If you want to know the meaning of hypocrisy, take a minute to observe those much-touted millionaire CEOs from Michigan aka Business Leaders for Michigan in action.

With their usual flair for faulty, bended statistics and green eyeshade vision, Business Leaders for Michigan wrote state lawmakers urging them to take back a 3% raise slated for state employees who have been hammered already with benefit cuts and furlough days. In fact, the 3% raise was in exchange for a 4.5% cut in benefits so it's not really a raise. The governor has declined to support the pay cut and the Senate today failed to muster the two-thirds vote needed to cut workers' pay. This was a disappointment for Senate Republican Leader Mike Bishop who is so totally into sacrifice for everyone but himself.   Read More »

From Virginia to Jackson, Michigan Democratic candidates were slapped silly by Republicans because Democratic voters stayed home. If there is one lesson learned from Tuesday's election I hope it's that Democrats absorb the reality that they cannot win without base support from progressives, African-Americans, young people and union members.

And that base voters will abandon you if you abandon them.

Democrat Deeds in Virginia distanced himself from Obama, rejected the federal stimulus program, and was trounced. State Rep. Marty Griffin lost his Senate bid badly in the Jackson-Battle Creek district after spending the past four years testily rejecting progressives on health, environmental, energy, civil liberties and other issues.

There are other factors involved in those two Democratic defeats. Griffin was vastly outspent by his opponent and Deeds was a terrible candidate. Griffin the candidate, however, was skinny on money precisely because he went out of his way to alienate Democratic donors who are, by far, more traditional progressive than Blue Dog.

This isn't an argument that Democratic candidates must pass a progressive litmus test. But they sure as hell can't expect progressive voters to support them if they are downright hostile to the ideals and issues that we believe constitute good public policy and get results for regular people.

For eight years under Bush, and for many years under Engler, we had a front row seat for orthodox Republican big business, socially conservative, anti-tax government policies in Michigan and America. We know how that turned out. It left a huge mess for Obama and a Democratic Congress to clean up, and we are still dealing with the Engler hangover called Mike Bishop in Michigan.

Progressives have no taste for more of the same medicine only sugar-coated by Blue Dog Democrats.

For those following the Blue Dog path to the right in Michigan, be forewarned. You have seen the future Tuesday and it is a dead end.

The Michigan Senate yesterday went soft on crime and voted to repeal the 1800s era law that made dueling a crime in our state.

So what, you say, there are assault crimes and other laws on the books that would seem to make dueling an arcane holdover from another era.

But wait…

We have watched the bloody battle of the state budget wondering just when it would explode into violence. Does anyone doubt that Senator Roger Kahn is not capable of rage should a 78-year-old grandmother or MSU college student get in his way (again)? Is it that far-fetched that Dr. Kahn might not challenge someone to a duel, since he clearly takes things like sharing an elevator or breathing the same air personally?

There’s really no shortage of arrogant hotheads like Kahn in the Legislature, although I admit he is a special case—a doctor who likes to scare people to death.

So what, you say, our tough guy Attorney General Mike “urban legend” Cox has a whole law library of crimes from which to charge a dueling lawmaker if such a need arises.

Not so fast…

There is only one law—one—on the books that not only makes dueling a felony, but actually bars anyone who challenges another to a duel from ever being “elected to office or appointed to any place of honor.”

That is the dueling law the Senate voted to repeal yesterday.

Do we really want lawmakers who have honed their skills at slashing Medicaid, education and police budgets to remain free to serve even if they slice each other or us up with dueling swords?

On guard people!

The trio of Democratic leaders--the governor, Speaker Dillon and Senate Dem Leader Prusi--are now behind a proposal to raise just under $400 million in new revenues for 2010 and it is expected to go public tomorrow with a series of votes in the state House.

Revenue sharing to local governments, Promise grants, Medicaid, libraries and K-12 schools would get the money. Gladly, some of the new revenues would come from eliminating corporate tax loopholes ($116 million), with the rest from a variety of sin taxes, a freeze on personal exemptions on the state income tax, new fees on doctors and, sadly, a cut to the scheduled increase in the Earned Income Tax Credit.

The total revenues proposed fall far short of what we need and there is nothing there that deals with anything like major revenue reform--although the corporate loophole closing is a beginning.

The package probably deserves the support of progressives as a matter of policy--it is a pinkie finger in the dike of budget cuts that otherwise would overwhelm education, health care, libraries and the Promise grant to college students. It will keep some cops and firefighters working, and that's a good thing.

But as a political proposal it sucks. It's not a strategy. Right now there's not a single Republican vote that can be counted on in the Senate, and not even agreement from Senate Republican Leader Mike Bishop to allow a vote on the package.

Chances are at least 50-50 that this thing could crash and burn and create even more political wreckage for progressive Democrats who would have a big fat tax vote weighing them down in 2010 with nothing to show for it except having done the right thing.

Stay tuned. Tomorrow should be interesting.

Americans are in strong support of Clean Energy Legislation.

http://thehill.com/mark-mellman/opposing-clean-energy-hurts-gop-2009-06-30.html

Polls show that most people in Michigan know there's a budget crisis but haven't felt the pain yet. While Michigan's public services have gone through deep cuts, our political leaders have done a masterful job of managing Michigan's decline.

They have done this by putting off the hard choices on reforming our state tax system, and there's every indication that will be the case once again when lawmakers take us toward Countdown to Chaos II before deciding what to do about the state's $1.7 billion projected budget deficit.

But the reality now is different than in 2007, the last time we were taken down this road. The Great Lakes State's thin blue line of public services is unraveling in ways that people are beginning to feel in real terms.

Students and parents are facing higher college tuition costs. The state's Promise scholarship program is on the Senate's chopping block. So is aid to K-12 schools, where student aid cuts of $100 or more per pupil could mean larger class sizes and shorter school days.

Water protection programs are being abandoned wholesale by the state, there are fewer pollution cops on the beat, and it's only a matter of time before Pure Michigan becomes pure baloney.

Townships are already facing slower response times to fight fires, and cops and Trooper cuts are likely.
Prisons are closing, convicts being released. How long before crime starts creeping up again?

And as Michigan's thin blue line of public services begins disappearing, just how many businesses will want to expand here, relocate here? How many tourists will want to drive our roads, walk our streets, lay on our polluted beaches?

They all have choices about whether to invest in Michigan. So do we.

Normally when my sister's husband, Carl, goes off on politicians I'm right there with him. He got lucky with a last-ditch buyout from GM so is retired now and has a lot of time on his hands. He gave some of that time to the Obama campaign last year.

A former Reagan Democrat, Carl gradually morphed into a Move On Democrat and was a full-blown volunteer canvasser for Obama in 2008. He's always been somewhat of a political bellwether for me.

So that's why I think it's a clear warning sign for progressives and Obama that Carl is pissed off with Obama these days. Really upset. The reason: Obama has aligned with the Wall Street crowd and instead of throwing the book and tough regs at CEOS, is instead giving them the velvet glove treatment and our tax money.

The real test for Carl, he says, will be health care. If universal coverage doesn't happen, Carl says he will check out completely on Obama, all hope gone.

And if the past is prologue, Carl won't be alone.

Sarah Palin may have pushed the Monica Conyers scandal off the political pages in Detroit for the time being but I'm betting it's only a matter of time before the Conyers story resurfaces.

In fact, with Sam Riddle Jr. at the center of the Conyers scandal, it's almost a sure bet. Riddle is the consultant who keeps popping up in the middle of cash and contracts and Conyers, who has plead guilty to corruption charges.

As Riddle's now ex-wife, Barbara, told me 23 years ago, Riddle has "always been the type of person who just can't sit back and keep his mouth shut."

In 1986, when I used that quote from Barbara Riddle in a story about Sam, Riddle was tight with Michael Moore, and both were still mostly famous in Flint, Michigan where Riddle and Moore wrote for an alternative paper and I reported for the Flint Journal.

Moore's talent was still the nation's to discover and Sam's particular specialty was putting himself in the center of a media story. He and Moore once dueled in interviews with me over competing versions of their trip to Nicaragua, with Sam claiming he had been sequestered in a hotel by some dark CIA types. His experience, he said, left him skeptical of the Sandinista government, a politically incorrect view that put him and Moore at odds.

Moore didn't believe Sam's CIA story. Neither did I so I didn't write about it. That may have been one of the few times Sam Riddle hasn't succeeded at spin.

This time Sam is saying while he's at the center of the Conyers story, he's done nothing wrong. For Sam's sake I hope that's how the feds end up spinning it.

It was hard not to feel sorry for the 150 people who showed up for the first Michigan Tea Party Convention in Holt today. They tried to make it seem exciting, important and picture perfect.

Red, white and blue balloons framed the main speaker's area, but some of the speakers spoke from the wrong side of the room so the media backdrop ended up as weathered, brown gymnasium bleachers. No problem, there wasn't much media there.

Their "all-star" speaker lineup included Fulton Sheen and Leon Drolet along with a stable of Mackinac Center for Public Policy wingnutzzzzz who could barely keep themselves awake even as they trotted out their familiar grievances about government and taxes during a panel discussion titled, "How Bad Is It?"

For the Tea Party folks it was pretty bad Saturday. A small crowd, no leadership and little focus. Anti-government ballot proposals were discussed, politicians attacked and unions demonized but this was shotgun politics of the ready, fire aim variety. Tea baggers are selling an old, worn suit that even some of them acknowledged the public doesn't seem to be buying.

"There's only 150 people here," said one exasperated tea bagger. "What are we supposed to do?"

Mackinac Center's Jack McHugh--a How Bad Is It? panelist-- tossed a limp gem of a response: "What unites the tea party movement is grievances."

Indeed.

Terry Lynn Land and Mike Cox showed up and Cox's people were busy passing out campaign stuff. But neither of them were asked to speak, so Cox busied himself reading a Capitol Confidential tabloid headlined "Escort Service?" then left just ahead of Land.

But if it's comforting to progressives to see the tea baggers struggling, be forewarned. This is a ready-made political base for spearheading a wrecking ball ballot measure in 2010. Drolet is championing a proposal to rescind 2007 state income tax and business tax measures and is linking it to reducing benefits for public employees. He hasn't given it a catchy name yet but that can't be far behind. And the Mackinac Center pushed Saturday for a Taxpayer Bill of Rights like the one Colorado adopted and then rejected after it nearly destroyed public education and government services there.

The tea baggers lined up Saturday to show support for their favorite ballot brew, and in the end an anti-government proposal may be the poison cup battered Michigan voters will be asked to drink from in 2010.