Impatience is not a virtue

Anyone paying attention to Detroit’s plight knows that their current financial crisis goes back for decades. Housing policies that favored white flight to the suburbs, the decline of the oh-so-important-to-Detroit auto manufacturing industry and the Great Recession have all taken their toll on this aging manufacturing city. Years of neglect and a blind eye toward investment in our state’s largest city have created a perfect storm that has resulted in it a huge chunk of its population. Many of those that remain do so only because they are too desperately poor to escape.

Despite this, Governor Rick Snyder and his administration are giving up on a consent agreement signed with the city last year after only 10 months. The agreement, signed in April of 2012, simply didn’t solve problems that have been in the making since the middle of the last century quickly enough for these Republicans so tomorrow Governor Snyder is expected to appoint Washington, D.C. lawyer Kevyn Orr to be the new overseer of the city.

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You know who REALLY likes Rick Snyder? Nobody.

Rick Snyder has given numerous signals that he intends to run for a second term as the Nerd in Chief of Michigan. The problem is that not only do Democrats despise him, he’s wildly unpopular among Republicans, too. He’s especially hated by the far-right tea party element of the GOP.

A Lambert, Edwards & Associates poll out last week conducted by Denno Research tells the tale. Details on that and more after the jump.

How do you build a city up armed only with implements of destruction?

This afternoon, Governor Rick Snyder announced that he will appoint an Emergency Financial Manager for Detroit calling it a “sad day” that he wished “had never happened in the history of Detroit”. As I have already detailed in a post that has been cited by MSNBC and Huffington Post among others, this will result in 49% of the African Americans in Michigan being without a democratically-elected government.

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And he accuses US of fighting amongst ourselves? Governor, please.

With all of the attention that was paid these past two weeks between the race for the Chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, it was easy to miss the fact that the Michigan Republican Party had a highly-contested race themselves. When the dust had settled at their convention on Saturday, incumbent chair Bobby Schostak had won a narrow 833 to 768 vote over tea party challenger Todd Courser, a favorite of the so-called “Freedom Caucus”. Courser ran on a platform of “liberty and constitutional conservatism”.

The election was so close that Governor Snyder made a surprise appearance at Michigan GOP convention, taking time from the National Governors Association meeting in progress in Washington, D.C. to make an impassioned plea for Schostak’s candidacy. He was even seen pulling people aside to lobby for their votes.

He then accused Democrats of doing the very thing his party was engaged in as he gave his speech. 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.

Let’s see if we can keep this trend going, shall we?

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder is beginning to pay the true price for his attacks on Michigan families and workers. In an EPIC-MRA poll released this week, the percentage of Michiganders giving him a positive job approval rating has dropped from 51% to a mere 36% and, more importantly, the number giving him a negative job approval rating has jumped 16 points from 32% to 48%.

Details after the jump.

Hmmm…where have I heard THAT before…?

For the two years leading up to the cataclysmic events in December of last year that lead to Michigan becoming the country’s 24th Right to Work for Less state, Governor Rick Snyder told anyone who asked that Right to Work wasn’t “on his agenda” and that it was “too divisive”. That lasted right up until Dick DeVos and other rich Michigan businessmen reportedly delivered the ultimatum that Republicans do as they were told or face primary challenges funded by corporate interests.

Well, the “too divisive” label has now been used by Governor Snyder on another labor related issue: prevailing wage. Snyder says this, too, is “too divisive”.

Details after the jump.

Do NOT trust Michigan Republicans on this

There are reports all over the internet saying that the Republican plan to change how electoral votes are assigned in order to exploit their insidious gerrymandering of Congressional districts is dead in the water in Michigan.

It’s not.

The reports about the death of this scheme, which is basically a billboard saying: “Welcome to the Michigan Republican Party where we can’t win elections unless we cheat”, are based on comments made by both Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville and Governor Rick Snyder. But, as I pointed out earlier this week, both Richardville and Snyder said nearly the exact same words regarding making Michigan a Right to Work state only to turn around and jam it through in less than a week during the inflamed duck session.

More after the jump.

Don’t be the punchline of a dumb joke

There’s a joke that talks about a guy stranded on a desert island. A man paddles by on a raft and asks, “Would you like some help?” “No,” answered the guy, “God will help me.”

A few days later a boat pulls up and the driver asks, “Would you like some help”? “No,” the guy answered again, “God will save me.”

The next day a helicopter lands on the island and the pilot says, “Hop on! I’ll help you!” “No,” says the man a third time, “God will help me.”

A week later, the man is despondent. “God, why won’t you save me?!” the man shouts to the heavens.

A booming voice from the sky answers, “Dude, I sent you a raft, a boat and a helicopter. What else do you want from me?”

This is exactly the situation Detroit was in with regard to Belle Isle. Long a “jewel” in Detroit, it has fallen into shameful disrepair over the past couple of decades. The State of Michigan offered to lease the island from Detroit, make it a State Park, and restore it back to some semblance of its original beauty.

Find out how the Detroit City Council blew it after the jump.

If only covering 590,000+ uninsured Michiganders helped the children of billionaires When Governor Rick Snyder suddenly put a law designed to cripple unions on his agenda, he said that it would make the state more “attractive” to new businesses. But he still hasn’t been able to name one company who has moved into the state because of his historic decision […]

The answer depends on who’s asking the question

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder was on Bloomberg News this week to deliver an upbeat, cheerleading assessment of our state that had him reversing his opinion on the economic benefits of Right to Work. Where last we he 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…Let’s keep in mind what the economy is really about”, on Bloomberg, he changed his mind. Again.

Details on this and more after the jump.