A long history of corruption

As Michigan Republicans work to suppress voting rights in our state under the guise of “election reform”, one of their own, disgraced former Congressman Thad McCotter, has had long history of election fraud. After being busted for submitting fraudulent nominating petitions THIS year, MIRS news service is now reporting that he did the same in 2010.

Details after the jump.

Hoo boy…

You have to hand it to Pete Houkstra — the man has gall. He’s running for Senate against Senator Debbie Stabenow and yet he wants to repeal the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that allows for the direct election of Senators.

I wish I were kidding.

American lives are at stake SPOILER: You’re probably going to die in a hospital bed in your sixties, seventies or eighties. The culprit will probably not be terrorism, China or the government coming for your guns. It will be heart disease or cancer. By and large, Americans die of disease. And too many of us die of diseases that are […]

If you have to stop people from voting to win, your ideas suck. Two startling admissions by Republican officials in the past few months have been noted and then allowed to fade into the torrent of information fed at us each and every day. We cannot let this undeniable proof that our democracy is being subverted be allowed to slip […]

Apparently unethical behavior is A-OKAY for Michigan Republicans

I recently asked Eclectablog readers in Michigan to contact their Republican Representatives and ask them to demand the resignation of Jase Bolger from his position as Speaker of the House. After seeing responses from a number of Michigan Republican lawmakers, it’s clear that they are circling the wagons to protect Speaker Bolger. It’s also clear, based on some repeated boilerplate language, that they have been instructed in how this effort. And, interestingly, my own Representative, Mark Ouimet, used his House email account to disparage his Democratic “opponent”, Saline Mayor Gretchen Driskell, in clear violation of Michigan election law.

Government investment is good! No , it’s BAD! Wait…

Republican state Senator Mike Kowall took to the stage this past week as part of Romney’s Obama Misrepresentation & Distortion Tour™, touting his family business. Though Romney’s OMD Tour barely made a splash in the media, they did get one article in the Oakland Press where Kowall is quoted as saying “We’re the ones who helped pay to put in the sewers, we helped pay to put in water extensions, and promoted a lot of growth in the area. It wasn’t something that was done by government, it wasn’t something that government came by and said they were going to do for us.”

It’s an interesting comment in light of Kowall’s past statement about government investments in infrastructure.

I’m sorry we paused in our union-crushing, women’s rights ending crusade…

Late in the afternoon on Friday when most people were thinking more about their summer weekend ahead and not about state politics, Michigan House Speaker Jase Bolger gave the apology version of the Friday afternoon “news dump”. In a piece published in the Detroit Free Press and put online at 2:56 p.m., he “apologized”.

More after the jump.

GOPocrisy!

Michigan Democrat Rep. Barb Byrum who was banned from speaking last month by House Speaker Jase Bolger, called a “child” and described as having thrown a “temper tantrum” and disrupting the decorum of the House of Representatives, posted a great little piece on her Facebook page recently.

Check it out after the jump.

Corruption in the House of Bolger

A press release from Kent County Prosecuting Attorney William Forsyth has revealed a jaw-dropping level of corruption and fraud on the part of Michigan House Speaker Jase Bolger and Democrat-turned-Republican Representative Roy Schmidt. You can read the back story on Schmidt’s last minute dick move switch from Democrat to Republican that effectively ruined any chance of Democrats having a viable candidate HERE and HERE.

Forsyth’s investigation reveals that Schmidt and Bolger conspired to hire the weightlifting buddy of Schmidt’s nephew, Matthew Mojak, to run as a Democrat but not actually campaign. This would have forced Democrats to run a REAL Democrat in the primary as a write-in candidate, virtually assuring they would lose and that Schmidt would essentially have no opponent in the November general election.

The level of corruption and fraud perpetrated by Representative Schmidt and House Speaker Bolger is beyond anything witnessed in this state in recent memory.

This time he’s gone TOO far!

ALERT THE PRESS!!! FIRE UP THE TORCHES!!! MAN THE PITCHFORKS!!!

President Obama has dissed every business owner, alive or dead, EVER!

How? He said this:

“If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

He totally did. I learned about it from a Romney campaign email and, by God, IT’S TRUE!!! OMG!!!

Swing and a miss, Mitt

Mitt Romney attended a high dollar fundraiser at a country club recently and said this:

We’re accused, by the way — in our party — of being the party of the rich. And it’s an awful moniker, because that’s just not true. We’re the party of people who want to get rich. And we’re also the party of people who want to care to help people from getting poor. We want to help the poor.

Can we just back up a minute and take a look at what Republicans really stand for?