And The Winner of Perfect VP for Any of the Final Fucking Four Is ....

None other than the man who put "poison the ni**ers" at the top of the GOP agenda.

DR Tucker at Political Animal:

May I suggest the ideal Republican vice-presidential candidate for whichever wingnut secures the GOP nomination this year: Michigan Governor Rick Snyder.

Is there any doubt that America’s worst governor would be the perfect partner for the 2016 Republican nominee? Snyder’s handling of the Flint water crisis succinctly symbolizes the GOP’s vision of government: penny-pinching, cold, scornful of the weak and vulnerable, operating with reckless disregard for future generations. The Republican base wants a truly conservative ticket: a Trump-Snyder or Cruz-Snyder pairing would deliver that dream.

Ever notice that Snyder doesn’t seem to have any real remorse or sorrow for his actions towards Flint’s residents? His “apology” in his January 19 State of the State address was a pathetic joke, one that failed to convince any sentient American. Snyder never gave a damn about the residents of Flint, and still doesn’t. The Snyder vision—the Republican vision—is that if you don’t have money, you’re not really a citizen.

Eight years ago, in an interview with Thomas Frank about President George W. Bush’s failures, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow observed:

[T]his is a problem of conservatism. This is a problem of letting people run government when they believe that government can’t work and ought not work.
No wonder Maddow has been so outraged by Snyder’s human-rights abuses, as we all should be. Maddow understands that Snyder is conservatism. He is continuing the dark tradition Ronald Reagan gave birth to 35 years ago when he declared, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

Yet government is not the problem per se. Government run by people who hate government is the problem. Government run by people who regard certain citizens as worthless moochers undeserving of the basic necessities of life is the problem.

We hear so much about the compassion so many Americans feel for the victimized residents of Flint. Yet we must acknowledge the sad reality that there are far too many Americans who simply don’t give a damn about the residents of Flint…who couldn’t care less that they’re drinking contaminated water…who turn a blind eye, a deaf ear and a cold heart to those whose health has been damaged for life as a result of Snyder’s deranged decision-making.

Those are the very same Americans who are embracing the hate-filled messages of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. Those are the very same Americans who probably think Snyder is the real victim in the Flint crisis—the victim, of course, of “political correctness,” “race hustlers” and the “liberal media.”

Recall the repulsive running mates Republicans have selected over the decades. Richard Nixon in 1952. Spiro Agnew in 1968. Dan Quayle in 1988. Dick Cheney in 2000. Sarah Palin in 2008. Paul Ryan in 2012. Considering this track record, would Snyder really be that far-fetched of a choice?

Think about what animates the right today: Contempt for the mainstream media. Contempt for racial minorities. Contempt for government. Contempt for those outside of the right-wing tribe. Snyder would appeal to all of the right’s darkest impulses: selecting him as VP would be the ultimate bleep-you to progressives, the “political establishment” and the Fourth Estate. I wouldn’t put the selection of Snyder past this radicalized and reckless Republican Party. Would you?

It's about racism, because everything in this country is about racism.  Always has been, always will be. (pace Charlie Pierce.)

Guess Who Responded to Flint Water Crisis Months Before Anybody Else?

This is community action.  This is public service.  This is dedication.  This is simple humanity in the face of disaster.  This. Is. Planned Parenthood.

Think Progress:

The Planned Parenthood in Flint, in a modest brick building off a lonely stretch of highway, might not seem like an obvious first stop for a resident concerned about the strangely colored, bad smelling water that started coming out of taps in the city in early 2014.

But for those who work inside, tackling the issue of access to potable water was a no brainer once patients began voicing concerns. As a preventative health organization with deep roots in the local community, the conversation came naturally.

After hearing reports from their patients about chemicals in the water, the clinic sprang into action months before any state of emergency was declared, handing out water filters and teaching people how to use them.

“We’re more than just a reproductive health organization, we work for reproductive justice,” explained Christina Soliz, field organizer with Planned Parenthood of Mid and South Michigan. “Having access to clean, safe water is a reproductive justice issue. It affects your health. Families deserve better than this.”

“It fits right in,” agreed Sabrina Boston, the health center manager. Water is “a basic human right.”

SNIP

As the crisis continues to unfold — residents are still being tested for lead exposure, and the effects might not show up for years — Planned Parenthood will continue to focus on educating patients. But years of political attacks and austerity have gutted the resources it has at its disposal. Conservatives’ fixation on its abortion services has turned the organization into a political football. Presidential candidate Ted Cruz, who led the charge in the Senate to shut down the government over Planned Parenthood’s funding, launched his campaign’s water distribution efforts at Flint’s crisis pregnancy centers, which seek to divert women from Planned Parenthood with misleading or outright false information.

Michigan funding for pregnancy prevention — some of which goes to Planned Parenthood — has dropped from more than $7 million in 2001 to just a bit over $600,000 as of 2012, with the most dramatic cut in 2009 when it was reduced by more than 75 percent. The cuts came as Planned Parenthood has been specifically targeted by Michigan lawmakers: last year, the state House passed a bill banning the organization from receiving state funding, even though it doesn’t allocate any dollars to Planned Parenthood as it is.

“We’re seeing the effects of [austerity measures] in a lot of different places,” Tunde Olaniran, outreach manager, said. “In Flint, there was a drastic cut and we’re trying to slowly rebuild.”

SNIP

“People who walk in the door — they’re people, so we wanted to address something that was a huge issue,” Olaniran said. “We’re trying to make sure we care about the entire lives of people who come into our doors.”

With a Whimper

This is how we lose democracy in America: not to muslin terrists, not to Chinese bankers, not to black urban hordes, not to dirty fucking hippie libruls, not to UN black helicopters, not to gun-grabbing jackbooted big gubjmint thugs, not to messican aliens.

But to repug governors firing elected officials and handing entire cities over to corporate cronies with unlimited powers of a dictator.

Maddowblog has been all over creeping dictatorship in Michigan, and last week Laura Conaway looked at the consequences:

With Michigan on the verge of taking over the failing city of Detroit, our pal Eclectablog updated his famous chart yesterday. If Governor Rick Snyder does in fact appoint an emergency manager for Detroit, the chart shows, then 49 percent of the African-Americans in Michigan will have had their locally elected democracies stripped away. Add in the towns that signed consent agreements with the state to avoid being taken over, and you get to 50.6 percent.

It is by no means certain that Governor Snyder will appoint an emergency manager for Detroit. With strong support from the city, opponents of the emergency manager law got it repealed through a direct vote in November. Weeks later, Republicans in the legislature then passed a new version of the law, one that lets local officials vote an emergency manager out after 18 months. Nolan Finley of the Detroit News considers the risk for Snyder in taking control of Detroit:

Fixing all that's wrong with Detroit in the 18 months an emergency manager will have to work with will take a blitzkrieg. Snyder can't afford for the takeover to fail.

Apart from one exception, not a single town or school district put under emergency management has emerged with a happy outcome. In the case of Detroit, Snyder would have a year and a half to either fix the city or convince the Detroit City Council that he was fixing it. Otherwise, they would have the chance to boot his emergency manager sometime in late 2014. That happens to coincide with the campaign for governor and for the legislature. Snyder has not said yet whether he intends to run again, but his popularity has fallen, and Republicans lost seats in the legislature in the last election.

Before now, the emergency manager law has worked more as a dictatorship, with no return of local democracy until the state permitted it. And emergency manager could cut the budget and sell off the public assets and blame the town for continuing to struggle. For Snyder and his party, taking control of Detroit would be a whole other deal. They would be accountable for what happened, with what amounts to a first referendum by Detroit officials in 2014, followed by another statewide vote in November.

Repug Snyder has repug super-majorities in both state legislative chambers, giving him near-dictatorial powers of his own. How many Michigan Democratic voters now appalled at the consequences are regretting not voting in the last few legislative elections?

Taking Mooching to a New Level

When these motherfuckers bitch and moan about people using government services they don't pay for, do they ever look in the mirror?

Rick Perlstein in The Nation:

Check out what the loopy Ayn Randroids are up to now. In long-suffering Detroit, a libertarian real estate developer wants to buy a civic crown jewel, Belle Isle, the 982 acre park designed by Frederick Law Olmstead—think the Motor City's Central Park—and turn it into an independent nation, selling citizenships at $300,000 per. Not, mind you, out of any mercenary motives, says would-be founder Rodney Lockwood—but just "to provide an economic and social laboratory for a society which effectively addresses some of the most important problems of American, and the western world." (Sic.)

SNIP

Never let it be said Rod Lockwood (Perfect pornstar name? You be the judge) hasn't thought this thing through. The plan is foolproof: "Belle Isle is sold by the City of Detroit to a group of investors for $1 billion. The island is then developed into a city-state of 35,000 people, with its own laws, customs and currency, under United States supervision as a Commonwealth." Relations with neighboring, impoverished Detroit will be naught but copacetic, and not exploitative at all: "Plants will be built across the Detroit River....with the engineering and management functions on Belle Isle. Companies from all over the world will locate on Belle Isle, bringing in massive amounts of capital and GDP." (Because, you know, tax-dodging international financiers of the sort a scheme like this attracts are just desperate to open and operate factories.) Government will be limited to ten percent or less of GDP, "by constitutional dictate. The social safety net is operated charities, which are highly encouraged and supported by the government."

Let's see how many essential public services this asshole expects the city of Detroit, state of Michigan and U.S. governments to supply tax-free:

Drinking water: comes from the city of Detroit. I think $5,000 per faucet and toilet per year ought to cover it. Plus the same per-gallon charge Detroit residents pay.

Wastewater: goes to the city of Detroit. Don't even THINK about dumping it in the river, unless you plan to purchase Lake Huron. $10,000 per year per toilet and drain - treating wastewater is way more expensive than treating drinking water.

Trash: No, you can't burn it, unless you pay huge fines for pollution or build state-of-the-art and Michigan-regulated incinerators. Weekly trash pickup and removal to the mainland: $10,000 per cubic yard per year.

Transportation: for use of public waters, roads, bridges and airspace you do not own nor pay taxes to maintain the safety of, $10,000 for each exit from and return to Belle Isle.

Public safety: Your private security service is going to be understaffed and underpaid, so they won't be able to afford to live there, so you're going to need city and state firefighters and law enforcement.  $10,000 per person-hour of city or state employee time.

I'm sure there's lots more I haven't thought of, so I strongly encourage the City of Detroit, State of Michigan, and U.S. government to invoke the power of the free market to come up with monster charges for everything under the sun.

Pay up, motherfuckers.

Make Michigan Abortion's Selma

I've just finished reading John Lewis' autobiography Walking With the Wind, and I'm starting to think that nothing short of massive civil disobedience is going to get it through this nation's thick skull that any restriction - any restriction - on abortion is a violation of every woman's human rights.

Tara Kulp-Ressler at Think Progress:

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) has approved a controversial package of abortion restrictions that will limit abortion access for women who live in rural areas, require doctors to prove that mentally competent women haven’t been “coerced” into their decision to have the procedure, and enact unnecessary, complicated rules for abortion clinics and providers. The governor signed HB 5711 into law on Friday despite widespread protests against the omnibus anti-abortion measure.

Snyder claims that HB 5711 “respects a woman’s right to choose while helping protect her health and safety.” But women’s health advocates warn the law will seriously threaten women’s access to the health services they need by imposing harsh regulations on abortion clinics and providers:

Critics of the Michigan law fear its insistence on new, standalone facilities will hurt women in rural and low-income areas as it could force some clinics to close. They say questioning women on whether an abortion is voluntary subjects them to a type of interrogation.

The Center for Reproductive Rights, an abortion rights group that opposed the measure, said it could force many existing abortion providers in the state to either tear down their offices and rebuild from the ground up — or shutter their practices. [...]

“Safety was never the intention of this law. The only thing this law accomplishes is to make a difficult decision even more difficult,” said Rana Elmir, the communications director for the Michigan ACLU.

Even some state lawmakers who supported HB 5711 acknowledge the law isn’t actually intended to protect women. “This is about protecting fetuses,” one Republican legislator explained.

Michigan legislators were quick to capitalize on this year’s lame duck session to push through controversial abortion restrictions, potentially because five anti-choice state lawmakers lost their seats in November’s election. The majority of Michigan voters support legal access to abortion services.

 Abortion On Demand. No-questions-asked, unrestricted, free-of-charge, available-on-every-street-corner Abortion. On. Demand. Nothing Less.

Not Right to Work: Right to Freeload

Because when you accept all the benefits of someone else's effort without paying for it, that's freeloading.

But Right to Freeload laws aren't about rights, or freedom or even work. They're about turning workers into serfs and taking away our power.

Down with Tyranny:

The speaker in the clip above is a Michigan state Rep from Grand Rapids, Brandon Dillon and, as you can see, Rep. Dillon is fuming about the House Republicans jamming through Right to Work for Less legislation in the lame duck session with no public input, no hearings, and no opportunity for amendments. Republicans will lose 5 seats in the House in January-- and this bill passed by 4. "That’s shameful," he told his Republican colleagues. "That’s not democracy. This is where democracy goes to die today. Because the majority in this state who lost 52% of the vote in state House races doesn’t have the guts to defend this."

A few weeks ago, Michigan voters chose President Obama over native son Mitt Romney, 2,564,569 (54.2%) to 2,115,256 (44.7%). At the same time voters showed an overwhelming preference for Democrat Debbie Stabenow over Republican Pete Hoekstra. She beat him 2,735,826 (58.8%) to 1,767,386 (38.0%). Only Republican gerrymandering of legislative and congressional districts gave the GOP anything to cheer about. Can they still win a statewide race in Michigan? They're not taking any chances. That's why they're busy ramming through an extreme agenda that ramps up the right-wing war against working families and against women.

Scott Lemiuex, Lawyers Guns and Money: 

I’m reluctant to tease Yeselson’s piece on the Michigan loss last week because it’s all excellent, but this general point is a good introduction to the specific claims about the state:

The vaunted libertarian argument in support of right to work would be far more convincing if libertarians supported the rights of employees to reject at their discretion the countless rules and obligations that employers mandate as a condition of employment. The argument seems to be that employees are free either to quit a job or not take it in the first place if they find various company requirements—e.g., what time they are to come to work—onerous or unpleasant. Libertarians do not argue, however, that workers have the right to retain their employment yet arrive at work at noon if their employer wishes them to arrive at 9. Don’t start, or quit, but if you’re on the job, follow the boss’s rules, right?
Yet we are to believe that only the requirement that workers must join a union or else compensate the union for work it will do on his or her behalf constitutes a grave blow to the worker’s economic freedom. Despite the high-minded justifications proffered by some of its defenders, right to work has no distinguished, abstract theoretical pedigree, no elevated standing in the mansion of Western political theory. It’s a snarling pit bull of a policy that disempowers the institutional voice of employees—unions—for the benefit of corporations. Most of the wealthy states don’t have right-to-work laws, and most of the poor ones do. Workers in right to work states make less than those in non-right-to-work states, and their unions have fewer resources to fight the corporations and politicians who benefit from this lopsided system. That’s the idea.

Real the whole etc. See also MacGillis — this is the latest example of why trusting “moderate” Republicans is likely to leave you with nothing but the barrel that will constitute your wardrobe going forward.

And the wonderful Dave Zirin at The Nation, with the final word (emphasis mine):

I also asked DeMaurice Smith [executive director of the National Football League Players Association, which opposes right-to-freeload laws] how he responded to people who say that this is just unions standing up for other unions with no care for workers. His answer stands as a terrifically important response to those standing with Snyder and the Koch brothers on this issue.

Smith answered, “I used to say that we have forgotten a lot of the lessons from organized labor over the last 100 years, but I’m now convinced that we never learned them. Whether you're talking about fire escapes outside of buildings or sprinkler systems inside of buildings, fair wages for a days work, laws that prevent child labor, things that led to the abolishing of sweatshops in America, let alone management contributing to healthcare plans or a decent pension.… all those things over the last 100 years were not gifts from management. Someone in a corporate suite didn’t decide one day that they would bestow that wonderful right upon a working person. The way those rights were achieved was through the collective will of a group of workers who stood together and said, ‘This is what we believe is fair, and we are all going to stand together and demand that those things be provided to us. We’ll do it as a collective group. You may be able to pick off one of us or two of us or five of us, but you will not be able to pick off all of us.’ When you look at legislation that is designed to tear apart that ability to work as a team…that is not just anti-union. That is anti–working man and woman, and that’s why we weighed in.”

The fight is certainly not over in Michigan. Those opposing right-to-work legislation however are going to need to expand the planned protests and civil disobedience in the coming week. It’s safe to say that it would make a substantial difference to this struggle if members of the Detroit Tigers and Detroit Lions take a cue from their own union executive boards and make their way down to the capital.

Support union-dues-paying-workers, not freeloaders.

Repugs Still Trying to Kill Democracy in Michigan

Because honestly as long as black people and brown people and female people and gay people and non-christian people are allowed to vote, we have to have some way of preventing the people they elect from having any power to stop our corporate masters from looting the state.

 

Steve Benen at Maddowblog:

This month Michigan voters repealed the state's far-reaching emergency manager law, saying that struggling towns, cities and school boards should be allowed to keep their democracies despite being broke. Now a new round of legislation in Michigan would allow the state to take over struggling school districts and farm out education to private companies.

Eclectablog has the full roundup of who's saying what and when, including this call to action from the schools superintendent in Bloomfield Hills: 

• This bill will not directly affect our district, but disenfranchises voters, ends their local control, and unconstitutionally hands taxpayer-owned property over to for-profit companies. Characterized as parent-empowerment, this bill does little to develop deep, community-wide parent engagement and organization.

I've never considered myself a conspiracy theorist -- until now. This package of bills is the latest in a yearlong barrage of ideologically-driven bills designed to weaken and defund locally-controlled public education, handing scarce taxpayer dollars over to for-profit entities operating under a different set of rules. I believe this is fundamentally wrong.

You're not a conspiracy theorist, sir, because this is not a conspiracy.  It's a flat-out power grab, as obvious and blatant as a jewelry-store smash-and-grab.

And no different in intent and effect from the third-world dictators who simply declare invalid any election that threatens their power.

Democracy Restored in Michigan

I can't believe I missed this one Tuesday night.

 

Firedoglake:

 

Yay Michigan x 2! By 52%, MI voters yesterday repealed Public Act 4 of 2011, the oppressive emergency manager law.

Michigan's so-called emergency manager law, designed to help local units of government survive financial crises, did not survive a statewide referendum. 

Public Act 4 of 2011 has been repealed by a vote of the people, pending certification of last night's election results.

With 93 percent of precincts reporting as of 5:46 a.m., Proposal 1 had 2,182,504 "no" votes and 1,983,228 "yes" votes. The 52-48 percent margin compelled the Associated Press and other news organization to declare the measure dead.

 After President Obama's re-election, this is the most important result of the 2012 election.  The emergency manager law literally suspended not just the Michigan constitution but also the U.S. Constitution, allowing the governor to put unaccountable dictators in charge of cities to usurp all governmental authority from elected officials. Local citizens had no recourse, as appointees were not subject to elections or public petitions, reporting only to the governor.


This is exactly the same system of unaccountable royal appointment that drove colonists to rebel against King George.

It would also, if successful, have been a huge step toward the lords-and-serfs system the corporatists and plutocrats are trying to establish throughout the nation.

Michigan voters rebelled and overthrew the dictatorial system, saving not just themselves but the rest of us.

Victory Toward Renewing Democracy in Michigan

And then there are referendums that are not just genuinely grassroots, not just critically needed in that state, but vitally important to restoring Democracy nationwide.

The tyrannical emergency manager law in Michigan and the way repug governor Rick Snyder has used it to deny the right of self-government to communities - primarily African-American - across the state are public demonstrations of what the repugs and their corporate masters are planning for the entire nation.

That's why the referendum to overturn the law this November is, with the possible exception of the presidential race, the single most important election in the country.

The Yankee Bull Connor

Which state is, right now this minute, doing the most to deny voting rights to African-Americans? It's not Mississippi, or Alabama, or even South Carolina.

It's Michigan.

Rachel Maddow Monday night:

Governor Snyder`s administration is currently considering whether or not to use the remarkable unilateral power that the Republican legislature voted to give him last year to essentially abolish the local government of Michigan`s largest city and replace it with someone he puts in charge who has unilateral authority.

In the year of really ambitious, sometimes radical policy-making in red states that has followed the very, very Republican 2010 nomination, my personal nomination for the single most radical thing implemented by any Republican legislature and governor is what happened in Michigan. It`s Michigan`s expanded emergency financial manager law. It allows Rick Snyder, the state`s Republican governor, to essentially, effectively abolish all local voting rights.

You vote for your city council, you vote for your town mayor, but in Michigan, it does not matter who you vote for, because the results of your local election can be overruled if the Snyder administration says so. The state, the governor, will decide who`s going to run your town, no matter who you vote for. He will put in who he wants.

The Snyder administration has already taken over these cities around the great state of Michigan and now, it is considering the largest city in the state. Now, it`s considering whether to take over Detroit.

As noted a couple months ago by the indispensable Michigan politics source, Ecleto blog, as reported by us thereafter, and as noted by three members of Congress, nine state senators and dozens of state representative, as well as eight Detroit City council members in a letter they wrote to Governor Snyder recently, if Governor Rick Snyder decides that in addition to these cities he`s already taken over, he is also going to overrule local decision making, local elections, and take over Detroit,
and Inkster, which are two cities now being reviewed, approximately 50 percent of all African American citizens in the state would then be living under the authority of unelected managers.

Think about that for a second.

Congratulations, Michigan. You elected a Republican legislature and Republican governor last time around. And so now, if you are black and you live in the state of Michigan, you may soon have only a 50-50 chance of your vote counting in Michigan toward who represents you in your city or town.

I like this law. Or rather, I like the idea of President Obama using a national version of this law to strip Rick Scott of all power and give the Emergency Manager of Florida job to Alan Grayson.

Think about it. Arizona in the care of Raul Grijalva. Texas under Jim Hightower. Crit Luallen here in Kentucky. Emmanuel Cleaver in Missouri. South Carolina run by - oooh, Stephen Colbert!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Transcript here. Scroll about 1/3-1/2 way down the full text page.

My favorite part of the segment was her interview with the Rev. David Bullock, Michigan state director of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, senior pastor at Greater St. Matthew Baptist Church. Much as I hate giving credit to xians for anything, Rev. Bullock explained the voting rights battle in Michigan as clearly, passionately and eloquently as I've ever heard.

Watch the Bullock interview here.