Rightwing candidate censors me after calling him out on his use of a push poll

It just amazes me that the positions of Republicans are so flimsily that they can’t stand up to the least bit of scrutiny, and that is why I have been banned from two rightwing blogs and now from the Facebook page of a Congressional candidate named Rob Steele.

My crime; making sense and putting up arguments they can’t defend. To me, debating with people I agree with is not much of a debate, so I tend to comment on the disinformation on rightwing blogs when I see such an outrageous lies that I am compelled to comment on. I have been banned from “Right” Michigan and the so-called “blogprof” for daring to disagree with them.

My latest run in was with a teabagger named Steele who is running against U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Dearborn, one of the most beloved leaders in southeast Michigan. I met Steele by accident, and it was an amazing event; one that I have not seen in more than a decade around politics as a reporter and as a campaign volunteer.

Weeks after his attempt to provoke a confrontation with me, I noticed Steele was falsely attacking Dingell on his Facebook page with the lie that Dingell only talks to supporters. I knew that to be an absolute lie and I called him on out it. I had to click the “like” button to comment, but it was worth it to call him out. It wasn’t long before my comments were deleted.

Shortly after I began commenting, he posted this nonsense:

“Our campaign is gaining notice by Team Dingell and various professional liberal bloggers. To clarify the protocol for our Facebook page, non-supporters may post a comment to voice an opinion. Any further comments will likely be deleted.”

First, I’m not a professional blogger, and I haven't been for more than two years when I stopped working for the Michigan Messenger. Second, I am a non-supporter who posted a “comment to voice my opinion,” yet every single one has been deleted. The attacks on me stand, but my response is gone. The only other person calling him out on his lies was a Jefferson High School student.

I just discovered today that I was barred from commenting, and every single comment deleted.

Steele is now touting a poll by Public Opinion Strategies (PSO) that has him down by only nine points, by a count of 51-42. The problem is PSO is a Republican polling and lobbying firm notorious for conducting push polls. This push poll was bought and paid for by Steele, and it still has him nine points down. The real number is probably closer to 18 percent.

POS was responsible for the "Harry and Louise" ad that killed health insurance reform in the early 1990s. In 2001 it was charged with violating Virginia's polling disclosure laws, and it has also been accused of using push polls to influence elections.

The simple fact is his campaign can’t stand up to even the slightest bit of scrutiny, and that’s why he allows no dissent.

Well, you and your supporters are welcome to come here and know that you will not be banned or your comments deleted, at least without repeated warnings about refraining from specific personal smears.

Give me your best shot.

The hypocrisy of the teabaggers takes aim at term limits for Democrats only

The hypocrisy of the teabaggers who control the Republican Party never cease to amaze me, and it makes you wonder what planet they were on the last eight years.

They are apparently on a constitutional kick, misinterpreting it and twisting it to bash the Obama administration. In my daily perusal of rightwing blogs for laughs, I ran across one claming that Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, is a “miscreant who ignores the will of the people for his political interests” because he does not observe voluntary term limits laid out in the Michigan Constitution for federal representative in Congress.

This is as ridiculous as one Michigan’s blogger's misguided tirades over Nullification earlier this week. You will recall that Nullification is a constitutional theory that gives an individual state the right to declare null and void any law passed by the United States Congress which the state deems unacceptable and unconstitutional that was rejected back in 1832 but still led to the Civil War. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled, like it did for state’s trying to impose federal term limits, that the authority of the federal government comes from the people rather than the state governments.

The real funny thing is that when you prove them wrong they just delete it, and tell you, without any shame, “as the owner of this blog I am the arbitrator of what comments I deem are worth posting for whatever reason I choose.

Term limits in Michigan have been a disaster, so why would we want them on the federal level? They probably don't want term limits, but they hate any Democrat so much that they ignore the effect it will have on them or what they said yesterday.

The claim is that in Article II, Section 10 of the Michigan Constitution it says,

“No person shall be elected to office as representative in the United States House of Representatives more than three times during any twelve year period. No person shall be elected to office as senator in the United States Senate more than two times during any twenty-four year period.” “…The people of Michigan hereby state their support for the aforementioned term limits for members of the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate and instruct their public officials to use their best efforts to attain such a limit nationwide.”

The problem is it’s unconstitutional.
In May 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, that states cannot impose term limits upon their federal Representatives or Senators.” The majority opinion stated, “… state-imposed restrictions, unlike the congressionally imposed restrictions at issue in Powell, violate a third idea central to this basic principle: that the right to choose representatives belongs not to the States, but to the people.”

But the real question is why have they singled out just Carl Levin? What about Rep. Dave Camp, R-Midland, nine terms; Rep. Vern Ehlers, R-Grand Rapids, eight terms; Rep. “Twitter Pete” Hoekstra, R-Holland, 8 terms; Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Brighton, five terms; and finally the longest serving Republican, Rep. Fred Upton, R-St. Joseph, 12 terms?

The hypocrisy from Republicans is overwhelming.

Major battle won on the smokefree front, but the public health war continues

I have written 90 posts over three years on the workplace smoking ban, and now that the Legislature finally did the right thing and approved a partial ban on Thursday, I’m experiencing a slight case of withdrawal.

I got a pretty good fix this weekend, and I had to knock down some of the same, tired old arguments from the other side. I had a long running debate on Facebook with a former colleague at the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus. I was, frankly, quite surprised that he was against it, and the arguments he used. Again, so much for the myth of the “liberal media.”

His tired arguments mirrored the same arguments the Op-Ed page of the paper used to editorialize against it. But, over the weekend they ran a poll, and support in conservative Livingston County was more than 60 prevent for the workplace smoking ban. Like I have said time after time, this is a nonpartisan issue.

The Detroit News ran a CyberSurvey on the issue, and 49.3 percent say are pleased with the smoking ban that was passed, and just 36 percent said it was too restrictive. Another 14 percent said it did not go far enough. I don’t think it went far enough either, but I am more than satisfied, for now. Compromise is necessary to get things done in politics. Like President Obama recently said about the health care reform debate, “we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

That means 64 percent who took the survey support a workplace smoking ban and 36 percent do not. That pretty much reflects how the entire state feels.

It was also interesting to read the rightwing blogs. Even though almost 70 percent of Michigan residents support the ban, not one right wing blog was for it, not one. If you need any more proof on how out of touch the Republican Party really is there it is. Plus, it was a bipartisan bill, and Republicans and Democrats were on both sides of the issue.

Here’s a little sample of the rightwing opinion:

“Nanny Statists Win”
“Here's a thought: why not let people make their own decisions?”

Here’s another one:

“I'm left scratching my head that people in my own party, the Party of Lincoln and Reagan, the Grand Ol' Party, are trumpeting about the smoking ban in Michigan along with Democrats who have ruined our state, giving a failed governor a Leftist victory in removing more freedoms from the citizenry.”

That’s a lot of lies in one run-on sentence.

Some are hard to follow, but here is one, as near as I can tell, on how a ban will hurt bar business. That myth, of course, has long been debunked:

“An after work beer and a smoke at a bar will not translate to an after work beer in the local watering hole alone. Bar patronage will decrease.”

Here’s another one:

“Arguments abound on the RINO designation with those who still support the Republicans that vote "progressive," saying "but you should concentrate on the 95% that you agree with them on.. “

The good news is I expect to continue to write about the workplace smoking ban. I think there was enough support in the House to pass a clean bill. The fight is not over. This is a huge victory; make no mistake about that, but that was the big battle, and we still have a smaller battle before we have won the war.

There is still a bill in the Senate, Senate Bill 114, that completely bans smoking, including casinos. This was a true grassroots effort, and we need to step up the pressure to pass this and protect all workers, no matter where they work. We still have a year left in the current legislative session. A great time to pass this would be during the lame duck session next December.