Snyder ignores thousands of residents to meet with aging Texas rock star

Thousands of Michigan voters have been in the Capitol to try and get their voices heard on the disastrous budget proposal by Gov. Rick Snyder and his union-busting efforts, but he can’t find the time for them. It’s seems ironic that a non-resident can then get a personal audience with him.

Draft-dodger, philanderer and Texas resident Ted Nugent got a one-on-one private meeting with Snyder to talk about hunting issues on Thursday. I suggest you call the Governor’s office at (517) 373-3400 and ask for a personal meeting with the Governor. Good luck.

Many of those people protesting his budget proposal that balances the budget on the backs of children, senior citizens and the working poor voted for him, but I guarantee they will not get an audience.

Nugent, who moved to Texas during the Bush Administration, endorsed Snyder during his campaign of little more than slick TV ads and bumper stickers. Snyder’s bumper sticker saying of “Job One is jobs” appears to be job three behind union busting and meeting with aging Texas rock stars.

Snyder’s tax problem is just another example of how unsuited he is to lead

The news that two of Rick “Chief Executive Outsourcer (CEO)” Snyder’s companies were hit with tax liens for unpaid taxes is old news, but it illustrates a pattern on how really unfit this guy is to run state government.

By now Snyder’s mouthpiece has spun the tax liens as an oversight, but it’s just one more example how clueless he really is. He is great at making himself rich but not much else. We saw the fiasco at the GOP state convention, and if he can’t run that, how can he run state government?

Government and a for-profit, private company are different. You can’t outsource state employees like he did at Gateway to line your pockets. The outsourcer made a cool $23.7 million when he left Gateway Computers after he shipped 20,000 American jobs to China and other parts of Asia. The more American jobs he killed, the more money he got.

He is afraid to debate because his ideas simply don’t stand up to scrutiny. He associates himself with people like draft-dodger and a philanderer Ted Nugent. He claims the Michigan Business Tax (MBT) and the 22 percent surcharge passed back in 2007 that replaced the hated Single Business Tax (SBT) is “a job killer,” saying that the creation of the 2007 tax is “like Lansing went to the video store and rented ‘Dumb and Dumber,” but he chooses the person who wrote it as his running mate.

His lack of judgment and how clueless he is about government is stunning. But I fear it may not matter, and the millions he spent on 30-secodn ads to build a false image are what may matter most.

A perfect illustration of this is teabagger U.S. Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell. This is a woman with a sketchy employment history who has lied about her education, defaulted on her student loan and her mortgage, sued a former employer for mental anguish, railed against the evils of masturbation, spent campaign cash on living expenses, says she dabbled in witchcraft and questioned whether it would have been OK to lie to prevent Nazis from killing Jews during World War II. Despite that impressive resume, teabggers say they will vote for her anyway because they say she will vote their way.

Character simply does not matter anymore to Republicans.

However, the choice for Michigan Governor next month is very clear: Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero.

Maybe the outsourcer should turn down this endorsement

So much for family values. rightwing extremist ex-rocker Ted Nugent has penned an OP-ED supporting Republican Gubernatorial nominee Rick “Chief Executive Outsourcer (CEO)” Snyder.

Nugent said he returned to his “spiritual home base of Michigan last weekend,” and he decided to pen an OP-Ed. I’m absolutely amazed that anyone would give him such a platform. I know people who must move out of Michigan, temporarily, to find a job when the economy goes bad and the auto industry lays workers off, but I have no respect for a guy who leaves for Texas for no reason I can figure. But he had this to say about CEO Rick.

“Though I am no longer an official resident of Michigan, I still made it a point to track down and speak with Rick Snyder, the Republican candidate for governor. I was already impressed with his entrepreneurial successes and management skills, but came away from our conversation even more hopeful that this astute, pragmatic businessman could bring Michigan back from the brink.”

Nugent endorsed the Outsourcer’s opponent, Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard, in the primary, but I guess he has a new hunting buddy.

I am also appalled why anyone would even want to be endorsed by a scumbag like Nugent, let alone by a party that constantly claims to be the party of family values. Who would want to associate with a draft-dodger and a philanderer? This is a man who could have faced statuary rape charges for sleeping with his 17-year-old Hawaiian girlfriend Pele Massa, so he talked her parents into allowing him to adopt her. Doesn’t the CEO have a couple of teenage daughters?

But, the fact is Republicans have a hard time finding celebrities who support Republicans.

But here is another ridiculous statement from the Motor City insane man, “After all, accountable government should reflect accountable business.”

That begs the question, when is the conservative, corporate media going to hold the chief outsourcer accountable? They have not asked him any hard questions, and we don’t know much about this guy, other than his record of destroying U.S. jobs for personal gain, and we know nothing of this alleged plan to “reinvent Michigan.” There are only 53 days before the election, and he ahs not accepted a single challenge to debate.

Instead of debating Virg Bernero, he holds townhall meetings in front of friendly, hand-picked audiences where he doesn’t face any tough questions, and the media lets him get away with it, like they did when he ducked debates in the Republican primary.

Rocker makes strange bedfellow for GOP sheriff

The Republican Party bills itself as the party of family values, but not only does it fail to support middle class families, they associate themselves with some strange people: like rightwing extremist ex-rocker Ted Nugent.

In a brief in the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus, “Republican gubernatorial candidate and Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard this week "joined" rock music legend Ted Nugent to call for an amendment to Michigan's Constitution to create a "legal right to hunt and fish."”

I’m not sure why we need such an amendment, and that’s just a political ploy. But why would any supposedly family values political candidate want to be associated with someone like Nugent? The answer is the money and the press. Not only that, it’s hard for Republicans to find a pop or rock artist that supports Republicans.

You will recall that in the 2008 Presidential election, the rock group Boston told former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee that he could no longer use the song “More than a feeling” as his theme song, and liberal rocker John Mellencamp told Arizona Republican Senator John McCain not to use any of his songs at events.

I guess Bouchard can use a Nugent song for his theme song. “Cat Scratch Fever,” or “Wang Dang Sweet Poontang” would do nicely. After all, Nugent is quoted as saying:

"My man, Mike Bouchard, is the kind of leader and hunting buddy Michigan needs. We need a leader in truth who will continue to stand up for our guns, God and beliefs," Nugent said.

And what a guy to have as your man. Upstanding citizen Nugent could have faced statuary rape charges for sleeping with his 17-year-old Hawaiian girlfriend Pele Massa, so he talked her parents into allowing him to adopt her.

Like many Republicans, Nugent is pro-war, except when it comes for him to actually serve in combat. The famous story he has told numerous times has him stopping all forms of personal hygiene for a month and showing up for his draft board physical in pants caked with his own urine and feces, winning a deferment from serving in Vietnam. However, since Nugent has become a darling of the Republicans and appears on Faux “news” regularly, he has changed the story and now says he enrolled at Oakland Community College and got a deferment. Events say that is highly unlikely, but at a minimum it makes him a liar.

Why he has anything to do the Governor’s race or Michigan is beyond me. He voluntary left Michigan in 2004 when he moved his family to Crawford, Texas, where George Bush once owned a sprawling ranch and spent the majority of his time instead of at the White House.

I was a Nugent fan in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and I still like some of his early stuff. The irrelevant stuff he said on local Detroit radio stations was funny and rebellious, but it didn’t have the hateful, misinformed tone it does now. But I have also matured since then.