The Lansing Capitol Aviary: Peacocks Claiming to be Carrier Pigeons

Ignore the citizens & claim you know best how to govern without their participation: Snyder's Socialist "Central Planning" comes home to roost.

At least twice the Michigan Public said via polling by a 2 to 1 margin that they would accept and favor an increase in taxes to sustain the state and its many vital functions until this present economic distress passes. Never once did the Rick Snyder led TeaPublican majority respond or accept the will of the people -constituents they boast they represent and know best how to act on their behalf.

If a small increase of .3 to .5 percent increase in Michigan's income tax would have carried the state through the crisis that TeaPublicans egregiously and fraudulently used to put through a horrendous tax increase on the elderly, the poor, and pensioners.

The TeaPublicans are tone deaf to the cries of the unemployed-over a half a million Michigan workers without jobs and without prospects of jobs. These stone cold newbies and go-along remnants of former elections (being deathly afraid of being TP'ed in the next primary) have rolled-over to become lap dogs to extremism and paroxysms of anger and reprisal legislation.

A SIGNIFICANT "DEMOCRATIC" DEFICIT
In fact, the two profs uncovered a significant "democratic deficit":

"In Michigan, where the Governor's approval ratings hover at just over 32 percent as of August 2011, IT'S QUITE OBVIOUS THAT VOTERS ARE NOT AT ALL HAPPY WITH THE IDEOLOGY-BASED "FIXES" BEING IMPLEMENTED BY POLS. Lax and Phillips write, "[S]tates effectively translate majority opinion into policy only about half the time, a clear 'failing' grade on the congruence test. This is true even when majorities are large and when salience is high, which raises significant questions about the democratic performance of state government." This is certainly the case in Lansing, where POLICIES BEING IMPLEMENTED DO NOT represent THE RELATIVELY LIBERAL OPINIONS OF THE MAJORITY OF THE VOTERS."
(emphasis added)

SEE: "New Study Shows Michigan Ranks in Top 10 Among States in Which State and Local Politicos Ignore Public Opinion" by P.D. Lesko (As covered by A2Politico October 10, 2011 or READ the original REPORT).

PROMISED CUTS VERSUS FEATHERING THEIR OWN NESTS
The public wants to see the unrealistic ' bennies' of State legislators (serve 6 years in the legislature and get lifetime benefits) cut. So what actually happened ?

Tim Skubick reports:

"Whatever happened to the legislative mantra that all benefits for public workers be tied to those in the private sector where getting vested in six years is only a dream?

When the Michigan House took up this bill, THE MEASURE WOULD HAVE ENDED THIS BENEFIT FOR 109 OF THE 110 MEMBERS. In the state senate 32 of the 38 senators would have been exempted from the law. In other words they would keep their health care from the state until they turned 65.

Well a curious thing happened as the House measure moved around the capitol rotunda and arrived in the Upper Chamber a.k.a. the House of Lords or the state senate.

Instead of one representative keeping his benefits, the bill was changed to include 14. And instead of 32 senators, the number was kicked up to 36.

There must have been a reason for that and it was, MANY HOUSE AND SENATE FOLKS DIDN'T WANT TO LOSE WHAT THEY HAD, SO THEY WROTE THE BILL TO PROTECT THEMSELVES."
(emphasis added)

SEE: Tim Skubick in "Michigan Lawmakers Pull a Fast One on Health Care Benefits" October 11, 2011.

SO DOWN THOSE PEACOCK FEATHERS !

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.

Will Calabrese Clarify His Boast: Snyder Told the “Cold, Hard Truth” About Raising $900 Million in New Taxes From Michigan Pensioners

Response to Dan Calabrese Op-Ed “Rick Snyder: Leadership is found in thestatehouse, if not in the White House” in the Northern Star National on February 18th, 2011

Calabrese doesn't believe that he's misrepresenting Rick Snyder when he says in his recent column: Snyder is "Leading!" by the means of his honesty. "We have not had governors willing to do what Snyder did yesterday, which was to deal with cold, hard facts and tell the people of the state the cold, hard truth about where we are and where we need to go."

Dan genuinely values "the cold, hard truth."

So we ask:
Our Response (in the following parody dialog with Dan): Dan, let's see if you understand the basic facts of Snyder's budget proposal. Did Rick Snyder propose a new tax on anyone in Michigan? A simple "yes" or "no" is sufficient.

Dan: ...(Snyder) told the truth.

Our Response: Is that a "yes"

Dan: ...that's a "yes."

Our Response: Let me refresh your memory.

Here's the exact verbatim answer Snyder gave veteran reporter Tim Skubick, on FOX 2, Detroit, right after Snyder left the Senate Committee Room; having just presented his proposed budget to the state:

Skubick's Question: Some people are going to pay more to the state...Aren't they?
Snyder dodges the question: We are decreasing revenues this is not a net tax increase. When you look at all the numbers.
[Skubick stays on his question: Some people will pay more!]
(Again evasive and un-answering to Skubick's direct question concerning his proposed huge new tax increase.)
Snyder: But it's really based on the premise of a net tax decrease...
Skubick: Your pension tax is very controversial (it) raises $900m. Is that number correct?
Snyder: It's not a pension tax. It is actually removing a tax expenditure. We are actually reducing your tax rate. Our individual rate tax rate... [Skubick breaks in, still dead-on for an honest Snyder answer]
Skubick: It raises $900m? Correct?
Snyder: It generates $900m in revenue.

Our Response: Dan, there you have an honest answer given after an honest inquiry about the facts and following a lot of evasiveness and double talk from Snyder.

Snyder is raising taxes on pensioners by 9 tenths of a billion dollars and concurrently removing that amount, and more, from select businesses supporters in the state.

The "Leader" in Snyder said on the campaign trail repeatedly and very clearly to his audiences all across the state including pensioners: "My objective is not to raise revenue in the budget."

Our Response: "What part of "no new taxes" does Snyder's post-election budget proposal keep? Did he keep his pre-election promise not to "raise new revenue"? Did Snyder tell the truth about his new taxes?

Dan: If that's what Snyder's doing...could I have a moment to think over my answer?

Our Response: Take all the time you need, Dan. We all know how much you value moral absolutes like the "truth."
 
Original Post.

A Political Marrigage from Hell: The Blonde and the Political Godfather

Response and commentary on series of articles on Michigan's being declined for "Ract to the Top" funding in the Oakland Press in "Fingers point over failure of Race to the Top application" which included comments from Republican Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson and the MEA and and AP Story "Gov, Granholm ‘disappointed’ at Michigan being shut out in 'Race to the Top' education funds" on March 5, 2010.

A failed Governor and a gnarly power-grabber make one last attempt to achieve their legacy moment-Pin Blame on the State's Teachers.

Nothing short of desperation and the full realization that circumstances created by G.W. Bush's Great Job Killing Recession has forced the shotgun marriage of a marginalized governor (seeking a promising position in politics outside Michigan) and an old grumpy frump of a "public payroller," man with delusions of power and control over his fiefdom of Oakland County (replete with Brook's long history of "shot calling" as the GOP Godfather of Eastern Michigan) would have the power to produce this god-awful blames laying tag team: Brooks and Jenny.

Previously, here's how it was. " L. Brooks Patterson just wants to know: Is Gov. Jennifer Granholm trying to upstage him -- again?

"The 71-year-old Oakland County executive issued a press release Tuesday pointing out that, for the second year in a row, Granholm has scheduled her State of the State address on the same night of his State of the County speech." That highly annoyed Brooks. So what brings about this highly irregular, ugly marriage of pols?

THE GODFATHER’S SLAPDOWN: DEFEAT THE MICHIGAN EDUCATION ASSOCIATION'S RIGHT TO DEFEND TRADITIONAL PUBLIC EDUCATION
The teachers of Michigan, more exactly the Michigan Education Association, have so far succeeded in getting across the point to current "the powers that be" in Michigan and to the state legislature and also to the now-powerless, lame duck governor, that individuals, parents, local business people, and children are right to defend and protect the traditional public school in their community.

This is a desperate hour. The over-all long term decline of Michigan, first seen as a slight trickle in the earthen dam (Michigan's economic health) which held back the outsourcing and Chinese completion-a flood building behind it-expanded under John Engler indicated big trouble ahead. Engler ignored the distinct warning signs of that small fissure and now the dam is about to breech sweeping away what is left of Michigan's struggling economies.

THE BIG FIGHT: THE LOCAL ECONOMY VERSUS THE SELFISH INTRANSIGENCE OF BOTH  BISHOP AND DILLON
Agriculture now takes a high place as Michigan's economic engine. Tourism is far more than a pastime part of the state's income. The local economic engine in every community across this great state is the public school. Forget the wingnuttery of the past, ignore the meanness of the Engler Revolution and the selfish intransigence of the politically hopeful "pretty boys" Bishop and Dillon. We consistently gain from our investment and returns drawn from traditional public schools' operations and purpose. It's blind economic ignorance to claim otherwise.

Never forget: Traditional education moves the local economy and consumes local supplies, education provides stable and dependable jobs and generates local dollars of great importance to our state's survival,  while at the same time public school delivers the highest hopes we have for our children into a better tomorrow.   It's our present local economic engine and our entire future promise for children. MEA and parents, local businesses, and informed citizenry support this fact. Back in September 2009 the Associated Press survey of the state showed that Michigan supported INCREASED TAXES FOR EDUCATION BY A 2 TO 1 MARGIN.

The deceptive politics and the chicanery connected to Proposition A of 1994 took a big part of the local authority that is needed to sanely run those local neighborhood schools and shipped it on a ladle to a huckster-bound Lansing. In Lansing school operations funding became a shuttle cock for the peacocks of the legislature and a "goodie bag" for the lobby corps.

ENGLER MADE ANTI-PUBLIC SCHOOLS HARANGUES FASHIONABLE : ENGLERISM STUCK.
Under Engler, local control was sold off. Like that biblical birthright local control was traded for a cold bowl of insider pap. This fact and the spirit it spawned is attested to by long-time observer, Tim Skubick: "Beating up on the MEA is a popular in-door sport in this town (Lansing). It was former Gov. John Engler who made it fashionable and others have picked up where he left off." One of those carrying on is Patterson: (Patterson said last Friday. "Of course it (RTTT funding) went under because the MEA opposed it, and one of the things they look for in Washington is collaboration, and we didn't have it here in Michigan... I'm holding the MEA strictly responsible for the loss of that money.") Patterson is senile or well off-his game. "Collaboration?" When did Patterson call for across-the-aisle cooperation during the last round of state budget quarrels? Brook's sentiment and attitude as historically been in line with that of former GOP/U.S. Rep. Dick Armey, who once characterized bipartisanship as a form of "date rape."

Please note, as a commentator on this topic has reported elsewhere: "Those (possible RTTT) funds weren't going to cover the long term costs of the program. The state would have simply spent all the money it got, and then be left funding yet another program.

"Brooks Patterson has addressed this many times, and that's why Oakland County won't fund programs once federal money runs dry. It's hit and run federal spending. They entice states to start programs by giving a large sum of money to get it started.

"Once that money is spent, where does the funding to keep these programs come from? This idea of spending money in order to receive partial funding from D.C. is a joke. It isn't just education either. The light rail system wreaks (sic) of this sort of thing. Wait until fed money runs out on that project."

COMMUNITIES WERE ROBBED OF THEIR RIGHT OF SELF-DETERMINATION
Communities, which would like to have the right to straight-line vote up or down on local operating millage to support and operate the traditional, historical schools in their jurisdiction, as they had for generations, possessed the privilege to decide, by voting, the future of their own schools. Now they stand like mendicants/ beggars, relegated to await the crumbs passed on to them by the panic-laced poppycockery of  Lansing's stupid "political dog and pony show"-late night sessions and shutdowns of the state government- (fueled by a ill-begotten restraint on democracy-term limits-which has stupefied and undermined our state's entire political system).

THE EDUCATION COMMUNITY'S SUCCESS IN RAISING SUPPORT IN DEFENSE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION HAS ANGERED THIS ODD COUPLE: BROOKS & JENNY
All this brings us to this moment. The MEA and other education groups have successfully kept the role and importance of traditional education before the people. This obviously has infuriated both Granholm and Brooks Patterson. In reprisal they are willing to come together in an arrangement that defies logic and all recent political standard practice-support of a new Democratic education program. Brooks would never normally commit support, much less advocate and champion, any Democratic device such as the so-called "Race-to-the-Top." RTTT is sponsored and created by Obama's Chicagoman, Erne Duncan. No right-minded Democratic governor would team up with the fire-breathing, super-partisan Patterson, knowing his cunning and ferocity in such MEA sentiments. Brooks is hopelessly addicted to spinning off political shenanigans and puffery-as he has for so long.

SO WHAT GIVES?

Both Brooks and Jenny are desperately needy. Thus all former partisan limitations or regard for former appearances or for either party's devices are canceled. If they can successfully project to the public that not they or theirs have created this funding crisis or hold any responsibility for it, they will succeed in protecting their own self-centered/fleeting ambitions, and those of that failed Lansing ring of duds.

THE "RACE TO THE TOP" IS A FRAUD & A MAJOR FEDERAL POWER GRAB
These two very different, very desperate individuals have married themselves into a relationship to attack one of the most important elements of local economy and an essential function in order to save some part of their own selfish interests. Jenny and Brooks are doing so in light of one of the greatest swindle/schemes of recent political history, the "Race-to-the-Top" lottery device. This Obama sponsored government program has coerced Michigan and other states into making major concessions and surrendering considerable state and local authority/powers of control to the federal government. What a queer arrangement!

There is no certainty in the "vague promise" of any real or "bail-out" cash. All these federally imposed demands (to which a harried Michigan legislature capitulated, which this highly panicked state legislature has rolled over for) are nothing other than a revenue "long shot" -indefinite, dangerous, and administratively garbled paperwork and red tape. As one common sense commenter has said, "Call it sabotage if you want, but I call it safe. It only makes sense to sign on to something if you know what it's going to be."

RTTT is an expensive gamble, hoping against hope. IT'S A PIDDLEY "FEDERAL BRIBE," ladled out arbitrarily as a "possible" source of funds in this time of the state's cash shortfall.

The budget imbroglio is a situation that was created and is already compounded and aggravated by Brooks Patterson's gang of fellow boneheads determined to prevent any new revenue sources.

Brooks will continue to "service starve" the state's richest county into compliance with his narrow idea of economic sanity, while having funded million dollar helicopters and doodads for his buddy Sheriff Bouchard.

So Brooks and Jenny: Do your voodoo dance over MEA's resistance to your political wills and watch your chances for self-aggrandizement and political prospects disappear.


Original Articles in the Oakland Press and AP.