Tag: michigan

Breaking: Right-to-Work legislation passes Michigan State House.

The Monroe News has reported that the legislation (part of House Bill 4054) just (4:45 PM) passed 58-52 in the state house, and will now go to the State Senate (I’m being told that the Senate will vote on this legislation within five business days).  Governor Rick Snyder (R) has already indicated that he will sign the legislation if it gets to his desk; given that the Michigan Senate has a two-to-one Republican majority, this is likely to occur.  Right-to-work opponents have already showed their disapproval of the measure, to the point where the cops had to use pepper spray to get control of the Michigan State Capitol.  All in all, today’s demonstration is unlikely to be the only response by Big Labor to Michigan’s union reform bill/law, in the same way that water is somewhat wet and the sun’s surface can get a trifle warm sometimes.

More as it happens.

UPDATE: Annnnnd Fox News reports that they’ve just passed a similar bill in the Senate.  Five-day delay before the final version gets passed; I assume that the first labor-induced (I am so dreadfully sorry for that) rioting has been tentatively penciled in for Monday morning.

Moe Lane (“Breaking: Right-to-Work legislation passes Michigan State House.“)

 

QotD, It’s From A Detroit Councilwoman, So Brace Yourself edition.

The councilwoman in question is one JoAnn Wilson, who wants Barack Obama to bailout the city of Detroit.  The quote in question?

“After the election of Jimmy Carter, the honorable Coleman Alexander Young, he went to Washington, D.C. and came home with some bacon,” said Watson. “That’s what you do.”

…For those unfamiliar with Mr. Young; he was mayor of Detroit from 1974 to 1993.  In the beginning of his tenure Detroit was a mildly struggling Rust Belt city trying to deal with an economic slump; by its end Detroit was deemed to be the perfect setting for Robocop.  It is a measure of just how bad things have gotten since that Mr. Young’s administration is seen as a Golden Age, but not as much as the one that Robocop now looks quaint.

Via AoSHQ.

Michigan to be scene of the Right-to-Work War of 2013?

It’s an interesting situation up there in Michigan: as the Detroit News rather sourly notes, the Republicans control the legislature and the governorship, while the extremely-Big Labor-friendly Proposal 2 went down in flames (58/42, not that the Detroit News wanted to mention that statistic).  This opens up the possibility of right-to-work legislation being introduced in either the current or the next state legislative turn; it also opens up the virtual certainty of a Big Labor response that will make the Wisconsin recall meltdown look like… well, I was going to write ‘a petulant, foot-stamping, and ultimately impotent temper tantrum conducted by spoiled brats with no conception of how the world really works,’ except that that was what the Wisconsin recall meltdown really was.  Anyway, it’ll be worse in Michigan.  To the point where things may start actually be set on fire.

But does it matter?  …Maybe not.  Consider the chart below:

State Sen House Cong
MI N/A -4 0
OH 0 1 0
WI 3 2 0

Continue reading Michigan to be scene of the Right-to-Work War of 2013?

But does Wayne County really WANT Detroit?

Would you?

It would no doubt be controversial, but the idea of dissolving the fiscally struggling city of Detroit and absorbing it into Wayne County is being tossed around in Lansing.

Then again, what does one do with Detroit? It’s probably – almost certainly – the largest utterly failed city in American history: large portions of it have already been abandoned. Would it perhaps make sense to shut down the rest and relocate as much of the population that wishes to leave? I honestly don’t know at this point.

Gee, Obama for America seems a little punchy in Michigan today.

I mean that literally:

Apparently the campaigner also went after the cops on her way out the door. Gee, I hope that the Democrats aren’t feeling tense about Michigan, or anything…

Ah, Obama’s finally admitting that Michigan has become… problematic.

Obama for America’s finally buying ad time in Michigan (specifically, the Detroit market).  Fortunately, they weren’t listening to me, or they would have done it last week when I pointed out their problem.

This, of course, does not mean that we have won Michigan.  It does mean, however, that a campaign with finite resources – more finite than Romney’s, these days – is getting just a little bit nervous about the map.

Two things about that MI poll showing Romney, Obama tied…

…at 47%.

Michigan, of course, is not in the bag for Romney.  I just wonder whether Obama can still count on it being in the bag for him by this time next week.  Which is a helluva thing for a campaign to have to concern itself with in the final two weeks of a campaign.

Moe Lane

#rsrh US Secret Service under Obama continues to live down to its new reputation.

At first, I thought that this was funny:

A U-Haul being used by the secret service for Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to the Labor Day Rally in Detroit on Monday was stolen out of a hotel parking lot Sunday morning.

(H/T Gateway Pundit)  But it’s not actually funny.  It’s alarming, if not downright nerve-wracking.  If the Secret Service can’t even notice when one of its own vehicles gets stolen, what precisely guarantees that they’ll notice if something gets added to one of their vehicles?

Sorry* if that ruins the joke for folks.

Moe Lane

*That’s what’s known as a ‘polite’ sorry.  Which is to say, a fib.

The Left’s expected, contemptible, and blatant hypocrisy over ALEC and stand-your-ground laws.

I’m not really all that into blogging about the Zimmerman/Martin shooting.  From what I can tell, what happened was that there was an confrontation that might have very well been avoidable; it ended with a genuinely tragic ending; and that there were actually pretty much no wider partisan implications at all, despite the attempts of the Online Left to fit a Latino Democrat onto the Procrustean bed of WASP Tea Partier.  All of which is contemptible of the Online Left, by the way.  Expected, but contemptible.

Still, the news that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has decided to stop working on criminal bill advocacy because of liberal push back on ALEC’s work on stand-your-ground laws is of interest.  Said laws, for those unaware of them, essentially confirm the right of a citizen to defend themselves if attacked; and (as Clayton Cramer and Glenn Reynolds note) such laws are very important from a feminist perspective.  Particularly when we’re talking about, say, battered women.  Amazing how quickly people on the Left stop caring about that sort of thing when it gets into the way of going after perceived Righty groups, right? Again: expected, and contemptible.

Continue reading The Left’s expected, contemptible, and blatant hypocrisy over ALEC and stand-your-ground laws.