MI just beat out WI for Kochsuckery

[Dingfod]

That's some serious Kochsuckery there.

[Janet]

Did someone mention the Koch brothers fucking over Michigan? Cause now they're storing toxic oil sands waste just across the river in Windsor.

[Dingfod]

That's a long way to haul sand.

[Janet]

Apparently there is a lawsuit to overturn the Emergency Manager law, focused mainly on Flint. I hope they succeed, but I'm not that confident. When we voted it down in the last election, they just rewrote it with very tiny changes and added spending to it so it couldn't be voted out by referendum again.

And in other new, the Detroit EM is talking about selling off the art from the Detroit Institute of Arts. This article makes a good argument that it's a tactic by Snyder to make people grateful when they do something only slightly less evil. I certainly wouldn't put it past them.

[The Lone Ranger]

The Michigan Senate has just approved a bill that would cut off unemployment benefits for anyone who fails or refuses a drug test.

Jack Lessenberry has a nice editorial about the hypocrisy and mean-spiritedness of it here.

[Ari]

I'm always amused that whenever drug testing politicians is brought up these bills die almost immediately.
Expect alcohol deaths to go up as drug testing consistently pushes people towards the harder to test for and more dangerous alcohol over safe cannabis. I do find it interesting that the majority of 'illegal' drugs tested for are available for prescription.

[Dingfod]

Why don't they offer to be drug-tested themselves? I mean what they do affects a lot more people than the odd drug-addled welfare recipient.

[Janet]

Because morality is for poor people.

[Watser?]

Because it is not about drugs, it's about Dance! Dance for us monkeys!

[Ari]

Really cause Drugs is just code for "poor" and "black."
Well that and cause many would fail*. The mean aspect of drug testing is that it tests for metabolites and not the drugs themselves, being able to detect use weeks out from any source, and as mentioned before many illegal drugs have legal names and I bet politicians have under the table prescriptions for many.

*That's not true, they would buy synthetic pee off the grey market like many middle/upper class drug users do.

[The Lone Ranger]

So, Gov. Snyder has lied to us. Again.


After pledging to support legislation to require so-called "issue ads" to reveal their donors, he has quietly signed legislation which does exactly the opposite. Oh, and the law doubles the amount of money that you can contribute to a campaign.

Why am I not surprised?

[Janet]

Snyder and the Michigan legislature are behaving like asshats. Must be December again. It's a more sure sign of the season than Christmas trees and non-stop sales.

[Clutch Munny]

I missed this at the time:

Right to Life of Michigan, an extremist special-interest group with significant financial backing from a select few secretive donors, has pushed for this law twice before. Both times they failed, as two different Republican Governors stood up to them and vetoed it...

But instead of admitting defeat, Right to Life took their crusade even further. They exploited an obscure loophole in Michigan's Constitution that allowed them to bypass the governor's veto entirely, as well as the will of the people, by securing the signatures of only four percent of Michigan's population to bring a so-called "citizens' initiative" before the legislature and then flexed their political muscle over the Republican majority, forcing them to immediately vote it into law.

The very idea that just four percent of the population and a well-financed special interest group can create a law this extreme entirely on their own should scare the hell out of all of us, because now that this Pandora's Box has been opened, we're left to wonder what worse may be coming from it next.

The Most Misogynistic Law I've Ever Seen | Gretchen Whitmer

[The Man]

Broke-Ass Michigan Throwing All Its Money At This Fun Anti-Abortion Grift

Big News for Prolife Budget Hawks: The Michigan state legislature, which can’t afford anything anymore, did some Fiscal Responsibility the other day, appropriating $800,000 to “promote childbirth” and encourage pregnant ladies not to have no ‘bortions. It won’t include any money to actually help feed babbies or anything, but it will throw nearly a million dollars at “Real Alternatives, Inc.,” a nonprofit that opposes not only abortion, but also birth control — oh, and hadn’t seen a single client in the first eight months of its almost million-dollar contract. That really ought to help a heck of a lot in a state with high levels of unplanned pregnancies!

...last year, “Real Alternatives failed to see a single client or sign up one Michigan provider during the first eight months” of its $700K contract for the year. But they did finally spend some $40,000 on actual “services” at some point, according to state reimbursement information. That must have done a lot of good, since they got another $100K for the coming year. Berman also notes that the contract is roughly equal to the total amount of money the state spends on pregnancy prevention and family planning for the same budget period.

Oh, and because it’s government money that comes with that evil “Wall of Church and State” stuff, a lot of the biggest Protestant anti-abortion places aren’t even applying for funding from Real Alternatives, because they’d rather pray with their clients. So the money’s mostly going to a couple of Catholic anti-abortion places, which will use state funding for counseling as well as for diapers and maybe even some parenting classes. And if the money just vanishes into Real Alternatives, well at least it’s better to pour money down the sewer than to give it to Planned Parenthood, right?

The expenditure probably seems like a great investment for pro-birth legislators, since it’s almost guaranteed to result in more pregnancies among women who will then need public assistance, and then can be yelled at for irresponsibly having babbies they can’t afford, the sluts.

[The Lone Ranger]

I heard a commentator on the radio say yesterday that "Michigan is rapidly becoming Mississippi with snow." Sadly, it seems all too true.

The education system is falling to pieces. According to a recent report, if the quality of primary education in the state continues to degenerate at its current rate, in a few years' time, we'll have the worst-performing students in the nation. Meanwhile, the Governor wants to slash funding for higher education.

A state representative has recently said that we should just give up on the Detroit Public School System and dissolve it.


Our roads and bridges are falling to pieces before our eyes, and nobody seems to have the will to do anything about it. A recent ballot initiative to raise money for fixing the roads was overwhelmingly defeated. (In fairness, a great many voters claim they voted against it because the wording was complicated and confusing. According to a Michigan Radio report, the majority of voters say that they would be willing to support a tax increase to fix the roads and bridges -- if they could be confident that the money would actually go to fixing the roads and bridges.)

Oh, and a lawmaker has recently floated a proposal to raise some money for fixing the roads and bridges: get rid of the earned income tax credit. Because, darn it, the problem is that those lazy working poor just aren't paying their fair share. Heaven forbid that we should ask the put-upon wealthy people to pay a bit more to help fix the state's disintegrating infrastructure.


Ugh.

[Janet]

In fairness, that ballot initiative really was horribly worded and confusing. I still don't understand exactly what they were planning to do with the gas tax. Something about removing the tax at the pump and having it paid by the gas stations. Didn't make any sense to me.

I'm pretty sure the plan to dissolve the Detroit School District and create a new one is designed to void union contracts. Don't be fooled, much of what is going on with emergency managers and the like is union busting in disguise.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

House GOP quietly closes investigation into Flint water crisis | PBS NewsHour

SURPRISE!

[erimir]

But, but, but... Hillary was just neoliberally using Flint in her campaign!

[Janet]

Well, that's old news around here. Fortunately Rep. Cummings is still pushing for charges.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

EPA gives Flint $100M to help repair pipes

And

Ex-health official gets probation in Flint water crisis

I didn't analyze this any, just here ya go.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Flint lead-water crisis: 8,000 residents face tax liens for unpaid water bills — Quartz

Pay for that faulty product that wasn't in useable condition on delivery, yo.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Six Michigan officials criminally charged in Flint water crisis

[BrotherMan]

I'm waiting to celebrate for when there are convictions.

[Watser?]

The Biortic Bortmanborg seems more cynical but also more right.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Originally Posted by BrotherMan

I'm waiting to celebrate for when there are convictions.

Found you a meme for that: