Help! Michigan has Fallen and it Can't Get Up!

It shouldn't be news to anyone that Michigan is under siege.  There is a whole contingency out there trying to get the word out, including Chris Savage at Eclectablog, Eric B. at Michigan Liberal, and Rachel Maddow, who calls the takeover of Michigan, "epic" and "The greatest story never told."

Who's doing the takeover?  None but our own government. Our own elected government.  That's right.  We didn't just get taken over by the dark forces because we let our guard down at the gates.  No, the majority of registered voters in our state apparently all took leave of their senses at the same time and voted them in.  They (as opposed to me and a bunch of other people who tried like hell to keep it from happening) gave complete control of our beautiful state over to a Republican majority.   They own the executive branch, the judicial branch, the senate and, while they might have slightly less than the 2/3rds vote needed to pass bills in the house, they've bypassed that requirement nicely by not allowing a roll call vote and capping it off by pretending not to see all those raised hands on the Democrats' side of the aisle when a show-of-hands vote is cast.

Now, if this Republican majority somehow took leave of their own teapartisan senses and decided, out of the blue, to be fair minded and actually represent the needs of all people in our state, this might not be a problem.  But you know and I know and that blank wall over there knows, that's pure pipedreamism.  As we've discovered--much to our dismay--horror movies have nothing on the state of the state of Michigan these days.

We have an enhanced Emergency Manager law in our state that gives Governerd Snyder (Former president of Gateway, Inc.) unprecedented control to take over any municipality showing signs of going under water budgetarily.  He has decreed that he can declare a financial emergency and appoint an emergency financial manager who can then abolish any sign of a duly elected government and take the town over.

 So some good citizens in our fair state started a petition drive to get that unprecedented Emergency Financial Manager law watered down to a point where it was actually an Emergency Financial Manager law again and not a license to steal whole towns.  (Note:  It's not the EFM law that's unprecedented, it's the scope.  Snyder's predecessor, Dem Gov. Jennifer Granholm put the law into effect, apparently not thinking ahead to the day when some pseudo-governor-of-Nottingham might come along and tweak the law just enough to take over entire towns by relegating their chosen leaders to duties such as coffee-pouring and the taking of minutes at meetings the Emergency Financial Manager calls in order to remind them just how useless they are.)

Those good petition-drive citizens were so successful, they gathered over 200,000 signatures--40,000 more than they actually needed.  Boy, did that make those Republicans mad!  So they did something unprecedented, even for them:  They declared the font size on the petitions wrong, wrong, WRONG!   

Sources: Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility/Stand Up for Democracy

No, I'm not kidding.  Despite the protestations of the petition printer, who knows his fonts and says unequivocally they're 14 pt and legal, the petitions were thrown out and--surprise!  The EFM issue will not be on November's ballot. 

Well, we're disappointed and it's in the courts now.  (In the Michigan courts, however, where snowballs' chances in Hell have far better success rates than current Democrats.)

But all is not doom and gloom in Michigan these days.  Former Republican gubernatorial and presidential candidate Thaddeus (Thad) McCotter, a man not normally known for his ability to give Democrats the giggles, gave us reason to laugh so heartily last week we're still snickering even whilst fighting that damned EFM law.

A bunch of Thad's guys went out collecting signatures for his House seat re-election and when they came back and told him it was all done, he had no reason to believe they were either incredible boobs on par with those guys in "Dumb and Dumber" or they were bloody saboteurs.  They didn't just try to get away with duplicate signatures, they actually photocopied petitions and used them over and over.  As if no one would notice

.So here's what's happening:

A formal review by the Bureau of Elections revealed various discrepancies in the petition filing, including duplicate signatures and the appearance of altered petitions.
McCotter released a statement on Thursday afternoon that read: “I thank the Michigan Secretary of State & Attorney General for commencing the criminal investigation of petitions I requested Tuesday; will assist as they see fit.”
Gisgie Gendreau, spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s office, said 243 signatures out of 1,833 were valid. “There appears to be some election law violations involved,” Gendreau said earlier this week.
As a result, the secretary of state’s office informed McCotter, R-Livonia, Friday that he lacked enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. McCotter declared Tuesday morning he is running as a write-in candidate for the 11th District of the House of Representatives.

The four-time winner of a House seat can't even gather 1,000 legitimate signatures in a district the size of a small country gerrymandered to his distinct advantage?  Oh, jeez!  I can't breathe!

There is a potential dark side to this, in that the guy who wants to win McCotter's seat on the Republican side is an avowed Tea Party Libertarian and might just win (and it could be that McCotter could survive a write-in), but give us Democrats a few minutes to engage in a few guffaws here.  Please. Lord knows it's a rare happening in these parts.

(For the record, the front-running Democrat vying for McCotter's 11th District seat is Canton physician Syed Taj. Nice man. Read about him here.)

**I'm going to end this some time soon, I promise, but I can't stop without mentioning Pete Hoekstra's latest attention-getter:  He's running for Senate once again against Debbie Stabenow and he apparently got the word (probably from Donald Trump) that the Obama birther issue must not die.

Watch video here at C&L

Pete the Perennial Politician is pushing for a National Birther Office, where all future presidential candidates must go to prove without a shadow of a doubt that they're actual U.S CITIZENS!!  (Good thing Pete doesn't want to run for president.  He was born in THE NETHERLANDS!!)

And so it goes in Michigan, Pure Michigan.  Pity about that underside.

**Addendum:  Heard from Chris Savage at Eclectablog and he tells me it's not exactly a done deal that the repeal of the Emergency Manager act won't be on November's ballot.  It's in the courts right now, so stay tuned.  Also, I should have remembered that they took the word "Financial" out of "Emergency Financial Manager" so now they're just "Emergency Managers".  (Better to give them even more powers, which they obviously need in order to take over completely.)
Thank you, Chris.

***Addendum II:  6/2/12.  Thaddeus McCotter decides to end his campaign altogether.  Would be good news except for that Tea Party guy lurking in the wings, waiting to take his place.

The Taking of Benton Harbor

It's been six months now since Rick Snyder tied himself to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy's purse strings, letting the largest right-wing think tank in the country aid him in becoming the puppet-governor of Michigan, my Michigan.  If my beautiful state has any claim to fame these days, it's in the streaming melodrama of a calculated, very public disintegration of the rights and liberties of its people.

  Michigan is under attack more relentlessly, more viciously than at any other time in our history and, hard as it is to imagine, the enemy invaders are all government officials.  It might well be called a dictatorship, but for the disturbing fact that the government leaders carrying out this coup were duly elected by a majority of voters last November.

These Republican "small government" devotees took office on January 1 and immediately began dismantling governmental policies and protections, many of which had been put in place long before the parents of these hoo-haws were even born.  As public officials, their not-so-hidden goal is to turn the power of the state over to private interests, and Big Bucks says now is the time.  They can and they will do it, or their name isn't Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

Just last week Eclectablog's Chris Savage wrote about another Emergency Financial Manager takeover, this time in Pontiac, in order to privatize the water-treatment services and hand them over to a company already in trouble with the DOJ for violations of the Clean Water Act.

Michael Stampfler is Pontiac, Michigan's EFM. He has the dubious distinction of being the first Michigan EFM to use new powers granted by Michigan Republicans to cancel a union contract. What went nearly unnoticed was that last week, he dissolved the Pontiac Planning Commission and replaced it with a smaller number of his own hand-picked, unelected members. But he also did another thing. He made a contract for water treatment services with United Water Services permanent, outsourcing the water treatment to them and laying off city water treatment officials.

Much has been written and broadcast nationwide about the plight of Michigan.   Big Right Wing money is behind it with resources not yet tapped.  They're a part of an entire astro-turf movement to control state government in order to bypass or weaken Federal constitutional authority.  There are movements across the state wholly dedicated to stopping the take-over before it gets completely out of hand, but the passion for justice is no match for the power of money.  (Thanks to early reporting by Rachel Maddow, the beleaguered city of Benton Harbor has become the focal point for watchdogs.)

Early Benton Harbor 

To Benton Harbor, this attack, while more ferocious and having sharper teeth, is nothing new.  The town has been a target for decades.  It's ripe for the taking.  It is a desperately poor black town that would probably have gone unnoticed except for its one valuable asset:  Frontage on Lake Michigan, complete with gorgeous sandy beaches and the crown jewel, Jean Klock Park, donated to the city in 1917 "for the children", in perpetuity and now under threat of takeover by the Snyder gang.   The revised Emergency Financial Manager Act might have been written with Benton Harbor in mind.  It now has the power to disband elected governments in poor cities and replace them with an absolute ruler --which happened there almost before the ink was dry.

Two weeks ago they latched onto another way to take over those precious assets. They've fired the current Brownfield Redevelopment Authority members and replaced them with their own people.  (The Brownfield Authority looks at former plant properties and makes recommendations for usage based on things like...oh...environmental concerns.  In Benton Harbor's case that would include former Whirlpool properties in the planned luxury resort and golf course area.  Everything will work out okay.  Count on it.)

But if that's not bad enough, in that same Eclectablog piece linked above there's this from local radio station WSJM:

Benton Harbor Emergency Manager Joseph Harris has issued a couple of orders, apparently designed to reign in actions by the city commission not permitted by Michigan's EFM legislation. First, an order from Harris on Friday states that  "no City official, employee or agent shall appear, in an official capacity for or on behalf of the City, at any meeting or hearing of the City Commission or any of [the city commission's] committees without the express written approval of the Emergency Manager, except the City Clerk [who] shall be permitted to attend any City Commission meeting....for the sole purpose of keeping the meeting minutes."  It appears as though this new rule is intended to prevent any department heads or others from reporting to the city commission in an official way, which effectively shuts the elected leadership out of any informational discussions regarding city operations. Additionally, the order from Harris goes on to state that the city clerk must attach language to the minutes of all Benton Harbor Commission meetings stating that any resolution passed by the body has no legal effect.

  Notice the language in these proclamations.  No explanations, no excuses, no wiggle room.  It will be done!  This is something new in our state, in our country.  I'm expecting brown shirts and jackboots any day now.  What I never expected was that I would be writing a piece like this without a chance in hell of calling it fiction.
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We're Michigan and Most of Us Don't Deserve This

 Michigan, our wonderful, beautiful jewel of a state--the only state in the union that looks like a mitten reaching up to grab a leaping rabbit, the only state surrounded on three sides by three different really Great Lakes, the only state that can lay claim to both Vernor's Ginger Ale and Sanders Hot Fudge Sauce, has been in the news a lot lately.

 Not because we've finally been discovered and people are wondering how they could possibly have overlooked us (Weather Channel, I'm talking to you. Bad weather travels from the northern plains to NEW YORK CITY! via a route through Michigan.  There's no getting around it), but because on January 1, 2011 Richard Dale Snyder ("Rick", because, you know, he's just--aaaw--Rick) was sworn in as Governor.

Nothing unusual about a new governor being sworn in in early January, but this particular brand-new governor raised hackles in some circles (okay, in nearly ALL circles outside the corporate honchos and people still having Tea Parties in the midst of the rubble) by stepping off the podium and almost instantaneously barking orders to annihilate anyone outside his own elite space who thought they might be entitled to a taxpayer-funded public education, or wages beyond the truly laughable, or even a retirement free of toil and strife.

For most people bent on taking over an entire state that might have been enough, but some days later this man Rick found the Holy Grail.  An existing Financial Emergency Manager Law that he and his Republican-led legislature then got to work enhancing and extending until it no longer would only be used in--okay--emergencies, but could be tweaked to kill the unions, take over public education and. . .oh, let's say. . .fire duly elected officials in cities and towns that may or may not have potentially fatal fiscal wounds but do have too many poor people and thus can't keep the Gov and his court in the style to which they've become accustomed.

Robert Bobb (true name) has been the Emergency Financial Manager for the city of Detroit since 2009.  I don't know how well he was doing in that job before the EFM act gave him infinite powers, but he's apparently rubbing his hands in glorious anticipation of being able to do away with 53 Public Schools, either by outright closings or mergings or switching them to charter status.  (Rachel Maddow has been reporting on one of them--The Catherine Ferguson Academy, a school for teen mothers.  After learning their school was targeted for closing, the students staged a quiet sit-in and, for their efforts, were handcuffed and taken away by the police, causing enough commotion (not by the students) to make the story go national. Thank you, Rachel--and everyone else who picked up the story and ran with it.  Everything that happens in Michigan mustn't--must not--stay in Michigan.  We need to shout it to the mountaintops.  We're under attack and we can't pretend it's all pretend.  It's not.

As Todd A. Haywood reported in Michigan Messenger yesterday, The Mackinac Center for Public Policy,  home of Michigan's Randian Tea Party, really is a part of the Vast Right Wing Free Market Think Tank Conspiracy.  They've joined up with Sauron in the Dark Tower to seek out and destroy anything resembling entitlement programs, government-sponsored good works, university professors' emails in support of beleaguered Wisconsin, and more importantly, labor unions.  Their goal is small government and their method is to fire all municipal officials and put an "emergency financial manager"--one person--in their place.  One person will run everything, making every decision without fear of being fired or losing elections.  It's the Fascist version of "we're not a Democracy, we're a Republic".
  
This group, State Policy Network, is working at installing a host of compliant soldiers posing as Leaders of the People in all 50 states.  Their purpose:  to guarantee the complete and total privatization of these United States of America.  So far they've managed to enlist the governors of Michigan, Wisconsin and Indiana, all of whom are not in the least shy about expressing their fascination with the mission they've chosen to accept.

In Michigan, Governor Ricky is in direct competition with Wisconsin's Governor Scotty to see who can take down whose state first.  At first glance you might be inclined to say "boys will be boys", but you mustn't forget the Eye of Sauron watching their every move.  (Here I'll repeat:  Vast Right Wing Conspiracy)

More to chew on:

If two members of the legislature get their way, Michigan's foster kids will have to get their back-to-school clothing from thrift stores because Michigan could save a lot of money that way.  I loved this part but you have to read the whole thing by Susan G. Demas:

So what's behind these moves by the Legislature? Well, the two DHS panel chairs both live in relatively homogeneous and very conservative enclaves in the state.

[Bruce] Caswell is a Calvinist who's never had to deal much with Democrats or people with other views on social issues, taxes or government services. He believes he's doing the right thing and rooting out inefficiencies in the budget.

[Dave] Agema ... well, his general philosophy can be summed up in his solution for overworked welfare caseworkers. Rather than hire more workers or work to speed up paperwork processing times, the goat killer suggested that DHS employees be armed with guns to subdue any unruly welfare queens.

Sen. Coleman Young II (D-Detroit) once flippantly described Republicans' attitude toward the poor and unemployed as: "Too bad. It sucks to be you." 

Who thinks like this?  What kind of person sits around thinking about poor, dispossessed kids and, instead of wondering what he/she can do to make things better for them, concludes that money could be saved if they wore second-hand Government-issue clothes?  And what kind of person is then surprised when reasonable people say, "Hold it right there. . .".   And who then would say in response, they probably don't spend it on clothing anyway, and "I think the hardship is negligible"?

(Newsflash:  They're rethinking this, after a really soul-satisfying (on my part), all-out blogospheric blast attack against it.  Looky here:

Senator Caswell initially proposed issuing a gift card for the clothing allowance for resale shops in order to ensure the money would actually go toward purchasing clothing. After a suggestion from a constituent, he plans to draft an amendment to the proposal that would direct the state to work with major retailers to create a gift card program that would ensure the clothing allowance money only purchases clothing and shoes at their stores. Furthermore, the amendment will direct DHS to negotiate with the retailers for a discount on those clothing items purchased with the allowance in order to get the best deal for the recipients.

Okay, I'm exhausted.  But one last thing.  You know how Gov. Ricky gave supreme power to one lone Emergency Financial Manager in poorest of the poor Benton Harbor?  Yes?  And how they fired everybody (see links above) and then poured salt in the wounds by demoting them to secretarial duties, like taking minutes at meetings?  Yes? Well, Gov. Ricky will be visiting Benton Harbor on May 7.  No, he won't be looking around to see how well his plan is working. Or to see what else he can do to lift that poor town out of its misery.  No. He'll be Grand Marshal of  Blossomtime's Grand Floral Parade.  The parade route will start in St. Joseph:

And end in Benton Harbor:

This is clueless to the absolute ultimate.  This is Nero fiddling while Rome burns.  This is the New America.

So the way I see it, we either get used to it or we fight like hell to end this onslaught.  I know us.  We don't plan on ever getting used to it.

Michigan Labor Legacy Landmark, "Transcending"

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Michigan under threat of Dictatorship. NOW can we panic?

Friends and neighbors,

The call has gone out and I'm asking everyone who can to take Wednesday [3/16/11] off and head to the State Capitol in Lansing to protest the cruel and downright frightening legislation currently being jammed down our throats.

What is most shocking to many is that the new governor, who ran against the Tea Party and defeated the right wing of his party in the primaries -- and then ran in the general election as "just a nerd from Ann Arbor" who was a moderate, not an ideologue -- has pulled off one of the biggest Jekyll and Hyde ruses I've ever seen in electoral politics.

Governor Snyder, once elected, yanked off his nice-guy mask to reveal that he is in fact a multi-millionaire hell-bent on destroying our state and turning it over to his buddies from Wall Street.


Michael Moore, Letter to my Fellow Michiganders - 3/14/11

Rick Snyder pulled a fast one, all right.  He even fooled trusting old Bill Milliken, the only Republican I ever voted for and one of the best governors Michigan ever had.  Gov. Milliken endorsed Snyder, thereby causing thousands of fence-sitters to get up off of their doubts and give the "millionaire nerd" their votes, along with the keys to the kingdom.

I'm a Michigander who voted against Rick Snyder by voting for Virg Bernero (sigh).  Instead of putting us on a path to order and sanity, which is where Virg would've taken us, the election gave us an entire state Republican majority who saw their win as a power-grabbing mandate.

Once safely ensconced in Lansing, Snyder figured out a way to take over the entire state, town by town, school by school, poor schnook by poor schnook.  With the upcoming vote on Wednesday  (pretty much a slam-dunk unless a few Republicans in the legislature decide they're not into state privatization), Michigan will officially become the only state in the union under threat of full dictatorship.

His big idea is to cut aid to Michigan cities and towns and when they get into trouble because they have no money he can then declare any municipality or school district a financial emergency and send in a financial emergency manager who will have the authority to take over the town or school district and dismiss all local officials.  They can disband unions and pretty much make the town or school district into anything they want.  A  take-over.

We should have know something smelly was brewing when his first order of business was to "balance the budget" by figuring out a way to squeeze 1.7 billion dollars out of seniors and the poor so that he can give back 1.8 billion dollars in the form of tax breaks to Big Business.

Even Forbes Magazine saw this power grab for what it was. Rick Ungar reported on it in his article, "Union Busting, Michigan Style".

I hope and pray (Did I just say that?) that Michiganders and their BFFS everywhere will listen to Michael Moore and Rachel Maddow and everyone else sending out the call to action tomorrow at noon on the steps of the Capitol Building in Lansing.  

More of Michael Moore's letter:

These actions are breathtaking when you realize they will drive our already battered state straight into the ground. What we needed right now was an inspiring leader to help us reinvent Michigan and to find creative ways to create new jobs and lift us out of our economic depression. The rest of the country may call what they're experiencing the "Great Recession," but few argue that Michigan is suffering a "one-state Depression."

I know many of you are filled with a great sense of despair and a justifiable loss of hope these days in Michigan. But you must not let things get even worse. You must stand up against these Draconian measures and this outrageous attempt to rip our democratic rights from us by turning our state over to well-paid hacks from Wall Street and corporate America. They see our state as one big fire sale -- and they are licking their chops to get their hands on what is still a state rich in natural resources and industrial infrastructure.

Please show up at noon on Wednesday for our first mega-rally against this insanity. Hundreds of groups are already organizing car pools and buses. You can right now just declare yourself an organizer and get your friends and neighbors committed to being in Lansing. If ever there were a day to call in sick, Wednesday is it (because this IS sick). Students, if ever there were a day to cut class and become a participant in your democracy, Wednesday is it. This event needs to be HUGE -- and I believe it will be if you will simply be there and take a stand.

Much attention has been paid to Wisconsin in recent weeks. Well, they got nothing on what's going on here in Michigan. Rick Snyder is Scott Walker on steroids. There's never been what even the AARP calls "an all-out attack" like this on us. Trust me, you will rue the day you sat home and did nothing while thieves posing as politicians stole your Great Lakes State from you.

Don't let it happen. Be at the capitol by noon on Wednesday for the largest demonstration the state has ever seen.

The AFL-CIO is looking for volunteers.  Go here.

The UAW is providing free transportation in five locations:

GET ON THE BUS FOR WEDNESDAY PROTEST:

UAW Region 1A in Taylor (313-291-2750)
UAW Region 1A in Flint (810-767-0910)
UAW Region 1D in Grand Rapids (616-949-4100)
UAW Local 699 in Saginaw (616-949-4100)
UAW Local 652 in Lansing (517-373-7581), shuttle
from 426 Clare St. at 10:00 AM

All are welcome, no charge – but you MUST
call to reserve a seat!

Note, too, that this is happening today:

 Tuesday, March 15th: Early Bird Special
Join the AARP, Michigan League for Human Services and others from
11:00 AM-1:00 PM to say NO to Republican attacks on Michigan's seniors.

 I'm a thousand miles away, and it's frustrating that I can't be there today and tomorrow, but I'm there in spirit and I'll keep spreading the word. 

If we ever needed solidarity, we need it now.  In every community, in every state.  We can't let this die.

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