It didn’t have to be this way

For the past two weeks, Mark Brewer and Lon Johnson have been running positive campaigns in their race to be Chair of the Michigan Democratic Party. They have both had nice things to say about each other but have made strong cases for themselves and their qualifications.

This week, that changed. An Eclectablog reader sent me copies of a mailer attributed to “Mark Brewer for MDP Chair”. The two-sided mailer says nothing about Mark Brewer. Rather, it is an attempt to slam Lon Johnson for his voting history in Michigan.

Have a look at the flyer after the jump.

Because with only 1,565,390 students in class, what could POSSIBLY go wrong?

It’s hard to say which the most freakish element of this story is. Is it that some Michigan Republicans want to allow concealed weapons to be carried in our children’s classrooms? Or is it that a tea party PAC is offering free gun classes to get teachers trained so that they can?

Follow me after the jump for all of the right wing insanity.

I read this stuff so you don’t have to

A mere 37 days after voters repealed Public Act 4, Michigan’s notorious and anti-democratic Emergency Manager Law, Republican legislators passed a new version to replace it. It was signed into law as Public Act 436 thirteen days later. This defiant thumb-in-the-eye to the will of the voters was even more egregious since it contains two appropriations, one to pay Emergency Managers and another to hire consultants, lawyers, “work-out experts”, and others to implement the law. These appropriations ensure voters won’t have a chance to interfere with the business of our Very Serious GOP legislators on this matter again.

So, what, exactly, is in this new law? Well, for starters, let’s have a look at the title:

“THE LOCAL FINANCIAL STABILITY AND CHOICE ACT”

I’m not kidding. That’s what they call it. It’s surprising they didn’t figure out a way to include the words “FREEDOM” and “INDEPENDENCE” while they were at it. You can read the law HERE (pdf).

All the gory details of this new law after the jump.

A non-racist law with wildly racial impact

Back in December of 2011, I wrote a series of pieces that showed how Michigan’s Emergency Manager Law was having a skewed negative impact on African American cities. With Detroit on the verge of being assigned an Emergency Financial Manager (EFM) and with updated census data, it’s time to revisit the chart that put this law on the national radar.

In 2011, there were approximately 9,876,801 people in Michigan, about 1,402,506 (or 14.2%) of whom were African American. If Detroit gets an Emergency Financial Manager, 49% of the African Americans in Michigan will live in cities where their elected officials have been replaced by a single, state-appointed ruler.

Details after the jump.

My heart is broken When Anne and I go to Detroit, and we do so regularly for concerts or the art museum and other events, I always see ghosts. Ghosts of the grand neighborhoods that once were. Ghosts of parks as they used to be. Ghosts of stores and shops and streets that once bustled with vibrant energy. Ghosts of […]

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An accumulated deficit of $327 million. Unfunded obligations of nearly $15 billion with almost $2 billion due in the next five years. A District Court that is owed almost $280 million and which collects only 7.7% of what they are owed each year. A nearly $1 billion 2012 deficit masked by long-term borrowing with no foreseeable ability to pay it back. The city’s bond, pension and retiree health care liabilities account for 35 to 42 cents of every dollar the city takes in.

These items and more led to yesterday’s formal declaration by a state financial review team that, yes, Detroit is in a state of financial emergency without a plan to solve it. Not a big surprise to anyone paying attention but one that puts the situation into clear focus.

My analysis after the jump.

Careful here, folks. We need to hold this party together.

Updated at 2:15 ET to add some additional information about membership fees and the MDP rules.

In what is rapidly becoming a power struggle between supporters of current Michigan Democratic Party (MDP) Chair Mark Brewer and the powerful UAW labor union, the UAW won a round during an MDP Appeals Committee meeting last night. At issue was the credentialing of 1,349 UAW members as delegates with voting privileges at next Saturday’s statewide convention. The applications for these members, some of whom were new and some who had allowed their MDP membership to lapse, came in on Friday, January 25th, the last day to become a member eligible to vote in the election of the new MDP Chair. However, the checks for their membership fee did not arrive until the following Monday, three days after the deadline.

Because of this, Chair Brewer rejected the applications and returned them to the applicants. This would have prevented the new members from being credentialed for the Chair election, members who would presumably support the UAW-endorsed candidacy of challenger Lon Johnson.

Much more after the jump.

A short but vigorous campaign

The campaign for the Chair of the Michigan Democratic Party is in its final stages as we head into the statewide convention this Saturday, February 23rd at the Cobo Center. Both candidates, MDP Chair Mark Brewer and challenger Lon Johnson, are racking up endorsements and traveling the state talking to Democrats to earn their vote.

Last week, five MDP Executive Committee members, Derek Dobies, John Austin, Brenda Lawrence, Rudy Hobbs, and Kathleen Johnston Calati sent a letter to both candidates suggesting that a neutral party chair both the Rules and Credentials Committee and the convention itself. As it stands now, Chair Brewer holds both positions as well as being a candidate. In their proposal, they asked that “neutral Party members, not affiliated with any candidate for Chair, be designated to chair the Rules and Credentials committees and the State Convention.”

Click through for the latest on this feisty campaign.

As usual, it’s the messenger that’s the problem

Republicans have decided that the biggest, wettest kiss they can give their corporate owners is to make all money they earn overseas exempt from taxes, even if they bring that money back to the USA. It’s called a Territorial Tax System and it’s used by only a handful of countries — France, Hong Kong, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

When the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) took a look at the impact of the USA using a territorial tax system, not surprisingly they found that it would increase the shipment of jobs and manufacturing to other countries besides the USA. Who could have guessed? If you only tax money earned in the United States, companies will beat a path to nearest border to make sure they earn as much money as possible outside of the United States. It’s the weirdest thing.

When the Republicans heard that the CBO predicted this behavior and the subsequent negative impact on our nation’s economy and job situation, their response wasn’t, “Oh, shit, we better rethink this.” No, their response was to shout, “LIAR!”

Proof after the jump.

More embarrassment for the Mitten state

Tonya Battle is a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) nurse at the Hurley Medical Center in Flint, Michigan. Last year on Halloween, she was caring for a baby in the NICU unit. The baby’s father, approached her, and asked to see her supervisor. What happened next is right out of the early part of the 20th Century racist south.

The man demanded that no African American nurses care for his baby. Not only that, the hospital complied. They are now being sued by Tonya Battle.

Details after the jump.

Um, maybe you guys should get your stories straight before you go on tv…

Michigan State Budget Director John Nixon appeared on Off the Record with Tim Skubick this week. Unfortunately for him, the wheels sort of fell of the car when the conversation turned to the impact of the Republicans nearly $2 billion in business tax cuts on job creation. Nixon first said, unequivocally, that the tax cuts have created jobs. Then he said he can’t prove it. And then he finished by saying, well, they really haven’t kicked in yet so it’s hard to say.

It gets hard to keep up with these guys sometimes.