MI Politics Keeping MI Politicans Honest

Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox plans to join the Florida challenge of the healthcare reform bill as soon as it is signed by the President. Its easy to say that he’s doing this to bring attention to himself as he runs for governor, but the so-called reform does raise some serious constitutional issues of forcing every many woman and child to purchase a service from the moment of birth for the first time in our country’s history. There is also the issue of the unfunded mandates that this will create on states, special deals that favor some states over others and a number of other issues.

Not surprisingly all democratic house members in Michigan voted in favor of this monstrosity and all republicans voted no.

Democrats — Conyers, Y; Dingell, Y; Kildee, Y; Kilpatrick, Y; Levin, Y; Peters, Y; Schauer, Y; Stupak, Y.

Republicans — Camp, N; Ehlers, N; Hoekstra, N; McCotter, N; Miller, N; Rogers, N; Upton, N.

Stacy Mathia announced her candidacy for governor along with her campaign website http://www.staceymathia2010.com/. On her website she describes herself as:

I am not a professional politician. I am a mother of four wonderful children that until recently I have home schooled for the past several years. I have grown angry with the arrogance of our elected officials. That anger is what led me to make the decision to run for Governor of Michigan!

As someone with an interest in the Tea Parties who home schools 5 kids I can appreciate where she is coming from. The principles she lists on her site are nice, but like many of the candidates are fairly vague. I think that someone needs to hit the ground running in Lansing with a plan of specific action items which is why Rick Synder is an interesting candidate to me. He put himself out there early with a pretty specific agenda which not to many people will do for whatever reason. Unless you have that kind of plan and can stick to it, I don’t think you’d have any chance against the entrenched interests in Lansing.

Rep Dale Kildee made this statement yesterday about why he is supporting Obamacare.

“I am convinced that the Senate language maintains the Hyde Amendment, which states that no federal money can be used for abortion, the Senate bill includes a ‘conscience clause’ and allows states to ban plans that include abortion.”

One thing I’ve learned about Kildee in the last few months since I’ve gotten involved in tracking his votes, attending town halls, calling his office and reading his statements is that he likes to use half truths to support his claims. I’m sure that every politician does from time to time, but Kildee seems to live on it. I don’t think that the man is capable of shooting straight. Maybe that’s what happens after so many years in office. Maybe that’s why the founders didn’t think that people should make their careers in politics!

You see, the Hyde Amendment covers primarily medicaid. It will not apply to private insurance plans that are subsidized with federal funds under this new bill. The Hyde Amendment will probably still apply toward medicaid (as long as its passed again next year, its not permanent law), but it will not apply to the new buracracies that this heathcare monstrosity creates.

Rep Kildee is pretty much alone in using this argument. Rep Bart Stupak has said this about the same bill that Kildee claims is covered by the Hyde Amendment:

What are Democratic leaders saying? ‘If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing. Money is their hang-up.’”

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops says this:

“[w]ill force families to choose between their health needs and their consciences on abortion…”

So whose right? Based on the dozens of half truths and outright lies that Rep Kildee boldly proclaimed to his constituents in a previous town hall phone call that I participated in, I’d say the answer is obvious.

Only a day after taking the stage with Governor Granholm to receive a $9 million tax break for his company, Richard Short is back behind bars today. It seems the state didn’t do its homework on this guy. In fact, they don’t do any background checks at all for this kind of thing! I know, you’re shocked, I’m sure.

The Press actually fulfilled its duty as watchdog and stopped this from becoming even more of a disaster for taxpayers. One wonders how many other special breaks were given out to scam artists that weren’t caught. Certainly if the break had been say $900,000 rather than $9 million there wouldn’t have been as much scrutiny. This is exactly why the government needs to get out of this business and issue one flat tax for everyone. Most every problem we have in this country can surely be traced back to the tax code.

Now, if only the so called watchdog of the republic would get its act together in Washington…

According to the Detroit Free Press, convicted embezzler Richard A. Short was awarded a $9.1-million tax credit from the state for a company it says will use renewable energy to provide electricity, clean drinking water, sanitation and Internet service to developing countries.

All we’ve heard from Granholm and her cronies for years is that there is no more room for cuts to wasteful spending, unless you count police, teachers and firefighters that is. Apparently she doesn’t think that giving 9 million dollars to a man still on parole for embezzling money is wasteful! I’m sure that the money will all be accounted for and used for the oh-so-noble goal of providing renewable energy to developing countries. Forget that we don’t even use renewable energy in our own state!

This is why progressive administrations like Granholm always result in failure. I mean, name one success. California? New York? Detroit? Oh yeah, all utopian dreams.

The end justifies the means with these people which results in endless corruption. Forget about the convictions, the man “promises” to do “something” green.. thousands of miles away.. with oversight I’m sure. Right. She probably also thinks that John Conyers knew nothing was awry with his wife Monica’s finances, that Charlie Rangle, Tim Geithner and half of the Obama administrantion really just forgot all those tax forms and Chris Dodd didn’t know that he was getting a good deal on a mortgage. Riiight.

Next thing you know they’ll be passing bills without writing them, reading them or even voting on them… wait a minute, that is exactly what’s going on in Washington right now with healthcare “reform”. Call your Rep and demand an end to the bull crap.

I took a few days away from the computer and went without TV for the week. It was nice to have a break from media. I felt like not much had changed when I got connected again yesterday. Healthcare threatened by abortion language? Havn’t we seen this before?

I’m impressed by representative Bart Stupak. Its not often that you see someone take a principled stand on anything. You don’t know whether or not you’re seeing principles or polititcal theatre from a minority party. Its only when someone stands out from the party in power that you can be pretty sure. Especially when that party has such an overwhelming majority as the democrats do. I have to admit, I didn’t think that there were any good democrats left. Rep. Stupak surprised me and has shown that he is a man of character, even if he is on the wrong side of some issues including the rest of the healthcare bill!

The healthcare issue also shows just how little the President and congress think of us. The language that rep Stupak is holding out for, that would ban federal funding for abortions, is already in several laws. In fact, President Obama just signed one of them into law in the updated SCHIPs bill a few months ago. I’ve also pointed out in a previous post that abortions are almost always paid for in cash.

So given all this, why then is President Obama and congress letting this language, which is already in use and arguably a non-issue, hold up “healthcare for all”? That is a question that you need to think about. I think that it is because they really don’t care about you and I or at least don’t care about us as much as they care about their special interests that feed them. This is especially true for senators. They raise a ton of money out of state and aren’t accountable to anyone since the ratification of 17th amendment. I don’t think that they are out to get us in a conspiratorial kind of way, but they are bombarded every day by special interests in Washington and only occasionally by us if they are brave enough to host a town hall meeting or if it happens to be an election year.

The focus of our representatives is best demonstrated by the 2700 pages of bullcrap that they’ve put forward as “healthcare reform” and the thousands of pages proposed for “Cap and Trade”, “Stimulus” and “Jobs Bills” that don’t create jobs. There is just enough in these bills to shut people up and keep them dependant on the government so that you’ll re-elect them. After all they’ll argue, the other party will just cut YOUR new entitlements if you don’t vote for them. Don’t believe me? Try reading this pile of junk, if its ever actually released to the public. You tell me that there aren’t any special deals for senators, congressman, unions, big corporations, left leaning groups and the like.

The problem, as it is in most cases, is the government. These special deals are needed to avoid taxes on various things. If we got rid of our insanely complex tax system those special deals would go away and we’d all get the same deal, be it a fair deal or a raw deal. There would be no favorites which is the way it should be. The only way that I see getting there is to make a change to a fair tax or flat tax system because there is no incremental fix for this mess we are in. Don’t settle for less. Call or write your senator and representatives today and let them know what you think.

It was the best of times for a crook like Kwame Kilpatrick who was living large off the people of Detroit. It is the worst of times for mayor Dave Bing as he tries to clean up the mess that Kwame Kilpatrick left behind.

I made a decision a while back not to blog about Kwame Kilpatrick, but today I couldn’t resist. On the cover of the Detroit papers today there was a picture of mayor Bing next to Former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. On one side of the cover hand you have a guy who by all accounts seems to be a straight shooter. Mayor Bing genuinely appears to be doing his best to get Detroit out of the gutter. Only time will tell whether or not he’s able to do so. The city can’t be turned around overnight, but just sweeping out the rampant corruption and attitude of entitlement would be a huge first step and Mayor Bing and Robert Bobb appear to be heading in the right direction.

On the other side of the cover you have Kwame Kilpatrick giving us the same old crap now as when he was in office. He’s crying about how he can’t afford to make restitution payments to the city because, you know, he HAS to live large. He only makes 120K plus commission and he has clients to entertain you know. He’s ENTITLED to his 6,000 square foot Texas mansion. Mr Kilpatrick, you sir are a dirt bag. Pay the money you owe to the city or do your time in prison like a man. YOU dug this hole by yourself and don’t expect others to fill it for you.

John Dingell is the longest-serving member of the House. He was elected in 1955 in a special election for the seat his father held until he died. John Conyers is the second longest-serving member of the house and “represents” one of the poorest districts in the nation.

These two stooges represent everything that is wrong in politics. They represent entitlement and corruption. Did you see the way that Dingell ignored the concerns of his constituents in the town hall meetings and voted for so called heathcare reform? Do you really think that John Conyers had no idea at all that his wife was on the take?

Reading about these two clowns this weekend inspired me to read the farewell address of George Washington today. Washington had just served two terms as President and even though it was not at the time unconstitutional to serve longer, he chose to step away. He was afraid that too much power going to any one man would lead to despotism. The following words in particular struck me today:

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.

Does this sound at all to you like what we are seeing between the democrats and republicans? We’ve put all our hope in who becomes president, be that person Barack Obama or Sarah Palin or whoever. It wasn’t meant to be like this. The power is supposed to lie with us, the People. Unfortunately, we’ve given them too much of that power to control too much of our lives and now it seems like we have to sit by hopelessly and pray that the “right person” gets elected.

Even in the best of times we have not been able to pay our debts over the last few decades. In this period of economic recession, how can we trust these same people year after year, term after term to lead us to prosperity? In good times they’ve mismanaged and wasted our resources and are chaining us to an ever growing burden of debt. As I close this post, consider these words of George Washington from his farewell address:

As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is, to use it as sparingly as possible; avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts, which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen, which we ourselves ought to bear.

Apparently the democrats are attacking republican candidate for governor Rick Snyder because Gateway outsourced some jobs while he was on the board of directors. The Detroit News posted an article on the facts of the Gateway outsourcing. Its difficult to say who knew what when, but it seems clear that he certainly didn’t single-handedly move jobs out of the country. I mean if the democrats want to go there I can make a much better case that Jennifer Granholm has outsourced jobs to all kinds of places!