Tag Archives | Tea Party

There’s more hope than ever for Medicaid expansion in Michigan

By on June 12, 2013 in Conservatives, Michigan Republicans, Tea Party

Forward momentum and signs of compromise are promising.

Supporters of Medicaid expansion — which is pretty much everyone except the Tea Party and staunch conservatives, by most accounts — will be happy to hear some positive news.

The House Michigan Competitiveness committee voted 9-5 to approve a Medicaid expansion bill, according to an article in the Detroit Free Press. Opponents and supporters were advocating strongly leading up to Wednesday’s vote.

The efforts of pro-Medicaid expansion activists like the Michigan Nurses Association are having a positive impact. State Rep. Mike Shirkey (R-Clark Lake) and chairman of the committee, was quoted in the Detroit Free Press on his change of heart:

I was a hard no to begin with.…

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Michigan Republican Colbeck still worried kids are being kept from learning American history

By on June 12, 2013 in Conservatives, Education, Michigan Republicans, Tea Party

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”.) Michigan Senator Patrick Colbeck introduced legislation earlier this year to prevent what he sees as the censorship of American history in our schools. He’s back at it again with a new bill that authorizes the teaching of American history. It’s yet another solution looking for a problem to solve.…


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Tea Party activists turn against Michigan Gov. Snyder for supporting Medicaid expansion

By on June 11, 2013 in Rick Snyder, Tea Party

An open letter urges conservatives to “sit out” Governor Rick Snyder’s re-election campaign.

That’s how much the Michigan Tea Party hates Obamacare. They’d sabotage the Republican Governor’s chances of winning re-election to prove a point.

They published an open letter today railing against Gov. Snyder’s continued efforts to convince the Michigan legislature to accept Medicaid expansion. Never mind the fact that Medicaid expansion would bring more than $1 billion in federal funding into the state to provide healthcare coverage to as many as 730,000 uninsured citizens, along with 18,000 jobs and $2 billion in economic activity by 2016. You can read details of the benefits here.…


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UPDATED with Tea Party gloating: Obama health insurance exchange dies in Michigan, Senate adjourns without acting

By on March 21, 2013 in Michigan Republicans, Tea Party

The tea party wins – a good thing for the wrong reasons

The Michigan Senate adjourned today for their 2013 spring break without acting on the state-run health insurance exchange allowed under the Affordable Care Act. Governor Rick Snyder said today was the last day to pass the needed legislation so the result is that the federal government will run the exchange on our behalf.

By doing so, Michigan will now have to cough up $8 million taxpayer dollars to link to the federal exchange. Somehow I guess this is considered “fiscally responsible” in the down-is-up world of Republicans.

I had once thought a state-run exchange would be to Michigan’s advantage.…


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Michigan GOP bows to tea party pressure, Medicaid expansion & state run health insurance exchange all but dead

By on March 20, 2013 in Michigan Republicans, Republican-Fail, Rick Snyder

You have to give them credit for taking government back — to a time when it didn’t care about the poor

Tea party groups in Michigan appear to have succeeded in preventing an expansion of Medicaid that would have given health insurance to nearly a half million working poor Michiganders and preventing the formation of a state-run health insurance exchange. The actions will cost the state millions and millions of dollars, ensure that fewer people have health coverage than would have under the provisions of the Affordable Care Act and, ironically, help take the country a step closer to a single-payer health care system in the long run.

On Wednesday, the House Appropriations subcommittee passed their annual budget bill without the inclusion of the expansion of Medicaid that Governor Snyder, doctors, and hospitals across the state supported emphatically. Even tea party governors like Florida’s Rick Scott support this element of “Obamacare” since it would mean coverage of millions of their residents while relieving the burden on their hospital systems. They also kicked poor people in the teeth in a couple of other ways, as well.

Click through for details.


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Michigan Gov. Snyder: “Time running out on state-run health ins. exchange”, tea party ramps up effort to kill it

By on March 19, 2013 in Michigan Republicans, Tea Party

Sorry, face. This nose has got to go

Governor Rick Snyder is warning Michigan Republican legislators that time is running out to set up a state-run health insurance exchange under the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”.) As Gov. Snyder points out, we have the choice of doing this in a way that is customized for Michigan or letting the federal government do it for us.

Meanwhile, tea party groups in Michigan are working overtime to kill it, a position I have come to cheer on. Click through to see why.


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Michigan GOP fights off takeover of party by tea party with help of Governor Rick Snyder

By on February 25, 2013 in GOPocrisy, Michigan Republicans, Republican-Fail, Rick Snyder, Tea Party

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.


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Where the States Stand

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder gives full-throated endorsement of Medicaid expansion, tea party freaks

By on February 6, 2013 in Michigan Democrats, Michigan Republicans, Tea Party

Well hallelujah…

In what was not by any far stretch of the imagination a forgone conclusion, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder gave his hearty endorsement to the expansion of Medicaid coverage in Michigan as part of the Affordable Care Act. I couldn’t be more pleased.

Tea partiers in Michigan, however? Not so pleased.

All the fun after the jump.


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To the self-described “patriots” of 2013: My friends, this is NOT what tyranny looks like

By on February 1, 2013 in Tea Party

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.


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Michigan Sen. Colbeck introduces “patriotism” bills modeled after bill pushed by Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann

By on February 1, 2013 in Conservatives, Michigan Republicans, Tea Party

Draped in a flag, carrying a cross

With all of the struggles Michigan faces right now, it’s good to know that things aren’t so bad that religious zealots and “patriots” like Senator Patrick Colbeck have time to worry about censorship in the teaching of American History in our classrooms. This week, Colbeck introduced a bill to remedy this egregious (and essentially nonexistent) problem. The bill is modeled after legislation promoted and passed in 2001 by far-right conservative and tea party goddess Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota. Bachmann’s bill copies a law passed in North Carolina in 1997.

Details after the jump.


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