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.

They said it, not me

South Carolina Republicans have decided not to expand Medicaid in their state as provided under the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”.) By doing this, they are turning down $11 billion in federal funds and risk the creation of upwards of 44,000 jobs.

Why did they do this? According Republican state House Representative Kris Crawford, it’s because President Barack Obama is black.

You think I’m kidding but I’m not. Details after the jump.

How bad do we want this, folks? Despite support for creating a public health insurance exchange in Michigan under the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) from Democrats, some Republicans and even Governor Rick Snyder, it’s looking more and more like it won’t happen in Michigan. Why? Because tea party groups across the state are out-hustling and out-organizing progressive groups that could […]

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.

Click through for more.

It’s hard to swallow you shoving your religion down my throat

The Michigan Republicans are trotting out a “new” bill to further their War on Women and those who don’t share their narrow worldview. I say it’s “new” because it was a bill that died in the last legislative session. They call their bill the “Religious Liberty and Conscience Protection Act” but it’s nothing more than a backdoor way to limit Michigan women’s access to safe and legal abortion services across the state. What makes this legislation so insidious is that it may also restrict all Michigander’s access to things like birth control, vaccines, counseling and even HIV/AIDS treatment.

Details and actions you can take after the jump.

Daughter of the Curse of the Living Romneys

It seems like just a couple of days ago I was writing about how the Romney family just can’t seem to leave Michigan alone. Okay, it WAS just a couple of days ago. At that time, I wrote about how Mitt’s older brother Scott, an attorney few have ever heard of and a man with no almost no experience as an elected official [I have been informed that Mr. Romney once sat on the Michigan State University Board of Trustees from 2000-2008], was pondering running for Senator Carl Levin’s seat when he retires next year. Well, two short days later, he has decided NOT to run after all.

But that doesn’t mean we won’t have a Romney family member to ridicule for running for a national seat with no previous experience whatsoever. Turns out that after Mr. Romney’s decision not to run, he reached into the famous Romney Binder Full of Women™ and now his daughter Ronna Romney McDaniel is “looking at it”.

Details after the jump.

Ideology trumps intelligence in Florida

This week, a Florida Senate committee rejected the expansion of Medicaid to its poorest residents, a vote that followed a similar vote in the House and a surprise endorsement by its tea partying governor. Not only that, the bill’s Republican sponsor declared that he wants Florida out of the Medicaid business altogether.

Click through for details.

He made Jesus cry — or maybe He’s just LOLing

Baptist pastor Mike Frey appeared before a Minnesota House of Representatives hearing on marriage equality yesterday to speak out against passage of legislation that will legalize same-sex marriage. His argument — stay with me on this — is that when teh gayz have teh buttsecks, enzymes on the head of the sperm enter the bloodstream and cause AIDS.

This medical genius also explains that women’s vaginas have super powers that prevent this from happening.

Video with transcript after the jump.

Prepare for a messy 2013 I have to admit that I was wrong in two very serious ways. I thought Paul Ryan’s disgrace as a VP candidate — booed by seniors and hidden for the last weeks for the campaign — would  temper the House Republicans a bit. That almost seemed to happen at the beginning for 2013 with the […]

The world is watching Here is the video from my appearance yesterday on the Inside Story Americas discussion program on Aljazeera English TV. I must say I was VERY impressed with the quality of the show. The production values and the staff, including the most-excellent host and moderator Shihab Rattansi, were all top-notch and give other cable news shows a […]

The world IS watching Tonight I will appear with two other guests on Aljazeera English TV‘s flagship discussion program Inside Story Americas. I and two other guests will be discussing Detroit’s financial emergency and the possible imposition of an Emergency Financial Manager to run the city. It appears that the decision to overrule local democracy by the state government in […]