Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Warning: You are about to enter the Twilight Zone.
Imagine, if you will, that you live in a state where a governor wields extraordinary power over its residents. Imagine, if you will, that your governor has the legal
authority to appoint an “Emergency Manager” to oversee the local government in the town where you reside. Imagine that the monetary compensation for the Emergency Manager of your community has no cap. Imagine that your Emergency Manager declares that there’s a financial emergency in your town and then takes over control of it. Imagine that the Emergency Manager can break contracts, seize and sell assets, eliminate services—and can also fire duly elected public officials who serve your community. Imagine, if you will, that the Emergency Manager empowered by your governor to run your town has the right to dissolve your school district and to disincorporate your town. AND imagine that you and your fellow residents have no say about what is going on! Just imagine how you might feel if you lived in a state where that kind of thing was going on. Well, the people who live in Michigan may not have to imagine much longer.
Who, you might ask, will be responsible for transforming the state of Michigan into a Rod Serlingesque otherworldly undemocratic Twilight Zone right here in the United States? Why, Governor Rick Snyder and his bold band of Republican state legislators–that’s who. In January, Governor Snyder called for “Emergency Manager” legislation—and the Republican state legislators were more than happy to comply with his request.
This all seems hard to believe, doesn’t it? I’m not making it up. Karen Bouffard of The Detroit News reported the following: Legislation that would allow emergency financial managers to throw out union contracts and overrule elected officials in financially distressed municipalities and school districts was approved Wednesday by the state Senate. Similar legislation passed in the House in February, and the two chambers are working on a final version to send to Gov. Rick Snyder.
In an article published in The Michigan Messenger, Eartha Jane Melzer wrote:
Under the law whole cities or school districts could be eliminated without any public participation or oversight, and amendments designed to provide minimal safeguards and public involvement were voted down.
An amendment to require Emergency Managers to hold monthly public meetings to let people know how they are governing was rejected by Senate Republicans, along with proposals to cap Emergency Manager compensation and require that those appointed to run school districts have some background in education.
Critics say that Republicans are manipulating concerns about budget problems in order to consolidate power by undermining unions.
According to E. D. Kain: Snyder’s law gives the state government the power not only to break up unions, but to dissolve entire local governments and place appointed “Emergency Managers” in their stead. But that’s not all – whole cities could be eliminated if Emergency Managers and the governor choose to do so. And Snyder can fire elected officials unilaterally, without any input from voters. It doesn’t get much more anti-Democratic than that.
Mark Gaffney, Michigan State President of the AFL-CIO said: This is a takeover by the right wing and it’s an assault on democracy like I’ve never seen.
Do you agree with Mark Gaffney? Do you think what’s going on in Michigan is an assault on democracy?
SOURCES
Rachel Maddow Exposes Michigan Republicans Secret War On Democracy (Politicus USA)
Michigan Governor Plays Fast and Loose with Democracy, Invokes Radical New Powers (Forbes)
Michigan Republicans Use Budget Crisis to make Outrageous Assault on Democracy (AFL-CIO)
Michigan Senate passes emergency manager bills (Daily Tribune)
Emergency managers bill sweeps toward final approval (The Michigan Messenger)
Conyers: Emergency Manager bill ‘raises serious constitutional concerns’ (The Michigan Messenger)
Financial manager bill passes Michigan Senate (The Detroit News)
Michigan bill would impose “financial martial law” (CBS News)
Technically I know many of the regulars consider it more of a salon, Brian, but if you find this place so Hellish, please, don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. See, unlike your Christian Hell, nobody is forcing you to stay. You are free to leave at any time. Although I’m fairly certain after listening to enough of your nonsense Lucifer would say the same thing. Or perhaps offer you a job.
RE: Buddha Is Laughing, March 25, 2011 at 3:23 pm
Because a raving lunatic at a garden party is as much fun and as valuable as and as welcome as a turd in a punch bowl.
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So, this is not the Johathan Turley blawg?
It really is just a garden party?
Are you telling me that I finally found The Garden of Evil?
Funny, that is what I have been searching for all my life?
I never thought it would be so easy to find?
That is why it is proper only to vilify people here?
I am not vilifying people and that is inappropriate here?
I have finally found Hell for real?
I have doubts.
I love that SNL commercial, Bob. It’s actually a tie for first with my favorite SNL commercial bits “Bass-O-Matic ’76” and “Colon Blow Cereal”.
RE: Mike Spindell, March 25, 2011 at 2:46 pm
Mike, you wrote, presumably referring to me:
“This forum allows you to behave passive aggressively to your heart’s content and despite your protestations otherwise, to vent your obvious rage in a passive aggressive manner.”
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The “rage” which you apparently find obvious is not an aspect of my life. I am not in rage, nor am I being passive-aggressive. Nor am I perseverating.
I am able to do the sort of work I actually do because I have the strength of character and conscience to inquire into some of the most pervasive taboos of human society, work which requires persevering long enough to get valid data which is ordinarily unavailable until sufficient diligent effort has been made.
I do ask people I know to read this blawg and to tell me of their understandings of the events on this blawg which relate to my work and my commenting here, and I get a very different story from such folks (many of whom have research Ph.D. degrees and who have worked in academic settings as ethical scientists.
One might regard my work as an ethical study of what may be unwittingly unethical.
Perhaps I can once again paraphrase my research, yet I am going to guess that I will be told I have not done so if I do so. So, I put that to the test:
I observe that no mistake ever made could have been avoided, regardless of the nature of the mistake or its consequences.
I observe that the contrary view is plausibly a long-established view of the majority of human adults, and has been so for thousands of years.
I observe that the process through which adults have come to believe that mistakes made could have been avoided is one of traumatic brain damage.
I observe that this traumatic brain damage, the result of being coerced into forms of time-corrupted learning, is profoundly addictive.
I observe that I never internalized time-corrupted learning, and my not having internalized it is one of the main bases of my doctorate and ongoing research.
I observe that people who have thoroughly internalized deception have a proclivity for regarding me with hatred.
I observe that people who have internalized time-corrupted learning correspond to those of the biblical story of a broad path leading to perdition.
I observe that people who have not internalized time-corrupted learning correspond to those of the biblical story of a narrow path leading to life.
I observe that, for myself, I prefer life to perdition.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball!
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/happy-fun-ball/229058/
Bob,
I think you know how I feel about the DOI – it being to my mind the most important legal document ever drafted anywhere at any time – well enough to answer that question for yourself.
There’s also that whole 14th Amendment thingy.
Also Maury, please quote Glenn Beck some more. You might as well be quoting the acid ravaged Syd Barrett or syphilitic insanity of Al Capone or the syphilitic ramblings of Frederich Nietzsche (who in the alternative may have had vascular dementia and BPD with psychotic episodes). Or L. Ron Hubbard. Or Charlie Sheen.
That’s just hysterically funny.
Quoting crazy people as your authority is always good for a laugh with people who like actual proof.
Buddha: “Also what SL said about the Constitution. It protects all individuals, hence the plural use of “We” in “We the People”. It doesn’t say “We the Select Few”.”
“No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.”
“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”
Unless of course you hold the DOI as our Restatement of Social Contract and deem those clauses “knocked out” in a UCC 2-206 knock-out clause style.
This of course brings up the negative implication dilemma of deluding ourselves into believing that any government can choose whether or not to amend its constitution to legalize or ban slavery.
Just sayin…
And what Tony said about the Constitution. It doesn’t change a bit no matter what economic model we use, aside from pure communism which recognizes no property rights at all, but that’s irrelevant because no one here is a communist or advocating communism. Some of us are democratic socialists though. You know. Like those happy, prosperous people in Norway – (In Norway, Start-ups Say Ja to Socialism at Inc. Magazine [those dirty ol’ money hating bastards]). Unfettered capitalism isn’t enshrined in the Constitution. It isn’t even the only model that has free market components or recognizes personal property.
Also what SL said about the Constitution. It protects all individuals, hence the plural use of “We” in “We the People”. It doesn’t say “We the Select Few”. It doesn’t just protect who you want it to protect, Maury. It protects everybody. Collectively. You ol’ oligarchical fascist you.
Maury,
First, your own words: “Government regulation brought the economy down.” – maury 1, March 13, 2011 at 3:13 pm
Oh, I know how to read, Maury. Better than you I might add. So well that no only do I know what exacerbate means, but I also know forensically when someone is trying to draw a false equivalence.
Because an exacerbating factor is exactly that . . . exacerbating. They are moot absent causal effect. But you were arguing against regulation in general, not just trade tariffs. You digressed with trade tariffs for a purpose. I wonder what that could be (he asked knowingly)? Couldn’t be to make a false equivalence argument, could it (again he asked knowingly)?
You want to know something else that exacerbated the 1929 crash? Venal assholes and con-men focused on short term gains at the expense of actual long term growth. Something else that exacerbated the crash? A general lack of education that allowed many investors to be duped by the myth of perpetual market growth when anyone who has had basic economics instruction know that every – EVERY – market is cyclical. But neither of these factors would have exacerbated the crash absent the root cause – poorly and under regulated banks driving improper market speculation.
Correlation is not causation, sport. It’s not just for breakfast anymore. It’s a logical fallacy. Cum hoc ergo propter hoc is a common tool trolls try to use to create false equivalence arguments. And the emphasis around here is on “try”. So good luck moving that goal post! It won’t work here.
So it would seem the facts (and basic logic) may not have your tongue, but they do actually kick your venal selfish ass.
Mike S,
“You dazzle me with the sparkle of your repartee!”
Lol – he must be one of those really smart small business guys …
I’ll take Romans for $1000
And an even greater and more well-deserved Fuck You to the other libtard who defended the first libtard.
“Stamford” liberal.
Why doesn’t that surprise me?
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Ouch. You called me a name and cussed at me. Boo hoo.
Any other charming and delightful terms you’d like to toss? Do it quick before I have a complete mental breakdown because you’re so mean, tough buy.
Now, unless you have something of import to discuss concerning the subject matter, be gone, troll. Your troll brothers and sisters are awaiting your arrival at clownhall.com.
“And an even greater and more well-deserved Fuck You to the other libtard who defended the first libtard.”
You dazzle me with the sparkle of your repartee!
You’re right, Mike Spindell, I’m a Tea Bagger. I guess that would make you the Tea Baggee.
Thank you for the warm reception, libtard.
I’ll take Romans for $1000,
Perhaps you are too dense to understand my point, or in the alternative have not read the entire thread, so in a charitable sense you just misunderstood. My father was a small businessman. There is nothing wrong with it. However, my implication was person specific as was my suggestion that he didn’t build the business himself.
However, when you used the asinine appellation “libtard”
you merely just exposed yourself as just another fool. The Cons
that you follow created these tough economic times, while you voted for them. Cons by the way is both used to denote those Tea Bagging, pseudo conservatives and the criminals they support.
“As a small businessman who has managed to provide employment for 30 employees during these recent tough economic times”
You don’t provide employment for their benefit, you provide it for your own benefit. I see nothing wrong with that fact as long as you don’t pretend anything but enlightened self-interest. Now I have no way of knowing whether you’re a good boss or a bad one, whether you pay a fair wage or exploit your workers. However, anyone dumb enough to use “libtards” is no candidate for any medal except one from their local Chamber of Commerce, which certainly is no bastion of caring for workers.
Brian,
You saw a legal expert on TV! Woo hoo! So that makes you qualified as a legal expert? Well I met Buzz Aldrin once. I even saw a space shuttle launch on TV! So I guess that makes me qualified to pilot a space shuttle!
Holy shit!
I better get NASA on the phone right away before they mothball it!
Nah.
Don’t think so.
Also, Bob is straight up right. You don’t have much in the way of cogent theorem. If you cannot succinctly paraphrase it . . . you simply don’t have it. Just your personal vendetta against the legal system that you attack, without formally valid logic and without proof of any kind. And what little postulate you do have? Is garbage. Just because you believe it has value is not an indication it has actual value. I believe my cats are the best cats in the world. That doesn’t mean that they are objectively the best cats in the world. It’s that whole belief versus empirical knowledge thing again. And here is what I know . . .
Your postulate about the societal value and function of courts has been analyzed and challenged by actual experts on the matters of courts and laws (as opposed to your make believe delusional expertise).
To say that it was found to be worse than lacking is a huge understatement.
It was found to be antisocial, pro-tyranny and pro-anarchy.
Therefore, it was found to be anti-civilization.
But rest assured . . . if you keep hijacking threads and annoying people with your correctly labeled passive aggressive nonsense (correctly labeled by a psychological professional I might add)?
People will eventually start asking for your banishment.
Because a raving lunatic at a garden party is as much fun and as valuable as and as welcome as a turd in a punch bowl.
And an even greater and more well-deserved Fuck You to the other libtard who defended the first libtard.
“Stamford” liberal.
Why doesn’t that surprise me?
“or a small businessman of some sort”
As a small businessman who has managed to provide employment for 30 employees during these recent tough economic times, please let me be the first to offer a hearty and well-deserved Fuck You to the libtard who made that comment.”
Just as not all high powered executives are the brightest bulbs in the box, neither are all small business owners, lawyers, doctors, etc., etc., etc.
Sensitive, aren’t we, troll?
“well-deserved Fuck You to the libtard who made that comment”
As any credibility you may have had crashes and burns into a heaping mess.
“or a small businessman of some sort”
As a small businessman who has managed to provide employment for 30 employees during these recent tough economic times, please let me be the first to offer a hearty and well-deserved Fuck You to the libtard who made that comment.
“Words can be tricky at times. Of course, I can easily explain my work to people with whom I meet in person, because I have access to facial expression which informs me about how a person is dealing with the affective aspect of my work. And, with people I have met in person and with whom I have adequately shared my work I can readily communicate in depth and detail by telephone or by email.”
If all of academia was reduced to telling stories by the campfire…
We’d still be living in the dark ages.