Repeal of discriminatory DADT strikes a blow for enhanced military readiness and equality

The U.S. House took a major step toward equality and enhanced military readiness on Wednesday when they voted to repel the discriminatory and unconstitutional “Don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) policy.

The House approved the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010” by a vote of 250-175 that allows gays to serve openly in the military.

This is the second time the House voted to kill the ban. The measure was contained in the 2011 defense authorization bill that the House passed earlier this year. However, the Senate version of the defense authorization bill failed twice before the decision to go with a stand alone bill was reached.

The fate of repeal now lies in the Senate, where Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, introduced S.4023, a standalone bill to repeal the ban.

U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Dearborn, was one of the co-sponsors of HR 6520,as were U.S. Reps. Sander Levin, D-Southfield, and Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township. Dingell spoke in favor of the bill on the House floor.

“Just as today’s Americans shake their heads at the thought of a segregated military – and indeed society - I suspect that generations to come will do the same at the shift we made in 1994 from the outright to tacit discrimination of homosexuals in the military,” Dingell said. “Madam Speaker, our nation is engaged in conflicts in multiple theatres and we are in desperate need of troops, as well as foreign language translators, and yet because of DADT, there is a segment of the population who want to serve openly and who, for all intents and purposes, face a sign saying they “need not apply.”

Teabagger candidates take refusing to talk to the press to new heights

It’s pretty sad that federal Republican teabagger candidates refuse to take to the press; instead taking the advice of queen teabgger Sarah Palin and “talking through Faux News,” but fellow Alaskan teabgger Senate candidate Joe Miller took it a step further and arrested and handcuffed a member of the conservative mainstream media.

Palin, Miller, Sharon Angle and Jan Brewer in Nevada, Christine O'Donnell in Delaware and Rand Paul in Kentucky are staying away from real media in favor of the propaganda arm of the GOP, but they are even avoiding some hosts on faux in favor of more friendly interviewers like sean haity as they run away from their previous extremists positions for the General Election, such as killing Social Security and Medicare and privatizing the VA.

Even U.S. Rep. John Dingell’s opponent is running away from his primary election position on Social Security and Medicare, even though it is in print for everyone to see.

But Miller takes the cake. Alaska Dispatch staffer Tony Hopfinger dared to ask Miller about his record as attorney for the Fairbanks North Star Borough. According to published reports, Miller said last week he would no longer talk about his personal background. Miller was disciplined for violating the municipality’s ethics policy in 2008 when he was a part-time borough attorney. Miller used borough computers for political purposes in 2008 when he organized a failed effort to oust state Republican Party Chairman Randy Ruedrich.

Apparently, Miller thinks his conduct as a public official is his “personal background.”

As a former reporter for more than a decade, I can tell you reporters are treated with a little more respect because what they say or write reaches so many people. If a reporter gets treated so badly, you can just imagine how badly a constituent will get treated. Why does a Senate candidate even need private security? I have seen Michigan Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow show up at events alone and at most with a staffer. Considering how hateful and violent some teabaggers are it appears they have more guts than Miller.

There is no doubt that the teabggers are dragging the Republican Party off the cliff, and every reasonable or moderate Republican that wants to clean up the mess left by Bush is drummed out of the party.

It’s telling that every single Michigan Republican statewide candidate but GOP Gubernatorial candidate Rick “The Chief Executive Outsourcer (CEO)” Snyder appeared at another teabagger rally on Saturday in Livonia; including the candidates for Attorney General, Supreme Court, Secretary of State and the candidates opposing Dingell and U.S. Reps. Mark Schauer, D-Battle Creek, and Gary Peters, D-Bloomfied Township.

Another corporate and GOP lobbying firm sponsored teabagger bus tour was launched by Palin on Monday, and it will only stop in places where Republicans have a chance to take Democratic seats, including the districts of Schauer and Peters here in Michigan.

Do you remember the days not so long ago when teabaggers claimed that the “movement” was nonpartisan and “not about Democrats or Republicans?” So long ago; almost two years.

If you need further evidence of the radical extremist direction of the GOP, we have the words of Palin at the event.

“Heaven forbid the GOP machine strays from this message," said the unsuccessful Republican vice presidential candidate. “If so, the GOP is through."

On that, I agree with Palin.

Dingell gets endorsement of conservative Detroit News

The endorsements continue to pile up for the Dean of the U.S. House, Rep. John Dingell, D-Dearborn, this one from the conservative Detroit News.

The endorsement of Dingell – and one other endorsement - is the only part of the editorial I agree with that is also a cheap attack on Democrats and liberals. I do agree with this one sentence, “we feel he should remain in Congress,” “because he fought for the domestic automobile industry.”

That alone is a great reason for voting for Dingell, but the good news is there are plenty more reasons to vote for him.

All of the other endorsements are for the most out of touch, right-wingers possible, with the exception of Dingell and Sen. Hansen Clarke, D-Detroit, the candidate for the 13th Congressional District. Even the rightwing editor Nolan Finley couldn’t go as far as endorsing Dingell and Clarke’s opponents, but it must have pained him to do so.

There is no doubt that Dingell is the best choice for voters in the 15th District, but it’s sad they used it to take a backhand slap at President Obama and the Democratic leadership.

The fact that the conservative editorial board endorsed the extremist opponents of U.S. Rep. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Hills; U.S. Rep. Mark Schauer, D-Battle Creek; State Rep. Gary McDowell, D-Pickford; and Democrat Pat Miles, a Grand Rapids attorney, speaks volumes for the Dingell endorsement.

He had to overcome a lot for the editorial board not to endorse his extremist opponent.

Ethically-challenged sacrificial lamb Raczkowski launches a deceptive smokescreen

There is no doubt that all the hype that this is a Republican year is designed to suppress voter turnout, but it is a strange year when the likes of ethically-challenged sacrificial lamb Andrew Raczkowski has a chance against U.S. Rep. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township.

Peters has been running some very effective and true ads that highlight some of Raczkowski’s trouble with the truth. Raczkowski is being sued by his former business partners for fraud who claim that, as the head of Star Tickets until earlier this year, Raczkowski owes them more than $6 million after grossly underestimating the number of tickets sold for concerts at the 2008 Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota.

According to the lawsuit, representatives of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally commented that the crowd for the Kenny Chesney concert – one of the performers along with Kiss and John Fogerty, alone “was the largest concert crowd ever at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally (and the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally was in its 68th year). An expert from the School of Engineering at North Carolina State University has viewed various photographs taken of the concerts and has opined that the crowd for the Kenny Chesney alone exceeded 42,000 people,” yet Raczkowski claimed he only sold 25,000 tickets for all three shows combined. The Kiss Army alone can sell 25,000 tickets.

The filing says “the simplest way to determine the number of persons who actually attended the concerts would be to take a count of the number of ticket-stubs collected at the gates of the concerts.” However, the claim is that Raczkowski took the unusual step of immediately seizing the boxes containing the ticket stubs and destroying them to jibe with his claim of 25,000 tickets. The lawsuit claims that in Raczkowski’s haste to cover up his crime he “ended up destroying more ticket-stubs than the number of ticket sales reported.”

Raczkowski’s response to the Peters’s ad has been to sue him to stop the truth from coming out. He figures he already has a team of lawyers on his payroll, so what the heck, what’s a $100 filing fee to the big corporate dollars rolling in to the Raczkowski campaign. So much for tort reform because he has zero change of winning.

But this is nothing but a smokescreen. In fact, he has taken the lead of fellow GOP Congressional candidate Rob Steele and misrepresented himself.

According to MLive, “Raczkowski supporters, calling themselves the Oakland County Truth Squad, protested on Thursday outside the Berkley Public Library as the Peters campaign debuted the ad.”

Like Steele calling his supports “Steelworkers” to make people think he has labor support, Raczkowski is trying to make people think he has the support of the Michigan Truth Squad, a project of the Center for Michigan that debunks political ads and claims in the current election cycle.

The fake outrage from teabaggers is simply ludicrous

Teabaggers never cease to amaze me. Now, they are offended - offended mind you -because Democrats are calling the Astroturf teabaggers the name they first attached to themselves.

The Republican noise machine is revved up and is angry that U.S. Rep. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield, used the term teabaggers. The fake outrage is just hilarious.

Apparently, Peters simply called a member of militant branch of the Republican Party what they first called, themselves, and on one rightwing blog he is jackass for calling his crooked opponent and career politician, Andrew Raczkowski, a teabagger, which is exactly what he is. On wrong Michigan this guy is under the false assumption that teabagging is a homosexual act. Simply not true.

According to one blog on the Detroit News, “the two candidates for the 9th district congressional seat appeared together at an event held by the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority at the Bloomfield Township Library on Sept. 19,” and Peters spoke the truth and called Raczkowski what he is and what extreme Republicans have been calling themselves until they found out what it meant, teabaggers.

He claims:

“The term is particularly offensive to women, and two Michigan tea party officers -- both women -- were furious upon hearing of Peters' use of the term.”

What pure BS. Talk about made up fake outrage. How can something that is not organized have officers?

“Wendy Day, founder of Common Sense in Government and also an active tea party organizer, said that "for a U.S. congressman to show such poor judgment shows his lack of character." “

Are you kidding? This from a woman who is a founding member of an anti-gay hate group called the LOVE (Livingston Organization for Values in Education) PAC that tried to ban books?

The fake outrage from a teabagger named Janice Daniels is even more out there. She “gasped when she heard the term.” Are you kidding; she gasped?

When did she gasp? When she first heard a teabgger use it first way back when this fake, Astroturf farce began last year?

But it gets even more ridiculous.

Daniels decried the use of the "offensive term" at "a time when we need the conversation in the public arena raised to a higher level."

Are you kidding me? Apparently, she has never been to a “tea party” where the President was called everything under the sun, or to a townhall meeting in the summer of 2009 when teabaggers disrupted the townhall meetings of Democratic politicians and shouted down anyone who disagreed with them or wanted to hear what the Representative or Senator actually had to say.

November looks good for Democrats

Like every other political junkie in Michigan, I’m still digesting last night’s primary election results, but for the most part I am a happy man because most of the candidates I supported won.

I haven’t posted recently because I was busy campaigning over the weekend, and those candidates I worked for – soon to be Senator-Elect and former Rep. Hoon-Yung Hopgood, D-Taylor, and Congressman John Dingell, D-Dearborn – won their races.

I was elated to see Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero win with such a big margin – 59 to 41 percent – and I am even happier to see who he is running against, chief job outsourcer Rick Snyder. That certainly proves teabaggers are a fringe group. One Livingston County rightwing blogger had this headline in a pre-primary post: “No Rick Snyder for governor. Anybody in the primary but Rick Michigan.”

Not to worry; it will be Virg in November. Let the speculation about his running mate begin. I’m nominating House Majority Floor Leader Kathy Angerer, D-Dundee. The anti-choice Democrat will bring in the Andy Dillon supporters.

I see little difference between the last GOP Gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos and Snyder. Like DeVos, Snyder sent jobs to China, and well as Mexico, while the head of Gateway Computers.

I spent last Sunday walking in the Monroe County Fair Parade for Dingell. Monroe is my hometown, and because I still have lots of friends and family there, I volunteer there often. After the parade I did a three-hour shift in the Monroe County Democratic Party booth, which was really a tent. I was wearing my distinctive red, “Team Dingell” shirt when this goofy looking guy came into the tent and introduced himself as “Dr. Rob Steele,” and he was the "guy who was going to retire John Dingell.”

Apparently, it really was teabagger Republican candidate and Ann Arbor-area cardiologist Rob Steele. It caught me off-guard that he would seek out a confrontation, so the only witty come back I could come up with was “in your dreams.” He went on about how it was time for Dingell to retire then tried to make conservation when he noticed the hat I was wearing said “U.S. Navy retired.” I just told him to move on. I was so suspired by the arrogance that I was caught off guard.

It was only after I found out a little about him that it was cleared up. He is a teabagger who seeks confrontation, and he is a doctor. Like Sen. Roger Kahn, R-Saginaw, who is also a cardiologist, he appears to be a little arrogant.

The other Congressional candidate I volunteered for, State Sen. Hansen Clarke, D-Detroit, unseated incumbent Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick for the seat in the 13th Congressional District with a resounding 48-39 percent win. It will be nice to see someone with some real passion and above reproach ethics in that seat.

I feel much better about the race for the other two competitive Congressional seats. U.S. Rep. Mark Schauer, D-Battle Creek, will again get the opportunity to beat extremist Republican and loser Tim Walberg in the 7th District.

U.S. Rep. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township, will face perennial loser and sacrificial lamb Andrew Raczkowski in the 9th U.S. House District.

Locally, I was disappointed to see Teabagger Republican Joe Hune win in the 22nd Senate District, I guess that proves Republicans will vote for name recognition, no matter how extreme and wacky their positions are. I can’t wait for the debate when he goes against someone who really knows the issues, like Democratic candidate Chuck Fellows.

I also can’t wait for November.

Health care petition drive signs up GOP donors

Political consultants Joe DiSano and Joe Munem offered more ammo for their theory that the petition drive to stop 32 million Americans with no health care insurance from getting it and place a constitutional amendment on the ballot to exempt Michigan from the historic health insurance reform law is little more than an exercise to build a mailing list of Republican supporters and contributors for the upcoming election.

The Astroturf “tea parties” are a Republican effort, and on their April 24 pod cast, the Republican and Democratic strategists connected the dots to show the petition drive is an effort to collect names and addresses the Republicans can solicit support and money from.

DiSano and Munem first floated that theory earlier this month, and in talking about the Republican primary in Michigan’s 9th Congressional district for the chance to run against U.S. Rep. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township, they again floated that theory.

Perennial candidate Andrew "Rocky" Raczkowski and Paul Welday are the Republicans in the race. DiSano and Munem made the point that Glenn Clark, the Republican Chair of the 9th Congressional District who is supposed to neutral, is working for Strategic National Consulting, a Republican political consulting firm owned by Chuck Yob.

Raczkowski is a client of Strategic National, so how can Clark be neutral? Clark is also, apparently, the chair of the Oakland County Tea Party,” what ever that is.

One things political consultants do is collect and sell to candidates lists of supporters and potential donors. That’s exactly want Clark is doing with this petition drive, and he is directly getting the names right from the petitions.

Hate ginned up by GOP incites violence

No one who has witnessed one of the misnamed, Astroturf “tea parties” over the last year can be surprised at the death threats and attacks we are seeing on the offices of Democratic lawmakers who voted for the historic health insurance reform bill last week.

Hell, you just needed to see how they disrupted the townhall meetings on health insurance reform last summer to see what was coming.

I said way back in April of last year that the anti-government rhetoric going on now is eerily similar to what I saw in the mid-1990s with the Michigan Militia that only died down with the indictment of Timothy McVeigh for the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995, and like the cockroaches they are, the rightwing extremists dove for cover like somebody turned out the lights when McVeigh’s association with the Militia came out. Now, some of these same people are back, and they have been joined by other extremist groups, fired up by Republican leaders. Those so-called GOP leaders that have not tried to fire them up for political gain, have been silent on speaking out against it and condemning it.

A propane gas line at the Virginia home of the brother of Rep. Thomas Perriello, D-VA, was cut; whose address was targeted by teabagger group angry at the congressman’s vote for the health insurance bill, the address was mistaken for the Congressman’s home. An envelope containing white powder and a threatening letter was delivered to the office of Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York, who has been an outspoken proponent of health care insurance reform efforts.

Here in Michigan where eight of Michigan’s 15 members of Congress voted for the historic bill, some have been the object of threats and intimidation. According to the AP, the Michigan State Police have increased patrols around the home of U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Menominee, who has received obscene and threatening phone calls and faxes.

Now, Reps. Mark Schauer, D-Battle Creek, and Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township, are the targets of repeated threats. State Sen. Gretchen Whitmer, D-East Lansing, spoke out about the threats and intimidation on the Senate floor on Thursday.

“And now there are reports of death threats, cutting gas lines, delivering a coffin to the front yard of one lawmaker, and even threats to kill the children of Democratic lawmakers who supported the bill,” she said. “I think we can all agree; Gosh, I hope we can all agree that this has gotten way out of hand, as the rhetoric and rancor is turning into violent action.”

She was especially upset over the silence of so-called Republican leaders who ginned up the rhetoric, and then denied they had.

“In my view, perhaps the worst offense is that people in leadership positions are silent, and astonishingly, in some cases, it appears that they are actually encouraging this horrifying behavior,” Whitmer said. “None of us should take lightly this dangerous trend. We, as leaders, as legislators should condemn behavior like this—Democrats and Republicans alike. If we don’t quell this now, it will surely foment, and as a society, we will all pay as the election tensions rise.”

She plans on introducing a resolution condemning the behavior as soon as the Legislature comes back from it’s two-week Easter break. It will be interesting to see who supports it, if the Senate Republicans even allow a vote in it.

“Please join me in condemning this activity,” she said. “I have a resolution condemning that behavior, and I hope you will consider adding your name to it. “

Get to the Peters townhall before the ‘tea baggers’ and ‘birthers’

There can be no doubt that the extremist rightwing Washington, D.C. lobbying groups behind the fake, Astroturf and misnamed “tea parties” are the same people scripting the disrupting of the townhall meetings of Democratic Congressman.

Republicans are promoting a pair of townhall meetings in Oakland County this week; one they plan to disrupt and one they don’t. The first one is actually tonight, Monday Aug. 31. The “health care townhall” is set for 7-9 p.m. at the Mott High School Performing Arts Center, 1151 Scott Lake Rd. in Waterford 48328 hosted by Freshman State Rep. Gail Haines, R-Waterford. Yes, you heard right; a state Representative.

Apparently, the meeting is for residents of Waterford, Lake Angelus and West Bloomfield Township, and photo ID is required. Can you imagine if a Democrat asked for an ID the fake outrage we would hear from the right? The ad also says, “Please no fliers, handouts or political signs on the school’s premises.”

Now, if they said none of those things that we saw at Democratic townhalls were not allowed inside I could understand, but they are not even allowed outside? Come on.

The first question I would like to ask Rep. Haines is what the heck is a state lawmaker doing hosting a townhall meeting about federal legislation? I know the answer, but I would like to hear her answer. The reason is that Republicans see defeating the President on health care reform is a way to get power back on both the state and federal level.

These farces are apparently taking place in Oakland County, and they bring in speakers who are against health care reform. Extreme right-wingers Reps. Tom McMillin, R-Rochester Hills, and Marty Knollenberg, R-Troy, recently held one of these farces, and Knollenberg said if there were seats left after all the residents of his district were seated others could attend. He reneged on that promise.

The other townhall meeting is actually being hosted by a U.S. Congressman: U.S. Rep. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township. The townhall is set for 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sep. 1 at West Bloomfield High School, 4925 Orchard Lake Rd. in West Bloomfield, 48323.

You need to get there at least a half hour early because the tea baggers have been pushing this hard, and you can bet they will disrupt it so they can get on the local news and on Faux “news.”

Only negatives in historic election are local

I feel like I'm on a roller coaster ride, but it's heading up.

I went to bed just after midnight after Election Day elated that there is a President Obama, the ballot proposals I supported won and we increased our majority in the state House, but I was also disappointed that despite a great showing Democrats in Livingston County who worked so hard still do not have any local seats to show for it and the one candidate I supported by actually going door-to-door for, state Sen. Mark Schauer for the U.S. House, appeared to have lost. I blogged in support of many candidates, but he was the only one I expanded physical energy for.

But low and behold when I looked at Gongwer this morning my spirits soared. Not only did Schauer win, but Gary Peters is now Congressmen-elect Peters. Add to that a historic win by Judge Diane Marie Hathaway over incumbent rightwing activist judge Cliff Taylor. Speaker of the House Andy Dillon won both the recall election and re-electron. Now, maybe Leon Drolet will crawl back under the rock he came from, or better yet, he will be prosecuted for the illegal activity during the recall campaign.

Election Day began for me at 6 a.m. at the polls in Howell Precincts 1 where I was working my first General Election as an election official. The turnout was heavy from the moment the polls opened until around noon when it surprisingly fell off. It was a weird feeling being at the polls all day because there was a virtual news blackout at the polling place.

I was tunnel versioned between tearing off the top of the voter's ballot and helping them run it through the tabulator and checking off names in the poll book. Traffic picked up around 2 p.m., and traffic was steady but not overwhelming until the polls closed. I didn't leave the polls until 9:30 p.m. after we had closed everything out.

The good sign was that Obama had won Howell precincts 1 and 2 in predominantly Republican Livingston County.

Locally, the Buckland family was carrying the torch for local Democratic hopes. Dave Duckland had the best chance of putting a fresh voice on the all-Republican Livingston County Board of Commissioners, but he fell just short. Debby Buckland had a great shot at Hamburg Township Clerk in the county's most populous township where she fell just 322 votes short. She was actually leading with about half of the votes counted.

The incumbent clerk, Joanna Hardesty, lost in the GOP primary, but she launched a spirited write-in campaign. She got 2,239 votes, but her less than honest campaign continued to the end. A costumed giant pencil gave away pencils with her name on them outside the polls. That was legal, and it is even legal to take them into the polls. What it is not legal to do is to leave campaign material at the polls, and people were leaving the pencils behind on tables where the ballot application was being filled out and at voting booths. Since Hardesty was running the election, she knows better. Perhaps that's one reason she lost.

A person who is very close to the campaign told me this morning that if Hardesty had not been in the race Buckland would have won because the opponent is so disliked. I find that hard to believe, and I think the opposite is true. My hope was the two Republicans would split the Republican vote allowing Buckland to win, and it almost worked.

While I am still digesting the election news, it's hard to find much negative, and the only negatives are local. I guess we will remain a county with low taxes, but absolutely zero services.

Political pundit predicts huge seat advantage for House Democrats next month

Michigan House Democrats will build on their 58-52 seat lead next month, according to Bill Ballanger in the latest edition of Inside Michigan Politics.

Ballanger is the editor and publisher of IMP, and the former state lawmaker and respected political pundit is going even farther on predictions he made in January and June that the Democrats will retain control of the House by an astounding margin of 70-40. Ballanger said according to a quartet of micro polls commissioned by East Lansing based Practical Political Consulting, the decision by Grampy McSame to abandon Michigan will have a negative effect on some vulnerable Democratic seats.

The Republicans went from controlling the House for more than a decade and wining one of the largest majorities in many years in 2002 to suffering the worst back-to-back election cycles since the early 1940s that culminated with the loss of the House in November 2006.

The McSame pullout is also having some positive results in the race for the U.S. House. The non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report upgraded the race between Democrat Gary Peters and Joe Knollenberg to "Tossup/Tilt Democratic." The race had previously been rated “Lean Republican.” A separate poll conducted by Grove-Insight for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) shows Peters ahead of Knollenberg 46-37 percent.

The race between Democrat Mark Schauer and extremist Tim Walberg is a toss up, and a recent poll by Myers Research & Strategic Services shows the Senate Minority Leader is leading Walberg by ten points, 46 to 36 percent.

National Bush Legacy Bus tour roars into Michigan

All Michiganders have felt the Bush legacy in the form of high unemployment, the loss of manufacturing jobs, record gas prices, record home foreclosures, huge corporate bailouts and the deaths of hundreds of young people in an unnecessary invasion, and now you can see it all in one place when the National Bush Legacy Bus Tour Comes to Michigan on Saturday.

The Bush Legacy is a 45-foot, 28-ton clean bio-diesel powered museum on wheels that features several exhibits on how disastrous the Bush/conservative policies have been, and how they have weakened America's security abroad while neglecting and undermining important priorities here at home.

It is also highlighting the people who have helped Bush wrecked havoc on the county, and the bus tour will be in Battle Creek on Saturday, Sept. 20 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the backyard of Bush enabler Tim Wahlberg, where he is locked in a battle with State Sen. Mark Schauer. It will be in front of the Kellogg Arena at Michigan Ave between Macamly and N. Capital. On Monday it will be in Jackson from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at 120 N. Jackson St. The museum will also be in Lansing in front of the Capitol from 2-4 p.m.

On Tuesday it will be in Bush enabler Joe Knollenberg's district from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Royal Oak Farmers Market at 11 Mile Road and Troy Street in Royal Oak. Gary Peters is neck and neck against Knollenberg.

The tour kicked off on June 24 across the street from the White House, and the National Bush Legacy Bus tour has since blanketed half the country – from New Hampshire to New Mexico – and will continue making nearly 150 stops in the hometowns of Bush’s enablers in Congress and symbolic locations like the President’s home away from home in Crawford, Texas.

It will be back in Michigan before the tour concludes on Election Day in Virginia. It will be in Kalamazoo on Oct. 21; Grand Rapids on Oct. 22 and Ann Arbor on Oct. 23.

The race for the 9th Congressional District features confrontations, videotape and Dr. Death

The U.S. Congressional race for Michigan’s 9th District may be a microcosm of the presidential election in Michigan, and it will also be an interesting race to watch that has already seen confrontations, videotape and now a guy with the nickname of Doctor Death as a candidate.

U.S. Rep. Joe Knollenberg, R- Bloomfield Hills, is seeking his ninth term in the U.S. House, and he will be challenged by Democrat Gary Peters, a professor at Central Michigan University and a former state Senator, and Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the well-known assisted suicide doctor, who plans to run as an independent.

The district’s boundaries are contained entirely in Oakland County, the second largest county in the state with 1.2 million residents. The county has long been known primarily as a Republican county, but that is fast changing as it trends Democratic. The Republicans maintain a 13-12 edge on the county Board of Commissioners, and the county executive, L. Brooks Patterson, is very active and well known in state and national Republics politics.

“Oakland County has been considered Republican, and most of the county commissioners are Republicans,” said Glenn Clark, the Republican Chair of the 9th Congressional District and a Troy resident. “However, it has gone blue at the top of the ticket since 1992.”

Michigan itself has been blue since 1992, and the last time it went for a Republican presidential candidate was for President George H.W. Bush in 1988. However, the decision by Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama not to campaign here for the primary, coupled with the decision by the Democratic National Committee not to seat Michigan’s presidential delegation in retaliation for moving up the presidential primary in violation of party rules, makes Michigan vulnerable to going red.

“It is definitely a swing district,” said Rochester Hills resident and Democratic activitist Bruce Fealk. “The district went for (Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John) Kerry in the last election”

Fealk, who operates the blog “Vote no on Joe,” is a story himself. He has been a vocal anti-war critic, and he began following Knollenberg around at events, as well as appearing at parades, wearing a huge papier-mâché likeness of Knollenberg. Fealk tried repeatedly to get Knollenberg to meet with him and other anti-war protestors to talk about the war, as well as the veto of the bipartisan SCHIP legislation. When that failed, Fealk began following Knollenberg around with a video camera.

That led to a confrontation last October between Fealk and Knollenberg’s then chief-of-staff, Trent Wisecup, in a convenience store. The incident made state and national news, and Wisecup called Fealk “un-American,” “not a citizen” and “blinded by” his “hatred of this country.” Fealk made more news when he was arrested in February in Troy while attempting to videotape a panel discussion on Black History Month, hosted by the Oakland County Republican Club.

But Peters also has a person trailing him with a video camera. CMU student Dennis Lennox has been following Peters around for months claiming Peters should not be teaching at a public university while running for Congress. That also led to a confrontation that made state news, although it was with a CMU dean and not Peters. Lennox has used that publicity to launch a bid for the Republican nomination for the 110 District seat in the state House.

The 9th District consists of the townships of Bloomfield, Oakland, Southfield, West Bloomfield, and pats of Orion and Waterford Townships, as well as the cities of Auburn Hills, Berkley, Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Clawson, Farmington Hills, Farmington, Keego Harbor, Lake Angelus, Orchard Lake, Pontiac, Rochester, Rochester Hills, Sylvan Lake, Troy and Royal Oak. It is the home of many whiter collar engineers, the headquarters of Chrysler and the home of a major Division I university, Oakland University. It has elements of both suburban life and urban life.

“This is a working class area with lots of white collar workers; kind of middle of the road,” Clark said. “It’s a great district to live in, and Troy was ranked as one of the safest places to live in the nation.”

Knollenberg – a U.S. Army veteran - owned insurance offices before going into politics, and used his connections as the former chair of the Oakland County Republican Party to run a successful congressional campaign in 1992. He has the makings of a political dynasty, and his son, Marty, is a member of the Michigan House. Knollenberg is the ranking member on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation and Housing and Urban Development.

Peters was born and raised in Oakland County, and he was a Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve in a Construction Battalion unit (Seabees). In the private sector, Peters had taught at Oakland University and Wayne State University. He was the vice president of investments at UBS/PaineWebber. Peters also served as a vice president at Merrill Lynch.

His first foray into politics was serving on the Rochester Hills City Council. He was elected to the Michigan Senate in 1994 and served two terms before he was term limited. In 2002 he ran for the Michigan Attorney General and lost a close race to current AG Mike Cox by just 5,200 votes among more than 3 million votes cast. In 2003 Peters was appointed by the Governor to run the Michigan State Lottery. Last year Peters was named the Griffin Chair in American Government at Central Michigan University.

Kevorkian earned his reputation and nickname of Dr. Death by assisting in the deaths of nearly 100 terminally ill people. He ran afoul of the law in Michigan many times because it does not have an assisted suicide law, but he also managed to stay out of jail with the help of his attorney, Geoffrey Fieger. The cases earned so much media attention that Fieger parlayed that name recognition to win the Democratic nomination for Michigan governor in 1998, but he lost to the incumbent in the general election.

Without Fieger’s guidance, Kevorkian made a mistake that proved to be his downfall. On September 17, 1998, Kevorkian himself administered a lethal injection to 52-year-old Thomas Youk, who was suffering from terminal Lou Gerhig’s Disease. In past assisted suicides, the person committing suicide had injected themselves or used the machine Kevorkian designed. Kevorkian compounded his mistake by allowing the videotaped suicide to be broadcast on “60 Minutes” and then daring authorities to try to convict him or stop him from carrying out assisted suicides.

Kevorkian was convicted of second-degree murder by a Michigan jury in 1999 and sentenced to serve a 10-25 year prison sentence. Kevorkian, 79, is terminally ill with Hepatitis C, which he contracted while doing research on blood transfusions in Vietnam, and he was paroled on June 1, 2007 due to good behavior. He has indicated he plans to run as an independent. Many people have dismissed his run as insignificant, including many Democrats. Veteran Michigan journalist Jack Lessenberry, who was one of the first reporters to cover Kevorkian, dismissed it as just one more attempt at the publicity he craves.

But Republicans are hoping the lifelong Oakland County resident can drain off liberal vote for Peters.

“He’s a household name here,” Clark said. “It will be very hard to ignore him.”

As the incumbent, Knollenberg has had little trouble winning reelection over the years. He has had little trouble against a list of relatively unknown Democratic candidates, winning easily: winning 55 percent to 40 percent in 2000, 58-39 in 2002 and 58-39 in 2004. But 2006 was different. He had a close race with relatively unknown liberal radio talk show host and political activist Nancy Skinner. Knollenberg won by his smallest margin ever, 51-46 percent. Skinner indicated she was going to run for the seat again, but she got of the race early, deferring to Peters.

Ironically, she has ties to a candidate who many say may be a factor in this race. In 2004 she was living in Chicago and was a Democratic candidate for an open U.S. Senate seat in Illinois, losing in the Democratic primary election to one Barack Obama.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee took notice of that race after 2006, the current candidate and the trend of the district to designate it one of two targeted seats in Michigan.

“He is definitely on the edge,” Fealk said. “If we are ever going to unseat him this will be the year. Gary Peters is an excellent candidate and has done an excellent job of fundraising, and he has the DCCC and the unions behind him.”

Knollenberg votes with President Bush on most issues, and many people think he is vulnerable there because of the president’s low approval ratings, as well as Knollenberg’s position on the war in Iraq.

“He is very vulnerable on the war,” Fealk said. “If you look at his campaign web site, the war is not even listed as an issue. He is also very vulnerable on health care and the economy. People really need to look hard at his votes.”

Clark disagrees, and he said most people in Oakland County do not want the U.S. to leave Iraq before the mission is complete.

“That will be just one of many issues,” he said. “The fact is most people don't want to be there forever, but hey want to win. Most people I talked to who are against the war are not in favor of an immediate withdraw.”

There is also speculation on the effect the top ticket candidate will have on this race. Fealk says the historic nature of the potential Democratic nominees is sure to increase voter turnout for the Democrats, but he thinks Obama’s nomination will have a larger effect on turnout in the more urban Pontiac area and benefit Peters.

“I don’t want to make it a race issue, but I expect to see more turnout if he is the nominee,” he said. “I definitely think Obama will have a positive effect on turnout.”

Clark thinks Republican nominee Sen. John McCain will rally the district's many independent voters.

“John McCain is a candidate that will send a strong message to independents, and I think John McCain is the type of candidate we need to carry Michigan and Oakland County,” he said. “Michigan will be very important, specifically Oakland County, and I think we can win.”

Veteran journalist says no vote for income tax increase jeopardizes Michigan

NOVI - Veteran journalist Jack Lessenberry told a group of West Oakland County Democrats that the budget and economic situation in Michigan is the worst he has ever seen it.

“However bad you thing the situation is in Michigan, it’s worse,” he said. “There is no way to exaggerate the situation.”

Lessenberry has worked as a foreign correspondent and executive national editor of The Detroit News, reporting from more than 40 countries. His writing has appeared in such national publications as Vanity Fair, Esquire, The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Boston Globe. He is also a professor of journalism at Wayne State University, and his freelance columns appear in The Metro Times, The Traverse-City Record Eagle and The Toledo (Ohio) Blade. He is also a senior political analyst for Michigan Public Radio.

Lessenberry was extremely critical of the state Legislature’s inability to pass a budget, or approve a much needed income tax increase. He said no company would want to move to Michigan with the government in disarray, the roads and infrastructure crumbling and the state’s biggest assets, the schools, being starved. He says as a professor at Wayne he sees far too many promising students drop out of college simply because they cannot afford the tuition, especially in light of an 18 percent increase in tuition this summer.

“It’s not even a raise in taxes, it’s a restoration,” Lessenberry said. “I’m not a farmer, but farmers settled this state.
“They know that to prosper they cannot eat next year’s seed corn,” he said.

He lashed out at the Republicans refusal to vote for the income tax increase because of the fear of a recall from a man who has never had a job where he was not paid with tax dollars.

“Republicans believe in taxes they just believe in taxing the poor,” he said. “They are turning Michigan into Mississippi with ice storms. It’s very scary for those of us left in Michigan.”

Despite speaking in front of a room full of Democrats, he pulled no punches and also had hard words for Democrats too. He took Gov. Jennifer Granholm to task for a lack of leadership on the budget. He said she should have bought a half hour of TV time to tell people the budget situation in a quasi fireside chat and use the political capital she gained in the election with an overwhelming victory and being term-limited.

“We will be the laughing stock of the nation if we have a shutdown,” Lessenberry said. “The governor took far too long to take a principled stand. She let Mike Bishop take a major role.”
“I just do not understand why the governor did not take the lead on this,” he said. “She has no political capital to lose.”

Lessenberry was also critical of the 10 freshman Democratic House members in vulnerable seats who did not cast an up or down vote for the income tax increase during last weekend’s marathon House session.

“They are gutless wonders,” he said. “They refused to vote because they want to hang on to a job they are going to lose in six years; the state of Michigan is at stake here.”

Lessenberry had some bold predictions for the presidential primary, saying Hilary Clinton would be the Democratic nominee. He also said he did not expect Barack Obama to be her running mate no matter how well he did in the primaries because Lessenberry thinks asking voters to vote for two firsts in the same election – a woman and African-American for president and vice-president - was asking too much. He expects her running mate to be a male Senator from a Middle Western state. However, he had no idea who the front-runner was in what he called a particularity weak Republican field

“Hilary Clinton is already the Democratic nominee; she has already been anointed,” he said. “Usually, it’s the Republicans who settle this first.”

He said the U.S. Congressional districts have been so effectively gerrymandered he expects little change there, but there could be a race in the 7th District where GOP U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg faces a challenge from the Democratic Senate Minority Leader Mark Schauer and in the 9th District where long-time Republican Joe Knollenberg faces a challenge from Democrat Gary Peters.

“He (Walberg) is somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan. The last time I said that I got an angry note; Genghis Khan was angry at being compared to Tim Walberg.”

Lessenberry said he was less than excited about Peters' chances of winning because he called him a “lousy campaigner.” He said Peters was qualified, smart and capable, but he is not a good campaigner. He said he singe-handily allowed the first Republican to be elected to the position of attorney general in Michigan in almost 40 years.

“You need to get Nancy Skinner out of there first," he said. “The last thing the Democrats need is a bruising primary.”

The state House will be an interesting place next year with 44 members term-limited, but Lessenberry said it will be a good year for Democrats.

“Democrats will pick up a few more seats,” he said. “I do not see Republicans taking control of the House.”