Ed Brayton of Dispatches From The Culture Wars

This reminds me of the people who haven’t realized the Onion was a parody website, and repeated their “news stories” as if they were fact.

The National Report, a political satire website, published an article about the city of Dearborn, which is about 50% Arab and Muslim, voting to become the first city to make Sharia law enforceable. Naturally, right wing websites missed the fact that it was a parody and repeated it as factual without doing any research.

In a surprise weekend vote, the city council of Dearborn, Michigan voted 4-3 to became the first US city to officially implement all aspects of Sharia Law. The tough new law, slated to go into affect January 1st, addresses secular law including crime, politics and economics as well as personal matters such as sexual intercourse, fasting, prayer, diet and hygiene.

The new law could see citizens stoned for adultery or having a limb amputated for theft. Lesser offenses, such as drinking alcohol or abortion, could result in flogging and/or caning. In addition, the law imposes harsh laws with regards to women and allows for child marriage.

Ever heard of the term ‘Dearbornistan’? The largest mosque in North America is in Dearborn, Michigan. Some 40,000 Arab-Americans live there, about half of the towns population. It also has the largest Lebanese-American population in America. I am a little suprised there isnt any strife there connected to Syria at all. The city has the largest proportion of Arab-Americans in the US. So it only makes sense that Shriah is first implemented here. Thoughts? Shariah is here in America!

Read More at Dispatches From the Culture Wars

Yesterday evening, the City Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr, who had been picked by Governor Rick Snyder to keep Detroit from filing for bankruptcy, raced to the courthouse to submit a filing indicating that Detroit Michigan would seek bankruptcy reorganization. Immediately, the news and pundits went in to high gear.

Detroit isn’t the first big city to declare bankruptcy. Stockton, CA, did so in 2012. So too did several other California cities as well as Alabama’s Jefferson County (the county where Birmingham is located) but Detroit is the largest and most noteworthy to make the attempt. Several other high profile cities/regions managed to avoid that ignominious outcome, including New York City and Nassau and Suffolk Counties in New York (all three of which had major state support to avoid the bankruptcy process).

The thing is that Detroit’s situation was a long time coming and was a combination of a shrinking tax base, shrinking industrial base, and a government that didn’t adjust its spending habits accordingly to say nothing of the rampant corruption and graft among top officials.

Having a bunch of billionaires who held the city over a barrel doesn’t help. When significant parts of the city are under the control of one guy (or a small group of very powerful real estate interests), who do absolutely nothing to maintain or revitalize those areas, something is wrong - with that billionaire.

Epitomizing this mindset is Manuel Maroun - the same guy who’s fighting to prevent the Canadians building a bridge to the US free to US taxpayers because it would supposedly devalue his bridge monopoly (or force him to make significant improvements to his bridge, which he’s been fighting every step of the way). He’s hardly alone, Michael G. Kelly who owns more than a 1,000 parcels, many of which are dilapidated and who has been slapped with $100k in blight violations since 2005.

For instance, Kelly bought up a bunch of plots that are where the alternative to Maroun’s bridge would be located - so if it happens, Kelly stands to hit the jackpot.

Kelly and Maroun are flippers, but without actually improving the properties they buy in the interim. More than a third of Detroit properties are vacant. They wont improve the properties themselves, and are instead waiting for municipal or state revitalization projects so that they can sell them back to the state at a substantial profit.

It’s a dysfunctional situation, and a successful bankruptcy filing would potentially shed significant debt from the Detroit ledger, but the city has to reform the tax rolls, get properties back on to the tax rolls, change the implementation of municipal services across the entire municipality to address the reduction in population, and will need to reconsider bulldozing and consolidating areas to reduce the burden on the government.

Most significantly is that it would mean addressing the pension obligations to current and former municipal employees -many of whom still live in the area, and there’s going to be a whole ton of pain for those living in and around Detroit.

These are issues that the Emergency Manager was supposed to be tackling, but he ended up going the bankruptcy route as the solution to the problems, instead of doing everything possible to avoid that outcome.

Despite the chorus of cheers and smugness from conservatives who thought that this somehow meant that their worldview was superior to those of liberals because a longtime Democratic city has been felled by economic troubles, the filing itself is in trouble.

Detroit bankruptcy unconstitutional, judge orders http://t.co/CSMYxIKA96

— Huffington Post (@HuffingtonPost) July 19, 2013

The Detroit bankruptcy filing is unconstitutional according to a court ruling earlier today because the filing violates the state constitution, which prohibits any action that threatens to cut the pension benefits of public employees. Ingham Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina issued a declaratory judgment Friday finding the filing violates Article IX, Section 24 of the Michigan Constitution that protects accrued pension benefits.

In other words, the Emergency Manager and Governor Synder are in violation of the State Constitution for attempting to file for bankruptcy (and which just barely made it with minutes to spare before the court ruled on several other matters yesterday afternoon)

The State AG and Gov. Synder are already filing an appeal against the ruling.

They’re going to hope that the appellate courts all ignore the state’s constitutional protections for pension benefits so as to eliminate the obligations to current and former state and local workers. If that fails, watch Gov. Synder and GOP move to expunge that protection from the constitution.

Even though Detroit is in serious economic trouble, there are those who are betting on a positive future for the city. That includes folks like Dan Gilbert, who’s bought up 1.8m sf of space downtown, making him the biggest property owner downtown besides GM and the City of Detroit itself. He’s betting on revitalization - and hoping for the city’s financial picture to turn around (though how that happens he wasn’t sure when he was asked in 2012 - before the bankruptcy came down).

A federal judge has ruled that a challenge to Michigan’s statewide ban on same-sex marriages can proceed, citing the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act.

The case involves a lesbian couple that wants to adopt three children, but is barred from it under both a state constitutional amendment and a state statute. As Marty Lederman at SCOTUSblog explains, the constitutional amendment, “enacted in 2004, provides that ‘[t]o secure and preserve the benefits of marriage for our society and for future generations of children, the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose.’” The state statute limits adoption to single people or married couples. Thus since they are not considered married under state law, the couple cannot adopt.

More: Federal Judge Approves Challenge to Michigan Ban on Gay Marriage

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) first indicated his support for Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion back in February. But since then, he’s encountered many of the same roadblocks that other leaders in red states have faced — largely thanks to an intransigent legislature that’s refusing to cooperate with the health reform law at any cost. Now, the GOP governor is redoubling his efforts to convince his fellow Republicans to expand the public insurance program under President Obama’s health law.

Snyder is hardly the only GOP leader in this situation. In Arizona, Gov. Jan Brewer (R) essentially shut down lawmaking while her party blocked Medicaid expansion, vetoing every bill that came to her desk until the Republican House Speaker finally agreed to schedule a vote on the Obamacare policy. In Ohio, Gov. John Kasich (R) implored his party to consider Medicaid expansion by invoking Ronald Reagan, pointing out that the former Republican president would have supported the initiative.

More: Michigan’s Governor Is Yet Another Republican Leader Begging His Party to Expand Medicaid

Not only is Rick Snyder one of the most unpopular governors in the country, but he is trailing his Democratic opponent Mark Schauer, 42%-38%.

According to PPP, Gov. Snyder continues to be one of the most unpopular governors in the country. His disapproval rating (52%) is 12 points higher than his approval rating (40%). Snyder’s approval rating with Independents is just 40%, and his disapproval is 51%. Snyder’s biggest problem is that Democrats disapprove of him more (78%) than Republicans approve of him (68%). Snyder is still being hurt by the right to work legislation that he rammed through. By a margin of 50%-40% those surveyed oppose right to work. The Republicans in the state legislature also have a 59% unfavorable rating, and respondents supported raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour by a margin of 49%-43%.

For the last six months, the polling in Michigan has been consistent. Rick Snyder’s disapproval ratings are high, and voters are angry about the right to work legislation.

Before the 2010 election Snyder led with Independents 58%-18%. Today he trails Mark Schauer with Independents 39%-37%. The governor has see his Democratic support dip from 17% to 10%, and his Republican support drop from 82% to 75%. The unpopularity of the governor and his fellow Republicans in the state legislature could be setting up a potential Michigan Democratic wave in 2014. Governorships in Michigan and Pennsylvania fell into Republican hands because Democrats did not show up in large enough numbers in 2010.

More: Another Tea Party Governor Crashes and Burns: Rick Snyder Trails Democrat in Michigan

More: Rocker Ted Nugent Rips Pure Michigan Ad Campaign

LANSING — Michigan-born rocker Ted Nugent struck a nerve today when he savaged the popular Pure Michigan tourism campaign and criticized Holland’s Tulip Time Festival in a radio interview.

Nugent said during a telephone interview on the Lansing-based syndicated program “Michigan’s Big Show starring Michael Patrick Shiels” that liberalism and political correctness prevent Pure Michigan officials from highlighting in its ads what he said are the state’s biggest draws — hunting and fishing.

“How dare the Pure Michigan campaign not mention any of that because some Hash Bash hippie in charge of Michigan’s promotional campaigns is afraid to put a dead salmon, or a dead grouse, or a dead deer on the tourist brochure; but will put paragliding and tulip festivals on that brochure when no one is going to come to Michigan to go hang gliding or to go to the tulip festival?” Nugent asked.

The comments provoked an anti-Nugent eruption on social media by residents who described the 1970s rocker known as the Motor City Madman as an irrelevant has-been who shouldn’t criticize now that he has moved to Texas.

Nobody at the Michigan Economic Development Corp., which oversees the award-winning Pure Michigan campaign, would admit today to being a “Hash Bash hippie.”

Read more at Freep (Detroit Free Press, not Free Republic)

Republicans need to win just six seats to gain control of the U.S. Senate in next year’s election, but the AP reports that the GOP is struggling mightily to recruit candidates.

The 2014 elections represent a big chance for Republicans as Democrats will be defending 21 seats to Republicans’ 14. In addition, retirement announcements by several senior Democrats — in Iowa, Michigan, and Montana — have given the GOP a chance to not face an incumbent.

But so far there’s been a combination of lack of interest from prospective Republican candidates and a lack of consensus in the party on who might be the best candidate.

More: Republicans Struggle to Find Decent Senate Candidates - the Week

From The Detroit News:

An Ingham County judge on Wednesday rejected the state of Michigan’s request to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the week-old right-to-work law on grounds the public was unlawfully locked out of the Capitol during heated debate on the bill in December.

Circuit Judge William Collette is allowing the suit brought by the ACLU of Michigan and labor unions to move forward. The plaintiffs allege the Michigan State Police and Legislature violated the Open Meetings Act when protesters were locked out of the Capitol during debate on the controversial legislation.

[…]

Two right-to-work laws went into effect last Thursday banning public and private sector union contracts from requiring financial support of the union as a condition of employment. Police and firefighters were exempted from the law, a carve-out that is the subject of a separate legal challenge of the law.

Lawmakers rushed the legislation to Gov. Rick Snyder’s desk in five days in December, bypassing the normal public hearing process during the Legislature’s lame duck session.

More: The National Memo » 5 Examples of a Republican Party Gone Wild in Michigan

Wisconsin’s Republicans got most of the attention, but Michigan’s Republicans have recently proven to be the best example of a midwest gerrymandered Republican majority drunk with its power.

In 2010, in the lowest turnout since 1990, Michigan elected a Republican governor who ran as a moderate backed by big majorities in the state House and Senate. Many of the freshly minted Republicans proudly waved the banner of the Tea Party — a banner that read ‘Taxed Enough Already!’

Immediately, the newly elected governor and legislature raised taxes on pensioners and cut the earned income tax credit for the poor to help pay for a huge tax cuts for business. Over the course of the next two years, the legislatures explored the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation and even banned a female lawmaker from speaking because she used the word ‘vagina.’

But they saved the worst of their agenda until President Obama beat Mitt Romney in Romney’s birth state by 9.5 percent. Republicans lost seats in both state houses as gerrymandering protected Republican majorities. With only 4,000 more votes in four districts, Democrats would have tied up the House 55-55. Instead they only lost 5 seats and maintained a 59-51 majority.

Instead of moving to the center, Michigan’s GOP launched into an ‘inflamed duck’ session that shook the state and finally revealed to the nation what happens when a far-right Republican majority takes over a blue state.

1. Without one public hearing, the Michigan GOP enacted legislation that made Michigan — the heart of the auto industry and the union movement — into a ‘Right To Work’ state. Governor Rick Snyder claimed the law, which drew protesters from all over the state, was about jobs. But just last week, the governor said, ‘Over 90 percent of the jobs that you’re looking at aren’t going to be in a situation where right to work is even relevant.’ Weakening the unions doesn’t help the economy. It lowers wages and increases poverty. What it does help is strengthen the power of corporations who are interested in privatizing public resources. That’s been the agenda of former Republican gubernatorial candidate and Amway heir Rich DeVos for decades, which is why he made ‘financial contributions’ to the candidates who weren’t certain if they should support union busting.

2. Republicans have recognized that their only path to the presidency is to gerrymander the vote the way they have in the House. Despite voting for the Democratic candidate in every presidential election since 1992, Michigan is represented in the House by nine Republicans and six Democrats, thanks to gerrymandered districts. And if the electoral college were to suddenly switch to relying on these same gerrymandered districts, Republicans would win the majority of the electoral votes despite losing the popular vote. So, of course, Michigan’s Republicans are ‘open’ to the possibility of rigging the next election. In fact, the only reason they didn’t in 2012 is because they assumed Mitt Romney would win the state.

Read more at National Memo.

What’s the Matter With Michigan?

It seems that no matter what I do, I can’t beat my colleague here at TAI, Walter Russell Mead, into print on any significant news story. Walter does it fast and, almost invariably, does it very well. He did it again yesterday, early in the day too, on the news that the Michigan state legislature had passed two so-called right-to-work laws.

Like Walter, my sense is that this is a big deal—a turning point in our national odyssey.  Like Walter, too, I see the basic facts in the same way. But unlike Walter, my sensibilities about this are bit different, possibly owing to the fact that he is the son of an Episcopalian clergyman, and I am the son of a rare Jewish member of the Teamsters union. Walter does say that, “Labor needs representation and many of the values that drew millions of working Americans into the labor movement endure.” I would go a bit further than that: Collective bargaining is all that keeps large numbers of Americans at least clingingly in the middle class at a time when globalization and automation are undermining a hard-achieved, broadly egalitarian U.S. social structure. What Republicans in Michigan have done is to attack the viability of collective bargaining. If companies can hire as many non-union laborers as they like, it is obvious that union bargaining power will essentially collapse.

Were that to happen, and were it to spread from Michigan to the rest of the nation, it might help some American businesses to keep their costs down and so better compete worldwide. That, arguably, might produce more jobs—if not necessarily more decently paying jobs. But at the same time, whether that happens or not, it will certainly produce more inequality and the social frictions that ultimately go with it, exacerbating a trend at least a quarter-century now in the making.

When I read the news from Lansing, I immediately began to think of another key turning point in the history of the American labor movement. Since few Americans today know much about that history, let me tell you a little something about it. No doubt you will see many parallels with current circumstances even before I have the opportunity to point them out.

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