Moroun spreads cash and misinformation

It’s old news that Republican billionaire benefactor and Ambassador Bridge owner Matty Moroun is spreading misinformation and lies in order to keep his monopoly on the busiest commercial border crossing in all of North America, but as the public-private partnership for the planned Detroit River International Crossing (DRIC) bridge inches toward a reality, he has pulled out all the stops.

Most people have seen his TV commercial full of lies and the Michigan Truth Squad has called them out on their $400,000 worth of lies and scare campaign. The Moroun family now has bought the help of Faux “news” pundit Dick Morris and the Washington, D.C.-based rightwing think tank “Americans for Prosperity.”

Morris will work for anyone who pays him, and the so-called AFP organized and financed the teabaggers. The AFP has sent out glossy, full-color direct-mail pieces and radio ads against three Republican senators who have not taken a position on DRIC. The DRIC bridge has widespread bipartisan support, including the last three Michigan Governors and the current one; Snyder, Blanchard, Engler and Granholm.

The shrinking but vocal teabaggers have taken up the cause, blogging about it and calling lawmakers because Moron has sold it as a public bridge against a government bridge, ignoring the fact that public uses are just that, and if the DRIC bridge it not built, the 10,000 jobs and a new bridge will go to Buffalo.

Moroun claims a second bridge is not needed because traffic across the bridge has fallen, while he ignores the basic truths that we are just coming out of the worst recession since the Great Depression and the domestic auto industry going into bankruptcy. The fact is Ambassador Bridge “traffic jumped 11.4 percent between 2009 and 2010,” and Moroun has not explained why then he wants to build a second bridge if traffic is falling.

But the biggest lie is that DRIC will lose money and stick Michigan taxpayers with $100 million every year, and that is the scare tactic they are peddling. Canada has agreed to pay Michigan’s estimated cost of $550 million, and it will not cost Michigan taxpayers a penny. The Canadian government has called the proposed bridge its most important infrastructure priority and it will not give Moroun a permit to land this bridge to, again, empty into downtown Windsor.

Coulter wannabe highlights speaker series

Here’s no surprise; Cleary University’s Economic Club Speakers Luncheon Series has brought in more right-wingers.

As I have said numerous times, the stated mission of the series is to “enrich the Livingston County community by hosting speakers who can share a broad spectrum of social, political, intellectual and cultural experiences,” but they continue to bring in some of the most inflammatory right-wingers you can imagine, such as Anne Coulter, Dick Morris, Steve Emerson and Michael Reagan. This time they are doubling down on the hate for the 2011 series, and bringing in Coulter waannabe Michelle Malkin and former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R- Tennessee.

The good news is they are bringing in a semi-Democrat in Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate John Edwards. She has been in the news lately because her husband was involved in a sex scandal, and I’m sure every mention of her appearance will also mention that.

The series is actually bringing in some non-right-wingers like Olympic swimmer Peter VanderKaay and sports agent David Arluck. But the fact remains that the school brings in the most vile and partisan right-wingers it can find.

Columnist and blogger Malkin isn’t as racist as Coulter, but she is just as hateful. It seems like the most disgusting and outrageous things people like Malkin and Coulter say, the fatter their bank account gets. Coulter’s star seems to be in decline, so she needs to produce more outrageous and hateful sound bites to get back on faux “news” more.

During the 2004 Presidential election, Malkin said Democratic Presidential nominee and decorated Vietnam War hero John Kerry shot himself to earn his Purple Hearts, insulting Kerry and every single veteran who ever won a medal or decoration. She shouldn’t be very popular in Michigan after saying those people who are unemployed want to be out of a job and are lazy.

During an appearance on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos last year, Malkin suggested that extending unemployment benefits was a cause of the high unemployment rates of 2009. She said she opposed another 13-week extension of unemployment benefits because "if you put enough government cheese in front of people they are going to just keep eating it and kicking the can down the road.”

We must have a lot of government cheese eaters in Michigan.

Frist, a physician, served two terms as a Republican U.S. Senator representing Tennessee, and his most highly publicized action was during the Terri Schiavo fiasco in 2005. After just reviewing videotapes of Schiavo, he floated the diagnosis that Schiavo was not someone who is in persistent vegetative state. After she passed away later in the year the autopsy confirmed she had indeed suffered devastating brain damage and was in a persistent vegetative state.

Michael Reagan is the latest racist rightwing hatemonger to speak in Livingston County

Cleary University’s Economic Club Speakers Luncheon Series has brought in some of the most vile, racist rightwing tools to speak, and they did not disappoint with hatemonger Michael Reagan set to speak next month for a cool 20 grand plus expenses.

The stated mission of the series is to “enrich the Livingston County community by hosting speakers who can share a broad spectrum of social, political, intellectual and cultural experiences,” but the bigots they have brought in do nothing but bring the political discussion to the gutter. They are also almost all right-wingers. We have seen the likes of Ann Coulter, Steve Emerson and Dick Morris. Non-right-wingers have been few and far between.

Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate John Edwards, will be a speaker on Oct. 7, but her appearance was timed more to embarrass her husband after the news of his infidelity broke.

Like Emerson - who is a self-proclaimed “terrorism expert” simply for narrating a Richard Mellon Scaife-funded documentary called “Jihad in America” - Reagan is making a name for himself and getting rich for his racist, anti-Arab views, and he is following the Coulter business model of the more outrageous things you say the more you are in demand in right wing circles and the more money you make.

We can expect that lack of diversity and divisiveness to continue at Cleary. The speakers the steering committee is seeking to appear in 2011 include former Republican Arkansas Governor and Faux “news“ host Mike Huckabee; conservative hatemonger and Ann Coulter wannabe Michelle Malkin and former Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn. The balance? U.S. Winter Olympians Apolo Ohno, Julia Mancuso and Hannah Kearney. Please.

Reagan has called one of Michigan’s most successful cites, Dearborn, “Dearbornistan.” The Livingston County Daily Press & Argus took the easy way out and called Reagan “a recognized conservative firebrand” instead of the bigot that he is.

Reagan told the paper that “ the highly Muslim-populated city of Dearborn is home to many people connected to the terrorist organization Hamas, as well as actual terrorists.” He went on to say that he has no proof, but that’s his story, and he’s sticking to it.

What is even funnier - but not as funny as Reagan’s take on Gov. Jennifer Granholm - is the comments of Cleary University President Tom Sullivan, who has to be the most misinformed person in the county. He claims, “he's never heard Reagan speak.” His comments were similar to what he said when the controversy over Coulter broke when he blamed bloggers for the community being upset and a board member resiging over the decision to pay her $30,000 to spread hate.

Sullivan said “he's not "particularly bothered" by Reagan's comments because the speaker series strives to attract diverse voices that engage thought on social, political and economic issues.” Aghain, what diversity?

Reagan’s take on the Michigan economy shows he is as misinformed as Sullivan. Reagan said the “country's economic downfall started in Michigan, and that the other 49 states followed suit and "became Michigan."
"You people elected the wrong governor. It's like, 'Why don't we get the captain of the Titanic to come back and sail ships across the ocean?' " Reagan said.

So, it was the Governor who stopped buying U.S. autos and sent two of the Big 3 into bankruptcy, and it was the Governor who caused the subprime mortgage crisis that almost killed the U.S. economic system and caused the worst recession since the Great Depression? Give me a break.

Not only is Reagan a bigot, he’s an idiot.

Reagan, 65, is the adopted son of conservative hero Ronald Reagan and his first wife, actress Jane Wyman. Reagan claims “his anti-tax message is rooted in his childhood, when his father told him he couldn't get a raise in his allowance until the former president got a cut in taxes.”

Wow. What a skin flint. That was when saint Ronnie was a liberal Democrat and the head of a labor union, and it was also the year he divorced his wife.

Newspaper gives itself a pat on the back for promoting racist hatemonger

Only in the office of the general manager of the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus would you give someone a pat on the back for bringing in rightwing hatemonger Ann Coulter to speak.

But that’s the case, and the Press & Argus editorialized on Friday that Clearly University “deserves applause” for bringing in Coulter to speak back in October of 2007 - sponsored, coincidently by the paper - for its annul Livingston Economic Club speakers series. The business college paid the queen of hate $30,000 plus expenses for a 90-minuytge hate, filled tirade, and it touched of months of protests in conservative Livingston County.

The Livingston 2001 Diversity Council denounced her appearance, and a Cleary board member even resigned in protest.

The mission of the economic club is “to enrich the Livingston County community by hosting speakers who can share a broad spectrum of social, political, intellectual and cultural experiences.” But they continue to bring in right-wingers, with a few actual business people and a journalist. Not much of a “broad spectrum.”

Past speakers have included Clinton-hater Dick Morris, Faux “news” commentator John Stossel and alleged terrorist expert Steve Emerson. Basically, the Faux “news” lineup.

The editorial is really a promo for the 2010 speaker series, and the rightwing parade continues. Plans are to bring in another rightwing hatemonger, rightwing radio host Michael Reagan. Among the many vile and hate-filled rants from Reagan include calling for the murder of supporters of the 9/11 Truth Movement. He seems to follow the rightwing career path of the more hateful and disgusting things you say, the more money you make.

I don’t know if they’re paying $30,000 in this kind of economy like they paid Coulter, or does Reagan have to say more hateful things to reach the income bracket Coulter has reached?

To blunt criticism of bloggers like me, they are bringing in Elizabeth Edwards, wife of two-time Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards. In fact, she has written a book about her fight against cancer and her husband’s betrayal and infidelity. I have a lot of respect for her, but if I were cynical and with all the news about Edwards fathering a child and alleged spousal abuse, I might think her appearance is timed just to embarrass Democrats.

But knowing how fair and balanced Cleary and the newspaper are, that’s impossible.

Quote of the Week: Morris gets it wrong again

This Quote of the Week is dedicated to the worst political pundit still employed: rightwing tool and noted Clinton hater Dick Morris.

Morris was the speaker at Cleary University in Howell's Economic Club Speakers Luncheon Series, and he dished up more of his boring old hatred of Sen. Hillary Clinton.

"Bill and Hillary Clinton have one central idea in their uncluttered, ambitious minds: Hillary in 2008. Let Bush get re-elected, use the '04 primaries and general election to clean out the underbrush of competing Democratic candidates, and proceed unimpeded to the '08 nomination. Use the book tours to build support and popularity, but let somebody else take the fall in 2004." -- Dick Morris

"I didn't do what they said I did ... I may have done enough so that I don't know if I can prove my innocence.” -- Dick Morris

"The stronger Hillary is, the weaker she is. The more she seems like a likely presidential winner, the more difficult the senate race becomes in New York. It's perfect.” -- Dick Morris

Cleary University continues to bring in rightwing tools in the name of diversity

Cleary University continues to ignore the stated mission of the Economic Club Speakers Luncheon Series with the appearance of one more rightwing tool: this time Clinton hater Dick Morris.

The stated mission of the series is to “enrich the Livingston County community by hosting speakers who can share a broad spectrum of social, political, intellectual and cultural experiences.” But the last two years the choices have narrowed to the hard right. That came to a head with the appearance last year by the queen of hate, Ann Coulter.

Despite pleas by community groups to cancel her appearance and even a resignation from a member of the board of directors, Cleary refused to cancel her appearance. For good measure, they also had an appearance from anti-Muslim hatemonger Steve Emerson.

This is the fifth year for the series, and in the past they invited people who actually had something to do with business, like Florine Mark, Wally Amos and other entrepreneurs and business people. Coulter is the first strictly political person ever invited, and it’s not by chance.

Cleary’s Director of Development and Alumni Relations that booked the speakers for the last two years is the wife of the chairman of the Livingston County Republican Party.

A cynical person could easily reach the conclusion that the timing of this year’s guests coincide with the Democratic primary. In the spring when Sens. Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton were locked in a tight battle, African-American Republican Larry Elder was the speaker. Now, Monday’s appearance of Morris is just a month away from the General Election when many people, especially Morris, thought Clinton would be the Democratic Presidential nominee.

Morris - or as my favorite radio host Stephanie Miller calls him, "Prostitute Toe Sucker" Dick Morris - was fired from the Clinton camping after his relationship with posture Sherry Rowlands was revealed. He landed at Faux News where he can be seen every night on Faux as a pundit.

Of course, he is awful as a pundit, and he has never been right about anything. But, he has the best qualification for Faux: he has an intense hatred for the Clintons. In fact, he has made a career of that.

Even a broken watch is right twice a day, but Morris has a worse record. Among his famous predictions is that Hillary Clinton would be the Presidential nominee. He also said Rick Lazio would defeat Hillary Clinton for New York Senate the day before the election, and before that he said Hilary would not run for the Senate at all. In 1998, he predicted the Democrats "will absolutely be obliterated" in the midterm elections,: but they gained seats.

But Morris has that qualification he needs to be a pundit on Faux and to speak at Cleary: He hates the Clintons.