This Week in Progress

After this week, I’m feeling somewhat harrowed.

Now to progress!

This Week in PM Blogging:

Shots fired in the War on Women

After the House Committee on Government Operations passed a laughable minimum wage substitute bill, the dust settled, the score was tallied and once again, conservatives proved that they’re leading the charge in the War on Women.

An Activist who Lived her Art

Maya Angelou lived through struggle, spoke about the struggle and died fighting the struggle. Today we honor her memory and fight like hell for what she stood for and against.

How high?

Whenever the business lobby comes calling, Gov. Rick Snyder is always willing — and eager — to answer. Whether it’s billions in unaccountable tax giveaways, Right to Work or even … equality?

 TWIP Clips:

Terri Lynn Land fails to impress at Lawmaker Scouting Combine

Each year on Mackinac Island, hopeful candidates from around Michigan audition at the Lawmaker Scouting Combine before a veritable Who’s Who of business lobbyists, donors and reporters. Colloquially known as the Mackinac Policy Conference, the Combine lasts for three days, tickets can cost up to $2,575, and is pretty much mandatory for anyone on the political career-track. Candidates who say the right things can improve their draft stock and land a few corporate sponsors. Attendees are usually drunk.

What could possibly could go wrong?

For Terri Lynn Land, lots — and not the ones that now sit vacant after her family-owned company forced 170 families to vacate. Land initially refused to answer a few questions from a scrum of reporters — a hallmark of the Combine and near certain grounds for disqualification.

Taking her career into consideration, Land sidestepped two questions and failed another. And these weren’t even esoteric questions; talking-points would have done just fine. Would she have supported the auto-bailout? No answer. Asked if she supported Net Neutrality earlier in the day, Land’s answer led to this follow-up gem courtesy of MIRSNews:

“I think the Internet should be free,” Land said. “It is a great source of information. It’s the opportunity for people to talk. I’m a Twitter fan. I’m on Twitter. And it’s a great way to connect with people. So I think that’s a very important part of this, and especially in emerging countries and growing communities it’s a way to actually communicate and I think it’s very important to have that available for everyone.”

During a press scrum after the event she was asked to clarify.

Reporter: When you said that you think the Internet should be free are you talking about broadband infrastructure free access nationwide?

Land: Right, right. 

Subsequent “clarifying the clarifying” press releases were issued by Terri Lynn Land’s campaign, presumably by fax machine. Asked if she considered NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden to be a patriot or traitor, Land responded with the intellectual rigor of a sixth-grader who hasn’t read the source material:

“I think we have to go through the process and if he breaks the rules, he has to pay the price,” Land said multiple times.

Pay the price, indeed. Millions of dollars have already been spent on Terri Lynn Land’s campaign, and for all that investment Terri Lynn Land can’t answer a single question. Meanwhile, Michiganders are left wondering whether they should laugh or cry — or both. James Madison captured this sentiment perfectly in The Federalist Papers:

“A popular Government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

Progressive Reads:

Gov. Rick Snyder’s new-found concern for LGBT civil rights is a sham

How Republican-Controlled Michigan Became The Seventh State This Year to Raise the Minimum Wage