On a hot day in early summer last year, there was a press conference held on the lawn of the Mason Historical Courthouse in Ingham County. It was being held by the Islam’s Secret Agents. The is the sort of intemperate rhetoric that serves no purpose but to mislead and rile a certain group of people. For those who may […]

Back in February, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed accused unnamed “establishment Democrats” of using “birther-like tactics” to derail his primary campaign after Bridge magazine published an article raising questions about his eligibility to run due to residency requirements. I was hard on Dr. El-Sayed writing, “Publishing this article is not a “birther-like” tactic and the accusation is offensive. People […]

In 2000, Michigan voters overwhelmingly defeated a ballot proposal that would have introduced vouchers for public school education by a 69-31 margin. Voters rejected vouchers back in 1978, as well. And it’s no surprise. The voucher system virtually guarantees that struggling schools are closed instead of improved and would give charter schools, the vast majority of which are for-profit in […]

Last month, Michigan Republican Senator Patrick Colbeck had an op-ed pulled and then republished at The Detroit News with modifications after he was busted lying about various aspects of the Affordable Care Act.

Colbeck is now at it again. He recently published an op-ed in the Canton Observer attempting to convince readers that everything is fine with education funding, Republicans have actually INCREASED it, and that the problems that Plymouth-Canton Community Schools (P-CCS) are having are their own goddam fault.

However, shortly after it was published, the Canton Observer posted this on their Facebook page:

The GOP propaganda campaign to divide and conquer the electorate and control Michigan education moves ever onward in the state Senate with the passage of SB 209, a bill to amend the existing school code to include specific teaching emphasis on what the GOP designates as the “core principles” of the U. S. Constitution, the First, Second and Tenth Amendments. […]

A couple of weeks ago, Eclectablog team member Charles Gaba – publisher of the internationally-recognized ACASignUps.net – busted Michigan State Senator Patrick Colbeck for spewing lies about the Affordable Care Act. Charles found no less than seven clear factual errors in Colbeck’s op-ed in The Detroit News. Here are a few of the more egregious items: He claimed that the […]

The War on Women is alive and well in Michigan. Don’t let Republicans try to tell you otherwise. Hot on the heels of the successful pro-women V to Shining V event in Detroit, the Michigan Democratic Party has released shocking recordings of Michigan Republicans saying what they really think about women. Well, it’s honestly not all that shocking. But the […]

He must be on one heck of a power trip, fueled by hot air and tea bags. Michiganders who support Medicaid expansion — and that’s a majority, by most accounts — have been waiting all day for a vote in the Senate on Medicaid expansion. As of this writing, they’re still waiting. After hours of deliberation, one vote went down […]

Draped in a flag, carrying a cross The funny thing about so-called “small government” Republicans is their hypocritical desire to pass more and more laws, many of them with no purpose (like the Senate resolution that was passed last week “to express support for the state of Michigan officially recognizing September 19, 2013, as International Talk Like a Pirate Day”.) […]

Won’t somebody please think of the corporations???

In one of my favorite books of all time, Infinite Jest by the late David Foster Wallace, in an effort to raise money, the Organization of North American Nations (O.N.A.N.) has sold the naming rights to each year to corporations. It’s called “Subsidized Time” and, over the time frame of the book, these are the years:

CHRONOLOGY OF ORGANIZATION OF NORTH AMERICAN NATIONS’ REVENUE ENHANCING SUBSIDIZED TIME™, BY YEAR

1. Year of the Whopper
2. Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad
3. Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar
4. Year of the Perdue Wonderchicken
5. Year of the Whisper-Quiet Maytag Dishmaster
6. Year of the Yushityu 2007 Mimetic-Resolution-Cartridge-View-Motherboard-Easy-To-Install-Upgrade For Infernatron/InterLace TP Systems For Home, Office Or Mobile (sic)
7. Year of Dairy Products from the American Heartland
8. Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment
9. Year of Glad

It’s an hilarious bit extrapolation of today’s trend of corporate naming of stadiums and sports venues. However, one Michigan Republican seems hellbent on taking us down that slippery slope far faster than you might imagine.

Click through for details.

You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means

With the reelection of Barack Obama and the subsequent resurgence in tea party rhetoric about “tyranny”, stoked white hot by talk of enacting a handful of sensible gun regulations, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how our present-day “patriots”, and I use that phrase very loosely, have perverted the meaning of the word tyranny and the philosophies of our Founding Fathers.

Although it is widespread across the nation, one particular example of it here in Michigan really ignited my thinking on this. A tea party state Senator, Patrick Colbeck, has taken to posting passages from the Declaration of Independence on his Facebook page this week. That, in and of itself, is no big deal, of course. However, the quotes he has chosen make it clear that he is making a direct comparison between the King of England during the period before the American Revolution and our current President, Barack Obama.

Much more after the jump.