer to USCCC.

"There are signs of problems everywhere. A meltdown in financial markets resulting from a government wanting to make home ownership easier for people, and blackmailing lenders to reduce credit standards. Lenders, seeing a way to make a quick buck, by writing mortgages that misled borrowers, and then reselling the mortgages to investors for a quick profit. Investors, creating incomprehensible mortgage backed securities that avoided regulation, and that were so complicated they could make enormous commissions on them. Borrowers, sometimes lying on loan applications, sometimes taking on way more debt than they could afford to pay, to try to make a buck in the housing market. Politicians turning the backs on their oversight responsibilities and taking campaign contributions from the perpetrators. There were breakdowns in moral and ethical behavior throughout the system.

"This financial meltdown shows us the breadth and depth of this moral crisis, but we see signs of ethical collapse all around us. Credit Card companies misleading borrowers and charging outrageous fees and interest rates. Boards of Directors approving ridiculous compensation levels for senior managers that are unrelated to what other people in the organizations are making, and not based on performance, while receiving high amounts of Directors compensation themselves. Businesses making it so difficult for customers to receive support that they give up trying. Health insurance companies taking advantage of people by dropping them or charging outrageous premiums at times when they are most vulnerable. Businesses laying off some workers while forcing others to work long hours, and having to deal with almost incapacitating levels of stress. Businesses and business organizations spending fortunes lobbying government, and giving campaign contributions to politicians, paying more attention to them than they do their customers or employees. Businesses preparing fraudulent financial statements, and once independent CPAs, looking the other way, and signing off on them, so they can get lucrative consulting contracts from their audit clients.

"This isn't the way things used to be. We used to be able to rely on a certain level of honesty, fairness, and commitment to customers and employees. Why was that? What is different now?

"Chuck Colson, in one his books, wrote about being asked to speak about ethics at an Ivy League business school. After meeting with them, he concluded that it was pointless to talk with most of the instructors and students because they had no basis or foundation for ethics. You see, they do not believe in any source of absolute truth. For them, all truth is relative. Your truth may be different than mine. Truth, or what is right or wrong, depends on the circumstances. Utility, or getting the outcomes you want, becomes the driving factor. GUESS WHERE A LOT OF THESE IVY LEAGUE GRADUATES ENDED UP? WALL STREET AND GOVERNMENT, AND MANY MORE MOVE INTO MANAGEMENT POSITIONS IN BUSINESS.

"IN THE PAST, JUDEO-CHRISTIAN BELIEFS ABOUT WHAT IS RIGHT AND WRONG, WERE THE DEFAULT POSITION IN OUR SOCIETY. EVEN THOUGH EVERYONE WAS NOT CHRISTIAN OR JEWISH, THERE WAS SORT-OF AN UNOFFICIAL UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT THE UNDERLYING BASIS FOR ETHICS AND MORALITY WAS.
[emphasis added]

Today that is gone, and the reality is that there is no underlying basis for ethics and morality, so anything goes. That means that I can do whatever I want, given my own take on morality. We are beginning to see what the consequences of this kind of thinking are. We are still early in this game. Things are going to get much worse.

That is where we come in as Christian business men and women.

"The reality is that we are the last bulwark against a total collapse of business ethics and morality. That is a lot of pressure, but we shouldn't kid ourselves into thinking otherwise. It is important for us to get clear about the role that God wants us to play in this time and place. On the one hand, it is discouraging and scary. On the other, what an opportunity for Christians to make a critical difference in our country and the world."

Let us know if you find the support given by U.S. Christian Chamber of Commerce helpful.


Original Post.

Kalkaska ! Kalkaska ! Kalkaska ! Remember That Sad Event.

Michigan's Executive Branch is in a flat spin. In politics perception is everything. What has gone on in 3 months of Snyderism has been a total civic disaster: No Jobs, No Jobs, No Jobs.

It's become so bad, so quickly, PR/Spinmeister John Yob has been hired back to patch up the gapping rip in the fabric of the governorship by attempting to interpret Snyder's faux pas (which are highly embarrassing to the office of governor and his party) trying to put things back in a favorable way; The Executive Branch of Michigan is in a flat spin. A stiffly stubborn and defiant Tricky Rick is sure to take it down even further down to failure uncorrected.

Read Daniel Howes column: "Why' overlooked in Snyder budget plan" 3/31/11, and see where Howes points to the failure of Snyder's one word mission: FAIRNESS.

"KALKASKA AGAIN" SHOULD STRIKE REAL FEAR If you will note from the reference (in Repubteach's recent entry Water Cooler entry, the Kalkaska incident was raised by a third party, not Repubteach) Kalkaska is a signal "event." One of those milestones that shook and shaped the direction of the entire Engler Revolution and resulted in major changes in how Michigan schools are financed.

Eventual passage of Proposition A, which rectified many of the problems of school funding, was a direct outcome of the "Kalkaska Moment." Prop A did, for a period, meet the needs of many school districts, especially like those of rural Kalkaska. However, it was flawed. At the same time Prop A failed certian districts such as Rockford. But rather than build on its strengths, certain aggressive partisans during the Granholm years let it languish and fail. This crisis is fed and fueled by the "disaster capitalism" endemic to the demands of a radicalized GOP/Koch Brothers A.L.E.C. playbook.

In 1993 Powerful Corporate Lobbyists Circled Their Wagons The tremendous lobbying pressure from Consumers Power, the Mackinac Center, the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, et al, produced classic media scenes like Speaker Paul Hillegonds (drawn away from his children brought to visit daddy in the House Chamber during one of those late-night sessions leading up to the rush to get school funding finished by Christmas Eve 1993. Under great pressure from Business, Hillegonds, called to the House foyer. There he was to be literally surrounded by these business-is-first lobbyists seeking a "good deal cut" into the pending school funding legislation. They surrounded Speaker Hillegonds in the manner wolves surround their quay, intense and demanding.

The outcome of such events,etched a vivid image; and convey something noteworthy of informing novice Rick Snyder as to the historic facts surrounding that crisis: Engler, with all his more than two dozen tax cuts and slick parliamentary/political shenanigans, acted in a very different manner than that of Snyder. JOHN ENGLER POURED MORE MONEY INTO PUBLIC EDUCATION, NOT LESS.

Engler's support for public education was to become much more over time. His generously in the second half of his tenure as governor would be considered, in this new coercive and negativist Teapartisan environment, totally rejected and fervently protested by the tax-haters who have inhabited the party and now the Legislature. Most notably the Know Nothing Leon Dorlet, daddy of the big pink pig metered at the capitol curb for weeks.

DID YOU GET THAT? JOHN ENGLER, THAT ICON OF GOVERNMENT AND TAX CUTS AND TOUGH TALK, ADDED MORE TO THE REVENUES GOING TO EDUCATION.

Yes, the teachers' professional association did pay a price in terms of loss of certain areas of their interests, but good things for Michigan's school children came out of it. Kalkaska's kids got their school up-and-going and from the looks of the present school plant, and newer community facilities built for youths, they have done reasonably well, until Snyder.

Among the lobbyists who haunted the halls of Lansing during this time ('93) was Dick DeVos. This scion to billions was developing his bitter antagonism to public schools even then; he, and wife Betsy, have gone wild subsequently. This divisive coulple has aggressively chosen to become a national scourge; spending millions of their children's hand-me-down inheritance to foster Republican against Republican, division and dissention, bitter rancor in many states; as far west as Utah and in the South in places like Missouri and Virginia.

If you recall, as surely you must, the Dick & Betsy push to pass the 2 to 1 rejected voucher proposal which was DeVos backed had large negative political effects. Their effort helped to undermine the national election for GOP president G.W. Bush by throwing Michigan to Al Gore and leading to Florida and the highly controversial Supreme Court's tragic decision that put GWB in the White House. The voucher campaign also caused Engler and Betsy to fall out with each other. Betsy, most recently, pictures herself arm by arm with Chris Christie of New Jersey, the nation's ponderous bully-boy provocateur and tormenter of public servants and teachers> This is Betsy's latest foray into destructive ideological warfare. Interestingly, The prototype for Christie was John Engler.

Kalkaska! How can any political party call for and support the undermining of public education?

Education in a neighborhood school supported and beloved by the community and guided by the traditional civic-minded school board members, who were often business people and professionals, were once respected and honored.

Not now, and not anymore. These Det/News blogs over the years have contained an unrelenting venom and countless vituperative rants for which the News' editor and his staff are guilty for exciting. These published sentiments reflect a systemic anti-intellectual strand that has destroyed the comrade of the commons and poisoned the politics of our entire state. The hatred and ill-will ginned up here is palpable. Now, at this very low moment, we cannibalize ourselves in our own toxic opines and dark-think.

Dwalt, I have seen what we have done to with "poison politics" to destroy our better selves. We are rank failures in art of good government. In politics, perception is everything. Now 100 and more Kalkasks await a clueless Rick Snyder. (Actually the latest count is over 140) All this as the nation looks on in disbelief and repulsion.

The nation's negative perception of our state's culture will hurt us mightily. Dwalt, you and I will live to deeply regret this outpouring of ideological distemper.

The high hopes and the sincere prayers of Michigan citizens is for a better Michigan, a place of peace and prosperity. But our darkside indulgences are pulling us back. We seem helpless to break ranks and resume the climb upward and onward.

Many of us had hoped what appeared to be a political outsider, clean from our mucky politics of the last decades, would point the way out. A majority of voters hoped Rick Snyder would truly unite us in an honorable and pro-active fashion. But, no, the appetite for "red meat" politics and reprisals has pulled us back and Rick Snyder with us; back toward the pit of our own destruction.

How sad. How disappointing and how hopeless a future for our children we are creating by degrading their public school heritage and children's futures with our mean-spiritedness and corporate greed..

We must repent and re-learn honest compromise and the goodwill evolving from a willing cooperation in our politics and legislation or we lose everything we value.

Original Post.

Michigan's "Emergency Financial Manager Reform" is Bogus.

What passes as “emergency financial manager reform” is bogus. Don’t Buy Into It.

The Englerite Snyder strategists have overstepped, they are seeking to destroy collective bargaining by means of the backdoor device: H.B. 4215 is a cleverly designed device to force the cunning perversion of collective bargaining's framework as a cost cutting wedge. At the same time the proposed bill carries in it a threat to smash units that are being intentionally targeted by Snyder-driven cash shortages ($470/student in education, Huge cuts in Block Grants to Firefighters, etc.).

The bill empowers Snyder to strangle those units, vesting anti-democratic powers in the hands of "Emergency Finance Managers) slick attorneys already being trained by State Treasurer Andy Dillon and Pluckett/Cooney (Super High Fee Legal Beagles) to effect radical dictatorial rule and powers; as proposed in H.B. 4215; to effectively use collective bargaining as a weapon against labor and teachers, creating harmful and capricious damage to local government services.

Tricky Rick: Kill Collective Bargaining by the Inch by Inch Tricky Rick wants to see collective bargaining used to blow away opposition to his radical re-organization of Michigan's wealth out of the hands of those whose skills and career training have earned it into the hands of the constant whiners at the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and the bomb throwers at the Mackinac Centers' bawdy corporatist propaganda mill.

The News Editorial 3/6/11, ("Union attack on emergency financial manager reform is about protecting the status quo") acknowledges one clear fact; H.B. 4215 gives the Emergency Financial Manager "the power to break collective bargaining agreements that are deemed to be contributing to a community's or school district's financial failure."

Snyder Thinks He's Pulled Off A Coup As in the old story: One guy, too cheap to have my dog's tail bobbed as in the tradition vet method, so he fancied saving expense by cutting its tail off half-an-inch-at-a-time; because it's cheaper and so it won't hurt the dog so much, he rationalized. Thus with Snyder: The hurt, the acrimony and dissension inherent under the purview of H.B. 4215 is fiendishly divisive and long lasting its purposeful disunity. It will turn neighbor against neighbor; under government top-down outside pressure from Lansing many bad things will occur.

Remember when we lost local control over school operating costs under Engler's Prop A ? And now we pay the piper.

Tea Partiers Duped: Local Control Smashed - Big Government Smashes the Little Guy 

This not what Tea Party people wanted when they called for local input and protection from excessive and coercive government intervention into how our money at the local level would and could be spent. This not why TPers voted in Legislators to do. They wanted Legislators who would carry out their wishes - protecting local revenues and rights-or so they said.

Wake up Teapartisans! You've been diddled.


Original Post.

Gov Rick Snyder Budget Robs Corner Grocery & Stiffs Local Health Care

Snyder Tax Cuts Kill Jobs & Undermine Michigan's struggling economy!

Wrote a Michigan political observer:

"Most thinking adults understand that public spending in a mixed economy does drive economic activity. Unthinking adults instead yell and shout and demand that public institutions be torn down as a symbol of all that is evil in the world."

When applied to Michigan; this fact portends a very real negative impact. Public workers do vital work; firefighters put their lives on the line for victims of house fires. Police race to save the lives of crime victims. Corrections officers keep felons in line who sometimes attempt to kill or abuse them with unspeakable acts of subhuman abomination. School teachers do their sacred work. And there are many more services and skills included in the public sector services we all enjoy.

All these individuals, professionals, contribute to the "greater good;" their incomes purchase goods and services in the local communities, where they reside all across our state. Those benefits state and public workers receive support dentists and hospitals; doctors and medical technicians in hospitals; and accrue to balance the books helping offsetting those who have no provisions for health insurance (who cannot & do not pay), thus supporting the financial well-being of medical and health care in the farthest reaches of the state and across the U.P.

Cut Off Your Nose to Spite Your Face The selfish wish of business and such grudging propaganda mills as The Mackinac Center (now organically close-knit to the Detroit News on its new "The Michigan View") have ridden a decades' long bitter campaign to take huge bite out of public sector employees, appealing to the baser greed of some (Teapartisans) who join the anti-civil curmudgeon (in dutiful service to the greedy selfish elites) Grover Norquist; who would crudely drown the public's necessary government-shrunken down into a bathtub of red ink.

Rick Snyder's cuts in public compensation will result directly in hundreds of millions of fewer dollars making the all important revenue cycle that local salaries and benefits provide in vital support of a "needy" Michigan consumer economy. 
__________________

Business-headed, bean-counter Rick Snyder sees his role as demanding taxpayers "gift" his business buddies with hundreds of millions, while he insists on "takings" from your neighbors who are in daily and often dangerous service to you and your children.

Small business people, who are organized in the commercial sector "union" we know as the Chamber of Commerce, are wrongheaded in seeking "enrichment" from Gov. Snyder and their "new commercial sector zealots" in the hostile and aggressive Teapartiasn majorities domineering in both the Michigan House and Senate. These "newbees" are seeking to go too far.

Teapublicans are ginned up by Newt Gingirch, darling of the hardcore ideologues, who frequently visits Michigan and who has used his wily skills to cuckold the National Republican Governor's Association into a "do or die" war with the providers of our vital services all across America.

Pray for our country. Delusion and confusion are the enemies of our future. Resist those who want to profit from massive regression and risk the real threat of a 21st Century Great Depression.

Right now unspeakable social tragedy can happen if Norquist and Gingrich prevail in their rampage & false leadership; calling out to find a slavish following in the nations' many State Houses. 

Let Michigan beware!


Original Post.

Hank's Jaundiced View: Michigan View's Henry Payne Knows How to Spend Retirees Money

Response to Henry Payne  in “Democratic Party fundamentals at stake” in Detroit News Michigan View on February 23, 2011.

Hank Payne knows better than Michigan's public working staff and employees, and its superannuated career retirees, how they should spend their incomes. Unless you follow the hayseed myth one might not understand that: If you draw an income from taxes, taxpayers can dictate every cent you receive as-to-how it will be spent; for as the teapartisan mantra goes, "It's our money."

Hank's pretty firm. What irks him, sez Hank is the fact that union members get all that "rich pay and benefit plans" (Democratic Party fundamentals at stake, 2.23.11) and his work at the News isn't being sufficiently competitive in giving him enough. He acts as though has a god-given right to be jealous! After all he's family man, living in an elite suburb, and blessed with a Princeton U degree to boot!

Don't forget Hank's paper is in receding readership and financial decline. The folks down in the press room have made serious concessions just to keep such a highly educated talent as the News' political cartoonist supplied with red ink and a drawing pad. Nonetheless, he believes (because it helps him through his day) those pressmen are victims because "dues extracted from union members" are a waste of income.

Hank ought to think twice.

Maybe under the new Snyder "tax harvesting" of retirees pensions for give-backs to favored corporations and special businesses (represented so well by the "union" of Chamber of Commerce members), there will be fewer subscriptions and weekend buys of his rag and annual raises won't be forthcoming.

Then mayhap, the readers will figure out who brought on this "retirement income tax" down on them, and who it was who campaigned to further aggravate drops in their fixed incomes (post '08 market collapse & shortfalls).

They'll doubtless simply boycott the News altogether.

Then, shortly Hank's meager income and benefits, if any, will take a southward dive.

Original Post.

Gov Granholm’s tax hike is the wrong or right thing?

Response to Nolan Finley "Gov’s (Governor Jennifer Granholm) tax hike ploy is reckless" in the Detroit News on November 15, 2009.

Intro of Finley piece:

"There's something Gov. Jennifer Granholm isn't mentioning as she barnstorms the state to leverage the deep cuts she orchestrated in school funding into the sales tax hike she's long coveted. The governor isn't telling angry and fearful parents that there's at least $1 billion, and perhaps more than $2 billion, in education money to be had if she'd stop obsessing over the fact that there's still a few dollars left in our wallets she hasn't taxed.

"She's absolutely looking for taxes and ignoring the low hanging fruit that could be had from reform if she had the leadership to pursue it," says Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, who's tired of Granholm blaming him for the cuts. "

Another Clip:

"House Speaker Andy Dillon has proposed placing all public employees into a single health insurance pool to save, he says, $900 million. But that's going nowhere, again because of the MEA's opposition and Granholm's indifference.

It's a reform that wouldn't cost a single teacher job. And as an added benefit it would make obsolete the MEA's insurance affiliate, MESSA. MESSA is sitting on an estimated $450 million reserve, money skimmed from the school districts it serves. It would be worth exploring whether the districts would have a claim on the money if MESSA was reformed out of business."

-----
Gov’s tax hike is the right thing

Would to God Nolan's neck were not so stiff and frozen in a naysayers nod. Perhaps he needs a therapeutic message, hopefully he could afford such.

One has to wonder if Finley can make a move without consulting with that hovering covey of cathouse ideologues at the Mackinac Center or the one-note, business first last and always, State Chamber of Commerce.

Just a quick review of the unfolding of the Mackinac Center’s  "50 fixes for Michigan" shows the real agenda that drives Nolan's thought patterns.

Looking back over years of clippings from the News and other papers plus reading and rereading those columns, statements, news items, releases and editorials from statewide sources, one realizes that for well-over 20 years the Detroit News has been hamstrung by repetitive and negative attitudes and has been short-sighted, if not a blind-sided ideologue paper trumpeting long-sought goals that do not embellish or improve the public square or the common good.

As much a negativist and as self-serving as John Engler was, he was always a pragmatist.

I recall observing first hand his going into the Republican State Senate Caucus for a desired purpose and coming away angry and empty handed. Did he huff and puff publicly, like the much weaker, milquetoast Michael Bishop? No. Engler simply sent into the GOP caucus Al Short, MEA's head of governmental affairs, and got the result he needed.

Sen. Bishop is tethered to an oath not to raise taxes and he is powerless, if not helpless to do anything but obstruct and obfuscate both the governor's leadership and the general public's desire, which polling shows, would support some tax increases to tide the state over this very difficult period of economic downturn.

To quote John Engler from his State of the State in 1997:

"Being for public education means making sure that every school, every classroom, every teacher, every student is safe."

"BEING FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION MEANS KEEPING EDUCATION OUR TOP PRIORITY!"

"One key to quality education is quality teachers. Proud, passionate -- these professional men and women are making a difference in the lives of students every day. That's why I was outraged to read in the Detroit News that in one high school this year nine teachers have been assaulted."

"When teachers are attacked in their own classrooms, academic performance is also a casualty. I may be old fashioned, but it seems to me, if a student lays a hand on a teacher, that student is gone."

And so what did Engler put forward? Confrontation and stalemate, No, never. He called for collaboration and cooperation from two well-known sources, the Federation of Teachers and the Michigan Education Association.

Here's the Engler quote:

"Further, I invite the leadership of the Michigan Federation of Teachers and the Michigan Education Association to join with us in developing and passing this legislation."

Finley's sour cynicism and harping has resulted in comments such as this from whyareyousoangry, Rochester, MI:

"(Finley's) logic--if there is any--is laughable, and I am SO tired of his hatred of teachers, state workers and anyone else who worked for any of the automakers, EXCEPT the company CEOs who mismanaged them into the ground. Finley loves company execs, even when they are proven incompetent. It's a viewpoint I can't wrap my head around, as the EDUCATED owner of a small business trying to make it in this state. He is a great example of why people like me cannot stomach the Republican Party anymore." And the comment concludes: "I am not the only one who thinks Nolan Finley is nothing but a worthless shill for a few SE Michigan moguls. Hope those moguls are ready to bail the Detroit News out when all the readers are gone."

Pretty Boy Bishop is running out of time and electability for any future statewide office. He must sense it now, and what can he do? He's lost control. Mike's caught in the timeless methodology and inertia of a state legislature that has gone "out to lunch" in terms of tackling the real problems of Michigan, or should we say "out to hunt?"

All the arguments and comment about how dire the situation is, and how desperate the legislature is to resolve it (with more taxes or without) are "blown away" by their craven self-indulgence and stoic indifference to the needs of children and families in this once great state. We say "get to work!" Get to work co-operatively right now.

In this crisis, which incidentally is just one of many from the past, relabeled "the 2009 budget crisis," has all the ingredients which are basically the same; repeated often in the last 20 years, the projected solution always includes some form of "reform" and as relates to education. The "crisis" always includes demanded give-backs or something punitive.

A lot of foul hot air goes into the rhetorical posturing, such as the recent You-Tube speech of Sen. Alan Cropsey, where he projects the blame wherever he likes (his favorite whipping object, MEA), but not at his own stiff-necked party of covenant-bound hostages, held to a foolhardy oath extracted by the out-of-state no-tax wingnuts the GOP has come to fear more than the state's economic collapse.

Many taxpayers would gladly give a $1 a day to move Michigan forward.

Original Post.

Don’t let propaganda and fear prevent Michigan from winning 600 million for state education

There is a timeless quandary: What is more important to a child's, heredity or environment?

When it comes to children and their achievement in education, how does this question apply? We are learning, but as of yet we don't fully understand. But one thinks the News must know, look how assertive they are on all things related to public schools.

The Detroit News has launched out again against both the Detroit Federation of Teachers and the Michigan Education Association in a hamfisted manner. To the members of the MEA it asserts, "Don't let propaganda and fear prevent Michigan from winning." Nov. 12, 2009. To the Federation it demands, "Make student performance not teacher protectionism the top priority" Sept.23, 2009.

The News picked up on the phrase: Teacher quality is the No. 1 predictor of student achievement.

That is a non-holistic and incomplete statement of fact concerning how students achieve and why. But it is a neat silver bullet for winning an argument or nailing down another plank in an anti-public school effort. Common sense tells the astute observer there's much more to student outcomes that whatever "teacher quality" is, as defined by the originator of that, or yet another survey or academic study. Is it heredity, the "bell curve" or environment "unionized schools"? If the study comes from one of so many harshly critical think thanks such as the Heartland Institute, then consider the source.

Both of these incidents of hectoring come from the same chum bucket. As of today, there are published 38 of the 50 News requirements to "Fix Michigan" displayed in the paper. Approximately 13 of these demands are related to public education, in some form, and there are 12 more suggestions to go.

It's obvious that the Detroit News is expecting the teachers to solve the basic and gargantuan problems of our time.

If only the teachers would tow under, and follow the will of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, the tax limitation teabaggers, and the intrepid corporatist/insurance endowed Mackinac Center for Public Policy, then progress could all be made.

The News, for years holed up in its headquarters with its window lights, architectural arches bricked in for security following the riots of 1967. One feels that has deeply influenced its own cynical quasi-Libertarian mindset.

It's easy to understand why there is disillusionment and angst in the News' editorial suite...but not excusable.

Let the News walk a weekday, 6 blocks, in a pupil's shoes.

Think of ones self as an innocent young girl walking to the neighborhood school past all those empty and sometimes burnt out, abandoned houses and structures. Buildings filled at times with rapists, druggies or squatters. What frame of mind would she have when she arrived at the classroom door? What fears or dread would haunt her as she contemplates returning home, latch key to her house, passing once again that gauntlet of neglect and criminal possibilities tolerated by Detroiters?

It has been reported that in some cases, even the Catholic church owns these kinds of properties. There aren't a few dozens of these structural hazards scattered about, there are hundreds and hundreds.

Time and again, the News has gone ballistic over picayune issues they conjure up to wedge their demands against teachers and work to take away the basis of commitment by the erstwhile supportive public.

In this time of national crisis, in this epoch of monumental manufacturing and industrial outsourcing to other states and third world countries, the News editors cannot bring themselves to step back and take a harsh and mind-boggling look at "real Detroit"-a dead and dying city in so many respects. One or two of the signal Detroit moments, historically of note in this regard, were: the exit of Hudson's from downtown and the summary closing of over two dozen Detroit area parish churches by the Catholic Bishops.

It's with great self-satisfaction that the Detroit News finds a "slam dunk" criticism in the offering of stimulus money in the form of $600 million in federal taxpayer monies, the state may acquire by compiling with the official guidelines for the Race to the Top's. "It is one of President Barack Obama's most innovative tools to spur states," chortles the News without in depth reflection.

Remember the News doesn't actually like stimulus spending, and says so. Several Michigan jurisdictions are loudly announcing they won't apply for stimulus cash or take it, if offered. At least one GOP Governor refuses all stimulus money to his state, irregardless of need.

So why is the News so hot to trot with the nascent U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, and his "new" trends?   Duncan is that bureaucrat from what the wild right calls the "gangster" machine-run Chicago. In this case, if it suits the News' long range purposes, go with it. So it is with partisan politics. When a circumstance hits on an opponent, all prior principles are naught compared to the "kill." .

There are good and fundamental reasons to reject the U.S. Department of Education's current proposals, just as there were with the "Leave No Child Behind", that fiasco  was cobbled together by G.W. Bush and Sen. Ted Kennedy: LNCB  continues to create more disillusionment and harm than good. Just ask Rep. Pete Hoekstra.

There are innumerable devils in the fine print details. At this point, seed money for this program is only about a year's worth. Just like several federal title programs, LNCB mandates, and other items the feds propose, the states and locals provide the ultimate costs and bear the burden of implementation and/or are threatened with huge penalties.

Nolan and crew don't see the fine line details and don't really care about the bottomlines either. "Race to the Top's a anti-teacher union zinger, let's push it.

In these financially troubled times as in all others, haste to radically change makes waste and further delays in real classroom outcomes and in the lives of children, captives/hostages to our failed thinking and our decaying infrastructure.

Every day, thank God, your next door neighbor, your fellow club member, member of the church down the block, leaves home to re-enter her or his classroom to do a precious job. Her/His ambition is to provide for the every need of her/His  students, to keep them safe, on task, and learning in her room, sheltered for the day from the gunshots her/his students hear throughout the night and the carnage they see on local TV news nearly every night of the year.

Her/His task is oft overwhelming and without proper support and encouragement. If she/he wants to begin a day with a bright outlook, going in to school, she'll/he’ll  not pick up the News until she/he  needs to change the lining in her/his bird cage at the end of a long day.

Original Post.