The tooth fairy responds to fire at teabagger HQ

The irony of teabaggers allegedly protesting taxes and out of control government spending at the fake Astroturf “tea parties” on public property provided by taxpayers continues with the news of an electrical fire at the headquarters of the teabagger group collecting signatures to try and stop 1.3 million Michiganders from getting health care coverage and exempt Michigan from the historic health insurance reform law signed into law by President Obama last month.

Head teabagger and extremist Howell Public School Board member Wendy Day reported that an electrical fire broke out at the group’s Lansing HQ at 2:30 p.m. Thursday. She reported in an email that they immediately called 911 and grabbed everything we could and ran out of the building.

“It was quite exciting to watch four fire trucks and a dozen firefighters show up ready for action,” she wrote. “The trunks of our vehicles are now full of petitions, office supplies and even our plant.”

This email was, of course, a plea for money. Gee, I wonder who was paying for those four fire trucks and firefighters that responded so quickly? Oh yes, taxes. It’s funny, the City of Lansing plans to close a fire station because of revenue shortfalls, yet when you call 911, you expect an immediate response and you get one.

We already know the teabaggers are the extremist wing of the Republican Party, and former GOP Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich confirmed that. That’s why the Michigan Republican Party is helping with the teabaggers petition drive to stop health insurance reform. Teabaggers/Republicans have to collect the signatures of 380,126 registered voters no later than July 5 to place the measure on the ballot.

Subscription only Gongwer is reporting that another traditional GOP ally is joining the petition drive. Officials with the Michigan office of the National Federation of Independent Business said Thursday it would help collect signatures to put the proposal on the ballot. The group will pass out petitions to its members, as well as use its agents to help collect signatures.

This is an obvious disservice to its members. The law will provide tax credits for up to 109,000 Michigan small businesses to make coverage more affordable. Only 43 percent of small businesses are able to provide health care to their employees, yet they are opposing something that will help them provide for the employees they say they value.

Republicans continue to push lies about the underwear bomber case

Republicans continue to disrespect the U.S. Justice system, and it took a comedian and the host of a fake TV news show to put them in their place.

Since last fall Republicans have been whining about holding the trial for the accused mastermind of the September 11 attacks in New York City where the crime occurred, and recently they have been trying to paint the Obama Administration as soft on terrorism in its handing of the Underpants bomber, who tried to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight from Amsterdam to Detroit Metro Airport on Christmas Day.

Like the Bush Administration who tried more than 300 suspected terrorists in federal court, according to the Bush Justice Department, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab of Nigeria will also be tried in federal court. His case is almost exactly like that of the Shoe Bomber, Richard Reed.

On December 22, 2001 he tried to blow up a U.S. airline flight with a bomb hidden in his shoe, and he was also subdued by passengers, just like the underwear bomber. Three days later he was charged in U.S. federal court at Boston in a criminal complaint. Reid pled guilty to all eight criminal counts on October 4, 2002, and on January 31, 2003, he was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole with three life sentences to be served consecutively. During the sentencing hearing Reid stated that he was an enemy of the United States and in league with Al-Qaeda. He is serving his sentences at a Supermax prison in Colorado.

Now, Republicans are complaining because Abdulmutallab was read his Miranda rights like the law requires of all criminal suspects and just like Reid was. On Tuesday, perennial Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich appeared on the Daily Show with John Stewart to push his latest book where he called the Obama Administration “radical” for reading Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights. When Stewart pointed out that the same thing happened with Reid, Gingrich told an outright lie, saying it was OK because Reid was an American citizen.

That’s simply not true; he’s a British citizen.

When Gingrich asked Stewart what he thought of holding the 9/11 terror trials in New York, Stewart - who lives just blocks from the Twin Towers and did so on September 11, 2001- hit it out of the park.

“I would be happy and I would be proud of New Yorker’s ability to handle whatever inconvenience to show off our resilience and our lack of fear in the face of these idiots,” he said. “I would be delighted.”

No one could have said it better. Stewart has said many times that these guys are simply idiots from the bottom of the barrel, yet we treat them like X-Men with supernatural powers. The fact is they are nothing but common criminals and thugs who should be treated just like muggers, rapists and murderers are. They should not be given any special status as “enemy combatants” or holy warriors. They are criminals and should be given every protection under the law and thrown in prison when convicted.

We have the best, the most just and most humane criminal justice system in the world, and I have no idea why Republicans think so little of it. If we give in to the fear and treat them differently, then the terrorists have won. Hell, that’s their very mission.

Republicans have claimed Abdulmutallab stopped talking when he was read his rights, but that’s another rightwing lie. He has spilled his guts, with the help of his family, and he has given up plenty of intelligence. It’s sad that people like “Twitter” Pete Hoekstra and U.S. Rep. Candice Miller, R-Macomb County, want to torture him. Not only is it against the law and morally wrong, you get unreliable information.

Real protector of traditional marriage wants to bar divorce

California’s Proposition 8 - misnamed the California Marriage Protection Act - took rights away from committed gay couples that the rest of us enjoy by putting discrimination into the state Constitution with this line, “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

I’m at a loss as to how gays marrying is a threat to my marriage or anyone else’s marriage, or how denying a group of people a basic right “protects’ an institution with a 50 percent failure rate.

It’s funny when you look at the marriage tracks record of some of the conservative Republicans pushing so-called “traditional marriage” like Newt Gingrich with his three marriages and infidelity, or Michigan attorney General Mike Cox and his stellar record. Even Livingston County’s Legislative delegation has a less than stellar marriage record, and these people are telling us about protecting marriage?

The height of hypocrisy was Senators Larry Craig and David Vitter co-sponsoring the Federal Marriage Amendment to the Constitution, known as the so-called “Marriage Protection Amendment” last year that denies gay couples the right that every other American enjoys, the right to marry.

The best way to protect marriage is to stop divorce, and that has led John Marcotte to take California Prop 8 a step further. He has filed a ballot initiative called "The California Marriage Protection Act." The initiative bars divorce, saying, “No party to any marriage shall be restored to the state of an unmarried person during the lifetime of the other party unless the marriage is void or voidable, as set forth in Part 2 of Division 6 of the Family.”

Now, that will protect marriage, so Republicans should be lining up to support it. In fact, Marcotte said he’s confident Proposition 8 supporters will rally behind the California Marriage Protection Act. He has established a web site with the slogan, “Till death do us part. You’re not dead yet.”

This should take off when the people who bankrolled Prop 8 start anteing up; that is if they really want to protect traditional marriage.

Gingrich takes a turn to the left

LANSING -- Someone who looked like former Speaker of the U.S. House Newt Gingrich and sounded like Newt Gingrich testified before the Senate Health Policy Committee Wednesday was saying some things a liberal like me agreed with.

Its was funny hearing things like support for paying poor children to read books, paying poor pregnant teenagers to attend pre-natal appointments, giving supermarkets tax credits for locating in poor neighborhoods and improving school breakfast and lunch programs from perhaps the most partisan and conservative speaker in history, as well as one of the most ethically challenged.

He showed up 20 minutes late for the committee hearing, and I thought perhaps he wasn’t going to show up because he may have suffered a snub that no one was aware of. He shutdown the government in 1995 because he felt he was “snubbed" by President Clinton the day following his return from Yitzhak Rabin’s funeral in Israel. The House Ethics Committee also sanctioned Gingrich to the tune $300,000 for his unethical activities.

Gingrich was also carrying on an affair with this later third wife while still married to his second wife at the same time that he was leading the Congressional investigation of President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Gingrich is the founder of the Center for Health Transformation, and he was in Michigan to testify about health care. But Michigan Democratic Party Chair said it best.

“Do Republicans really expect the people of Michigan to take advice on health care from such an ethically challenged character who wanted to kill Social Security,” Brewer said. “It is a sad commentary on the pathetic state of Michigan Republicans that they have to import a dubious figure like Gingrich for advice, but I understand that their national leader Rush Limbaugh was not available.”

The state mission of the Center for Health Transformation is to “grow a movement that will accelerate the adoption of transformational health solutions and policies that create better health and more choices at lower cost.”

Despite the obvious ethical challenges, Gingrich had a few good ideas. He stressed individual wellness practices that can save millions of dollars in health care costs. Common sense says it’s cheaper to invest in prevention instead of paying for treatment. He supports physical education five days a week for students, and he thinks employers should invest in things like gym memberships for employees. He also wants to see more money spent on things like smoking cessation.

He said he has heard of one community college that will not hire anyone that smokes.

“If we allow those who are pre-diabetic to become diabetic and those who are diabetic not mange their diabetes then we will be awash in the high cost of dialysis and amputations,” he said.

Gingrich said a huge problem contributing to the high cost of health care is fraud. There is up to $120 billon of Medicaid and Medicare fraud a year.

“We are talking virtual organized crime here,” he said.

Gingrich said catching the criminals with paperwork is too slow, and that’s one reason he favors digitalizing all medical records.