Basham continues decade long quest to protect the public

State Sen. Ray Basham has had a long and varied career in public service, including a hitch in the U.S. Air Force, serving as an auxiliary police officer, as a union representative, a city official, a state Representative and as a Senator. For most of that public service Basham has been trying to protect the health of people from second-hand smoke.

Basham has been trying to ban smoking in the work place, including bars and restaurants, since he was first elected to the Michigan House 10 years ago, and that quest has continued on to the Senate. According to the U.S. Surgeon General, there is no safe amount of second-hand smoke, and secondhand smoke is the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States, killing more than 50,000 people annually.

“Second-hand smoke is not a nuisance, this is a health hazard,” Basham said last week in the Senate Democratic lounge, just off the Senate floor. “This is a serial killer.”

It was while Basham was working at Ford Motor Company that he first became aware of the issue of second-hand smoke. It was also while he was at Ford that Basham became directly involved with smoking and second-hand smoke as an employee support services representative for the United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 245.

“I was involved in smoking cassation and other programs with the UAW,” he said. “I had numerous complaints of second-hand smoke, and we dealt with them on a case-by-case basis.”

During Basham’s service on the Taylor City Council and Planning Commission, he noticed smoking during meetings and people ignoring no smoking signs, and smoking was even allowed in the state Capitol. Mounting evidence - such as food service workers are 50 percent more likely than the general population to develop lung cancer and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classified second-hand smoke as a Group A carcinogen - drove Basham to action.

“I had colleagues that would not come into the caucus room because they had ash trays on the chairs,” he said.

Basham’s bill, Senate Bill 109 in this session, has only had one committee hearing in his 10 years in the legislature. The House version - House Bill 4163 introduced by Rep. Brenda Clack, D-Flint, - received a hearing before the House Commerce Committee last week. Basham hopes passage in the House will prompt the Senate to finally take up the issue in the face of mounting evidence pointing to the harm second-hand smoke causes.

“This is not a partisan issue,” Basham said. “This is an issue whose time has come, and we simply have a responsibility to protect the public.”

Opposition to the ban has come primarily from the Michigan Restaurant Association (MRA), and some of the opposition has come because of the false belief that bars and restaurants will lose money and business if a smoking ban is implemented. But evidence shows the exact opposite is true; that restaurants in the 30 states that have the ban have seen increased revenue, such as in New York City that saw revenue increase 8.7 percent and the creation of 6,000 restaurant jobs in just the first year after it went smokeless.

The MRA claims individual bar and restaurant owners should make the choice to go smokeless or not, and officials from the MRA say restaurants are choosing to go smokeless on their own, saying that since 1998 smoke free restaurants have increased 96 percent. But Basham said that includes fast-food restaurants and carry-out, not just sit-down restaurants.

MRA officials say it’s an issue of freedom, and the government should not regulate or dictate to business owners what kind of dinning atmosphere they will have. But Basham says that’s ridiculous because government already regulates everything from the number of parking spaces a restaurant must have to the tempature of stored meat.

“Certinally we should be allowed to regulate indoor air quality,” he said. “Smoker’s have rights, but they end when the smoke goes up someone’s nose.”

The day of the hearing was also the legislative lobby day for the MRA in Lansing. Basham said he talked to representatives from some of the largest restaurant chains in the state, such as Red Robin and Buffalo Wild Wings. He said they support the ban, and there is a clear disconnect between the MRA board and its members.

“The board should talk to its members,” he said. “Those guys are dinosaurs on the board.”

The bill, at least the House version, is expected to be taken up in committee before the legislature takes its summer break, and Basham hopes it will be voted out of committee to the House floor.

Coulter Quote of the Week: queen of hate makes political points with grief

Hatemonger and racist Ann Coulter’s hateful “Quote of the Week” took a brief hiatus last week because it was preempted by the Livingston County Daily Pres & Argus’ one-way Playboy interview of Coulter. But it’s back this week.

As the Oct. 1 date for the Republican Party mouthpiece to appear at Cleary University’s Economic Club Speakers Luncheon Series fast approaches, all we have really learned is that barring Coulter being arrested for cannibalism or for some other heinous crime she is jailed for Coulter will speak because ticket sales are brisk.

But, without further ado here are some Coulter gems that Cleary is paying $30,000 plus travel expenses to hear:

On Princess Diana's death: "Her children knew she's sleeping with all these men. That just seems to me, it's the definition of 'not a good mother.' ... Is everyone just saying here that it's okay to ostentatiously have premarital sex in front of your children?"..."[Diana is] an ordinary and pathetic and confessional - I've never had bulimia! I've never had an affair! I've never had a divorce! So I don't think she's better than I am."---MSNBC 9/12/97

“These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much." From her book: Godless: The Church of Liberalism

Medical evidence overwhelmingly supports position on smoke free bars and restaurants

The crowd that jammed into the House Commerce Committee on Tuesday to hear testimony on House Bill 4163 that would ban smoking in all workplaces, including bars and restaurants, was so large a second committee room had to be set up in the House Office Building to accommodate the overflow crowd.

The bill was introduced by Rep. Brenda Clack, D-Flint, but Sen. Ray Basham, D-Taylor, is the driving force behind the smoking ban with Senate Bill 109. Basham said he first introduced the ban 10 years ago when he was in the Michigan House, and the measure has only received one committee hearing in those 10 years. Basham said it’s a public health issue, and second hand smoke is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States, killing more than 50,000 annually.

“The Surgeon General has said there is no amount of safe second-hand smoke,” he said. “This is an issue that we have a responsibility to address whether we are Republicans or Democrats.”

Basham said some 30 states have enacted a smoking ban, including Tennessee just last week, and he said entire countries that have a tradition of heavy smokers have banned smoking in bars and restaurants, including Ireland, Norway and Canada. He said Ontario saved some $1.7 billon in healthcare costs in the first year. He also said Detroit is losing convention business to nearby Windsor because they are smoke free.

“We truly are the smoking mitten,” Basham said. “People should not be put at risk in the workplace.”

Opponents of smoke free bars and restaurants say people go to bars to smoke when they have a drink or have a cigarette after a meal, and a ban on smoking will hurt business. Clack said that’s nonsense, and she said business has actually increased after bars and restaurants go smoke free, especially in light of statistics that say smokers are the minority in this country. Experts say only about 25 percent of the U.S. population still smokes.

“Going smokeless creates revenue and jobs,” she said. “When New York City went smokeless, in just the first year 6,000 restaurant jobs were created and revenue increased 8.7 percent.”

Backing up Basham’s claim that second-hand smoke is a killer was one of the most knowledge people in the country on the effects of deadly second-and smoke, Dr. Ronald Davis. Davis is the Director of the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention at the Henry Ford Health System, and he is the president-elect of the American Medical Association (AMA). Dr. Davis also served as director of the Center for Disease Control’s Office on Smoking and Health from 1987 to 1991.

Davis said in addition to the 50,000 deaths caused by the more than 4,000 chemical compounds found in second hand smoke, many toxic, it also causes more than 790,000 doctor visits a year for non-fatal diseases, such as asthma, inner ear infections and other afflictions. He also said second-hand smoke is the single, greatest environmental hazard most people face, and he said separate smoking and non-smoking sections in restaurants does absolutely nothing to mitigate the harmful effects of second-hand smoke.

“The battle over the evidence has been won; second-hand smoke is harmful and has been proven a health hazard,” he said. “Separate sections in restaurants are about as effective as having a chlorinated section of a swimming pool and a non-chlorinated section of the pool.”

The only people against the smoking ban were some state association: the Michigan Restaurant Association, the Michigan Food and Beverage Association, the Michigan Business and Professional Association and the Michigan Licensed Beverage Association.

Ironically, Tuesday was the annual lobby day for the Michigan Restaurant Association where members come to Lansing to host a reception and lobby their Senator and Representative. The MRA said its sole objection is that bar and restaurant owners should be able to make the choice for themselves whether to go smoke free or not, and Andy Deloney, MRA public affairs director, said since 1998 smoke free restaurants have increased 96 percent.

If that’s the case why oppose the bill?

“What we continue to believe and what we continue to support is that the member makes the choice for themselves what their dining atmosphere is like,” Deloney said.

Because so many people wanted to speak, the committee did not vote on the bill, and Committee Chair Andy Meisner, D-Ferndale, plans to take more testimony on the bill in two weeks.

Anti-smoking zealot’s employee Big Brother policy addressed by House Committee

In an irony of timing, a pair of bills addressing smoking will get a hearing Tuesday before two separate Michigan House committees as the person who prompted one of them is set to speak to the Livingston Area Human Resources Association at 7:30 a.m. June 20 at the Genoa Woods Executive Conference Center.

As you may recall, Howard Weyers, CEO of Okemos-based Weyco Inc., launched a tobacco-free mandate at the company in 2003, and when three of his employees could not kick the most addictive substance known to mankind, he fired them. Now, these three employees practiced the legal habit of smoking off the job during non-working hours, yet in an Orwellan twist straight of “Nineteen Eight-Four” they were still fired.

It makes you wonder what type of behavior Big Brother will try to control next, and how he will know if you are violating the new policy. I am one of the worst kind of anti-smoking crusaders, a former smoker who quit the habit more than 11 years ago, but the obvious question has to be when is an employee’s life his own? I think Weyers should reward those who quit smoking and keep healthy, fit and in shape by having them pay less for medical coverage, but if what Weyers is doing is not illegal it should be. What you do in your own home that does not hurt anyone else should be no one’s business but your own.

Help, however, is on the way, and the House Labor Committee-chaired by Rep. Fred Miller, D-Mount Clemens – will take testimony on House Bill 4532, introduced by Rep. Lee Gonzales, D-Flint, on March 27. The bill, known as the "Employee Privacy Protection Act,” would prohibit an employer from “taking certain adverse actions against an individual who is engaging in –or is regarded as engaging in—a lawful activity both off the employer's premises and during non-work hours,” such as smoking. This will outlaw high-handed decisions like the one Weyers made.

Sen. Ray Basham (D-Taylor) will be testifying before the House Commerce Committee Tuesday, chaired by Rep. Andy Meisner, D-Ferndale, on his smoke-free workplace legislation, which would ban smoking in all workplaces, including bars and restaurants. It seems amazing that Weyers can fire people for smoking at home during non-work hours, yet there is no law in place that bars people from smoking at their public workplace. Amazing.

Basham introduced this version of his bill, Senate Bill 109 on Jan. 30. He first introduced the exact same legislation two years ago, but it died when the 2005-2006 session ended on Dec. 31. The bill has not even been able to get a hearing in committee in the Republican-controlled Senate after some three years. The House committee is actually taking testimony on the House version of the bill, HB 4163, introduced by Rep. Brenda Clack, D-Flint, on Jan. 30. Hopefully, the House version will finally make the obstructionist Senate act, but if past history is any indicator it will meet the same fate of many other bills sent to the Senate - many passed by the Republicans when they controlled the House last year - and die without ever getting a fair hearing.

Let’s hope not.

Ward flips from McCain campaign and flops to Thompson camp

According to the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus, Rep. Chris Ward, R-Brighton, has backed off his previous endorsement of Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, for the Republican Presidential nomination and switched his allegiance to former actor and lobbyist Fred Thompson, if he runs.

It’s not really earth shattering news for those people living outside of Livingston County, but it speaks volumes about the Republican minority floor leader. This is a pretty big flip-flop. Some nine months ago, Straight Talk America, the political action committee for the then prospective presidential candidate McCain, (R-Ariz.), announced in early September of 2006 that four state representatives from Michigan will join the organization as legislative co-chairs, including Rep. Chris Ward, who was named co-chair of the Straight Talk America Michigan Legislative Advisory Team. Ward was quoted in subscription only MIRS saying:
“Senator McCain is very popular among members of the Michigan state legislature and we look forward to working closely with him in the 2006 Elections,” said Representative Chris Ward. Representative Ward is in the GOP leadership as the House Majority Flood (sic) Leader.

That’s a heck of a flip-flop; going not only from endorsing McCain but also working for the candidate. It makes you wonder what the real reason for the change. Apparently loyalty is not a trait Ward is familiar with, and according to the P & A the decision is based on just one issue, immigration. Ward even modeled the alleged camping finance reform he was working on after the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill, only Ward’s version so favored Republicans it died in the last session. Yet Thompson voted for McCain-Feingold when he was a Senator. Ward claims his “change of heart had more to do with Thompson than with McCain.”

I once had a lot of respect for McCain, a former Navy pilot and POW in Vietnam. Actual veterans are rare in the party that claims to support the troops, and Thompson is just one more Republican politician from conservative Hollywood. I lost a lot of respect for McCain when he allowed George Bush to get away with smearing his family and military service.

I just don’t get Republican’s infatuation with Thompson. Speaking a few lines a week in the TV series “Law and Order” qualifies you to be president?

Thompson only served one and a quarter terms in the U.S. Senate representing Tennessee, and he served in the Senate some eight anonymous years from 1994 to 2002, his only elective office. He was elected to serve the remaining two years of the term of Tennessee’s favorite son, Al Gore, when he was elected Vice-President. Thompson’s longest stint at anything has been as a Washington lobbyist from 1975-1992. His lobbying efforts helped usher in the deregulation of the Savings and Loan in 1982 that led to the S & L crisis in the late 1980s that cost U.S. taxpayers more than $125 million.

He has been such an apologist for Bush’s failed polices in Iraq it’s ridiculous at a time when the rest of the GOP hopefuls are running from Bush, and Thompson even made a commercial that falsely tried to link the 9/11 attack to the occupation/civil war in Iraq. This is the man Republicans want to be president without him even being involved in a debate with the other candidates.

I guess this does away with the myth of “liberal” Hollywood, and it goes the way of the “liberal” media lie.

Michigan GOP should cancel subscription to Communist Party newspaper

You are probably not aware of this, but Republicans, at least some Republicans, are calling for the Governor to fire Andy Levin from his position as Deputy Director of the Department of Labor and Economic Growth for allegedly, at least according to the Republicans, calling companies and employers terrorists.

The reason you have not heard about this is because it’s not true, so no reputable mainstream media outlet is dumb among to reach the same ridiculous conclusion and pick up this non-story and you don’t read rightwing blogs. Republican Party Chair Saul Anuzis put a press release last month calling for Levin to be fired, posted it on his “blog” – if something that refuses to allow comments and feedback can be called a blog - and on a blog called right Michigan that’s a cheap rip-off of the Michigan Liberal. In fact, this guy apparently has nothing else to write about because he posts the came crap about Levin everyday. This guy is so petty he recently called the governor out for taking a lunch break and spending it with her teen-age daughter on her birthday. Can you get any more petty?

The offending passage came from the May 26 edition of the “People’s Weekly World,” which is the official newspaper of the U.S. Communist Party. I don’t read it, but apparently Anuzis does. I wonder why that is? The reporter was covering Biennial AFL-CIO Constitutional Convention, and this is the offending passage, in fact the only reference to Levin in the entire story.

“Levin, who worked in the national AFL-CIO’s organizing department for 10 years, said the only way to stop the “terror campaign” that companies initiate after workers vote to form a union is to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which contains stiff penalties for such abuses.”

Can anyone please explain to me how they can reach that ridiculous conclusion from that? The dictionary defies terror as “violence or threats of violence used for intimidation or coercion.” That is exactly what companies do to keep unions out. If you don’t believe me I suggest Anuzis and the “right” Michigan kid visit the Michigan Historical Museum right there in downtown Lansing or get put of Lansing and visit the Monroe County Labor History Museum so they can read up on the Battle of the Overpass in Dearborn in May of l937, the Flint Sit-Down Strike in 1936 and the bloody battle to organize the Republic Steel plant in Monroe in 1935.

The Employee Free Choice Act tries to level the playing field that’s tilted so far in favor of the company. It would allow workers to organize a union free of an employer’s intimidation, free from fear of being fired and free from retaliation. The bill would allow employees at a worksite who want a union to simply sign a card clearly indicating support for a union. Companies pull out the stops when a union tries to organize to protect the employees. The employer is free to call mandatory meetings on company time to lie about the union, spread misinformation and makes threat when the union can only ask workers to attend organizing meetings as they speed out of the parking lot to get home, and the company also routinely fires organizers and those sympatric to unions.

What really bugs me is the people on “right” Michigan enjoyed the middle class upbringing their parents provided because of the surface and hard work of union members that created the middle class, and now they smear unions.

Anuzis apparently has a thing for Levin, the son of U.S. Rep. Sander Levin and the nephew of U.S. Sen.. Carl Levin. You may recall that Anuzis broke into and trespassed into Levin’s home last fall and with a welcome basket of Michigan products in a lame attempt to label Levin as a carpetbagger.

Levin grew up in Michigan and graduated from high school here. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts; a Masters degree from the University of Michigan’s Rackham Graduate School and a Law degree from Harvard University. He then organized union workers in Michigan before being transferred—first to Boston, then to Washington, D.C. Like many young people, he recently chose to return home to raise a family, doing exactly what the governor is trying to do: get the best and the brightest to stay in Michigan and have them come home. How does that make him a carpetbagger? While the governor is trying to stop the brain drain, we have people like Anuzis undermining the progress of the state with those kinds of stupid stunts and dirty tricks he has become known for.

Levin ran for state Senate in the 13th District in November where he narrowly lost. In January, the Governor appointed Levin as Deputy Director of the DLEG where he oversees workforce development, career education and other key programs.

Instead of firing him, I hope the governor promotes him, and he runs again for the senate in three more years.

Al Gore’s new book gets good review by panelists

Enthusiasm is building for former Vice-President Al Gore to enter the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination, and there was plenty of that enthusiasm at a panel discussion of Gore’s latest book – “Assault on Reason” – on Thursday put together by mid-Michigan draft Al Gore proponents at Schuler Books in Okemos.

The panel, consisting of Beryl Schwartz, editor and publisher of the Lansing City Pulse; Tracy Dobson, a professor at Michigan State University’s Fisheries and Wildlife Department; and Doug Kelley, the retired director of Extension and Continuing Education at the University of Michigan in Flint.

The panel had differing opinions on latest book. Schwartz said he was disappointed the book had no new ideas from Gore, but he said it served as a good reference for all of Gore’s previous positions and good ideas.

“This book, to a large extent represents, both what is good and bad about Al Gore,” he said. “He is brilliant, but as a campaigner he is a little wooden.”

Kelley disagreed with that assessment, and he said Gore’s positions are what the former U.S. Senator and Vice-President are passionate about.

“I found this a very passionate book,” he said. “He says George Bush violated the law – not that that he just lied to people – that he violated the law for the past six years.”

Dobson said there were good and bad things in the book, but she really enjoyed Gore’s take on the history of democracy and communications in the United States.

“TV has done more to damage our democracy than anything else,” she said. “Political debate has been diluted down to 30 second advocacy spots.”

The talk naturally drifted away from the book to politics and other subjects, and the panelists also talked about their personal experiences with Gore. Schwartz said he first met Gore in the early ‘80s when Gore was a Senator and Schwartz was a reporter for Scripps Howard News Service in Washington, D.C. Schwartz was offered a job as publisher of the Knoxville News Sentential in Gore’s home state, and shortly after that he accepted the job got a call from “Al’ – a former reporter himself - inviting him to lunch.

“We had a lot to talk about,” he said “He has a great sense of humor.”

Schwartz said even then he was developing a respect for Gore, but that respect was cemented when Gore appeared at a journalism panel celebrating the newspaper’s 100th anniversary that Gore had to fly to from a conference in Bermuda and back just to be there because he had made a promise to Schwartz to attend.

“I think there are a lot of people from liberals to conservatives who wish he was president today,” he said. “We would be better off today, but this book will not get him there.”

Kelley, very active in the Washtenaw Democratic Party, said he saw Gore at all six of his Michigan appearances, and he was one of the 1,000 presenters Gore personally trained last year in Nashville to present the slide show based on Gore’s Academy Award winning documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.” Kelley said he saw a man that was far from wooden and lacking in emotions, and he saw a man who cared about people and was at ease with people from al walks of life.

Kelley has one of the largest collections of Democratic Presidential campaign memorabilia in a garage-like structure at his Ann Arbor home he calls the “archive” that he welcomes people to visit. Kelley once worked as an aide to late Democratic U. S. Senator Phil Hart, and he compares Gore favorably to Hart. Hart was a former Lieutenant Governor of Michigan, and he served in the Senate from 1959 until his untimely death in office in 1976. The Senator Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. is named for him.

“He (Hart) was as close to a saint as a politician can get,” Kelley said. “Al Gore has some of those same qualities.”

Bob Alexander, a former Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress in the 8th Congressional District, is one of the organizers of the mid-Michigan Draft Al Gore movement. The group meets every month at 7 p.m. at the Gone Wired Cafe, 2021 E. Michigan Ave. in Lansing.

For more information contract Alexander at Alexjuliea@aol.com.

Coulter says her hate speech is just a joke and a way to make more money

The Livingston County Daily Press & Argus attempted to interview Republican mouthpiece and hatemonger Ann Coulter about the controversy surrounding her appearance at Cleary University’s Economic Club Speakers Luncheon Series.

No luck. Apparently, the only way she will talk to anyone from a community so insignificant as Livingston County is if they ante up $30,000. Instead, she answered questions via email. No word on how much she charged them, and there certainly is no proof Coulter actually wrote the responses herself, other than the disgusting and snarky tone. It looks like a Playboy interview, only much shorter and less interesting. She answers serious, thoughtful questions with flip, glib answers.

I also think the newspaper is missing the point when it says the controversy over Coulter only began when she “used the word "faggot" in March when talking about Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, her previously scheduled appearance in Livingston County this fall took on a more controversial tinge.” That is untrue. It’s her body of hate, racism and prejudice that is driving the objection. Her appearance reinforces the undeserved reputation that we are racists here, and it reinforces the general perception that Livingston County is a safe haven for racists and bigots of all ilks, like Coulter.

Perhaps the real reason Cleary is not canceling her appearance is because of the ticket sales. “Cleary has already sold more than 300 tickets at $60 each, the largest number of tickets sold for a speech in the series. Sales are occurring faster than for any other speech in the series history, said Janet Filip, development director for the university and coordinator of the event” and wife of the chair of the Livingston County Republican Party.

The rest of her answers are just normal crap from Coulter. It proves the more outrageous and hateful things she says, people like Cleary President Tom Sullivan throw more money at her. I guess that blows away the thin excuse from Cleary that her appearance “enrich(s) the Livingston County community by hosting speakers who can share a broad spectrum of social, political, intellectual and cultural experiences.” Her excuse seems to be her hate speech is really just a joke, and us “poorly-dressed subversives” just don’t get it.

Wasn’t Don Imus’s remark about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team a joke?