Freedom or burden?

[Note: The Big Picture is a new feature at Eclectablog featuring the remarkable photography of Anne C. Savage.]

For 42 years Michigan has had a mandatory helmet law but today Gov. Rick Snyder repealed the law for riders 21 years or older. It was passed with immediate effect.

What are your opinions and experiences with this? Tell us in the comments.

A Campaign for us ALL

Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District is currently represented by Tea Party member Justin Amash. Polling shows that Amash is vulnerable and that this seat is actually competitive for Democrats. In February, I wrote about the Trevor Thomas filing paperwork to unseat Amash. Here is what I wrote about Thomas a week before he announced:

After spending some time speaking to Trevor Thomas, I came away impressed. He is smart, eloquent, fiery, and charismatic. He is a passionate advocate for the middle class and those without a political voice. At the same time he is pragmatic and a realist. I believe he will appeal to a broad section of Michigan voters. He is pro-Choice, a supporter of the rights of young people, vets and union members and he is decidedly NOT an establishment candidate, something that many voters will find compelling in the current political climate.

Today I’m joining a host of other bloggers in a blog swarm to help the “Campaign for us all” raise some funds. You can contribute to Thomas’s “Campaign for us all” HERE. It’s important to contribute TODAY because his campaign has a critical fundraising deadline in the next 24 hours.

Oh, now THAT is funny. Not.

Mitt “I’m-a-Michigander-through-and-though” Romney barely got his foot out of his mouth before he stuck the other one back in today. This time it was to have a good belly laugh at the expense of — wait for it — Michigan.

Speaking to a group of Wisconsinites from Texas, he related a “humorous” story about his dad, former President of American Motors and Michigan Governor George Romney sending jobs out of Michigan and to Wisconsin:

“One of most humorous I think relates to my father. You may remember my father, George Romney, was president of an automobile company called American Motors … They had a factory in Michigan, and they had a factory in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and another one in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,” said Romney. “And as the president of the company he decided to close the factory in Michigan and move all the production to Wisconsin.”

Lipton Lite?

Once the darling of the tea party, Michigan Lt. Governor Brian Calley seems to have fallen out of disfavor of late. Calley, the father of a child with autism, has championed mandatory insurance coverage for the diagnosis and treatment of autism. This does NOT sit well with his tea party brethern, nosiree Bob.

I have been tempted to write about Calley’s interesting situation. His tea party support suggests that he’d be against any sort of mandate like this but, apparently, having an autistic child has pried open his heart a bit, at least in that regard. At any rate, I haven’t been inclined to criticize him for his hypocrisy or for his use of his position of power to advocate for a cause that’s near and dear to his heart and family, not when it can help out a group that needs it.

But the tea party is. They are totally inclined.

We actually got lucky The clean-up after the monster, record-breaking F3 tornado that hit the village of Dexter where I live continued apace over the weekend. Most of the damaged homes in the Huron Farms subdivision have been shored up, their roofs covered with blue tarps and windows & doors boarded up. By way of an update: Over a hundred […]

Hoo-boy. Tea partiers in Troy, Michigan have pretty much completely lost it, apparently. I retaliation for the recall initiated against Mayor Janice Daniels, they have now filed no less than ten additional recall petitions to muddy up the works. In response to a recent recall effort against Troy Mayor Janice Daniels, a Troy resident has issued 10 recall petitions in […]

Basically, Mitt Romney has already lost Michigan. In 2008, Mitt Romney won the GOP primary in the state where he was born—the state where his father was governor for three terms—easily. And as of last night’s polls, Mitt was losing to Santorum by a point, knowing that Rick Santorum has outperformed polls consistently in this primary. Despite any mischief and […]

You know Mitt Romney is delusion about the Government-led rescue of the auto industry. He’s pretending that there was capital to save the industry from anywhere by Washington DC. Then he’s saying that he would have done everything Obama did, except he would have punished workers more while protecting Wall Street’s interests. Mitt’s refusal to stand up for the auto […]

Santorum surging all over Michigan On top of two recent polls showing Santorum surging all over Mitt Romney in Michigan, we now have two more: Two more polls show Rick Santorum with a lead in Michigan’s presidential primary — and a sizeable one at that.The MRG Michigan Poll, done in concert with Lansing-based Inside Michigan Politics, shows Santorum, the former […]

I knew Governor Romney. I was friends with Governor Romney. Mitt, you’re not our Governor Romney.   by @rkref PPP Polls has new numbers out, and it’s bad news for Mitt. Even worse news than finding out the car he was driving in his latest commercial about Michigan was made in Canada. More than half of Michigan voters support how […]

And they call Obama “elitist”? Today, in a Detroit News op-ed titled “Taxpayers should get GM shares’ proceeds”, Mitt Romney doubled down on his previous New York Times editorial in which he declared the Obama administration should have let the auto industry perish. From the NYT piece “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt”: IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout […]