Why doesn’t this make me feel any better?

Last week, I wrote about Lansing Public Schools firing all 50 of its elementary phys. ed., music and art teachers to save $6 million in their shrinking budget. The post has gone fairly viral getting over 30,000 views.

Apparently the school system got an earful from folks outraged that an essential part of kids’ education was being forfeited, in part to pay for corporate tax cuts. They have now responded.

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Now THAT’S chutzpah

The Republicans in Michigan are busy bees, getting ready to expand the Education Achievement Authority that has had such dubious results in the Detroit school system. Although the Senate has yet to pass the legislation (House Bill 4369) and send it to Governor Snyder for his signature, the Snyder administration already has a webpage up about it that talks about the statewide EAA as if it already exists.

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Now we’re getting somewhere

An administrative law judge has ordered Ferris State University to explain why they rejected a union contract that had already been agreed upon in an attempt to see if Michigan Republican meddling interfered with the collective bargaining process. It’s the first time a judge has looked into whether or not this interference has violated the law or, perhaps more accurately, coerced university board members into violating the law.

The union contract contained a provision that extended the right of the union to continue to collect dues from its members, staving off the impacts of the Right to Work law that has not yet gone into effect. After it was rejected, the union filed an unfair labor practice charge against the university.

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Well, that was quick

Standard and Poor’s Rating Services didn’t wait for Detroit’s new Emergency Financial Manager Kevyn Orr to actually accomplish anything or, in fact, to even begin his first day on the job. Yesterday they went ahead an upgraded Detroit’s outlook rating from “negative” to “stable”.

These Emergency Managers are like wizards or something! Orr doesn’t start his new job until March 25th, a week from now.

Details and more after the jump.

It’s good to be the king banker

There’s a story emerging out of Detroit about the role too-big-to-fail banks have played in the creation of Detroit’s fiscal emergency. Last week, Dave Dayen reported at the National Memo that some banks have begun foreclosure proceedings on homeowners and then simply walked away before taking possession of the property. This leaves evicted homeowners on the hook financially for the home they are no longer permitted to live in. What’s worse is that the banks don’t even have to inform the homeowner or the city of Detroit which no longer receives any tax revenue from the property.

Not only that, banks have been reaping huge profits in debt restructuring fees and, as added salt in the wound of a city in crisis, Republicans have ensured that these same banks will be paid in full as Detroit works to get out from under its crushing debt.

Much more after the jump.

And so it is done

[Caricature by DonkeyHotey from photos by Anne C. Savage for Eclectablog, not for reuse.]

This afternoon, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder appointed Washington, D.C. lawyer Kevyn Orr to be the Emergency Financial Manager of Detroit.

The Emergency Financial Assistance Loan Board has to make the formal appointment of an emergency financial manager and they meet later today.

With that, nearly half of all Michigan African Americans will live without local democratically-elected representation.

Lucky for him he’s a lawyer. I suspect that’s going to come in very handy in the coming months.

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.

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