40th anniversary of assassination of civil rights leader marked with tribute to labor

It was a warm spring day in Michigan in 1968 when TV and radio programming was interrupted with special bulletins to inform viewers and listeners that civil rights leader Dr Martin Luther King had been assassinated in Memphis, Tenn.

This Friday, April 4, will mark the 40th anniversary of the day the respected and revered civil rights leader who preached non-violence and civil disobedience to further civil rights was gunned down on a motel balcony, shot in the neck as he was preparing to lead a march of sanitation workers in that southern city protesting against low wages and poor working conditions. King would die from his wounds a short time later in a Memphis hospital.

After King's assassination, Michigan Governor George Romney declared an official period of mourning in Michigan, and he ordered all flags in the state to be flown at half-staff. King's assassination led to riots in more than 120 US cities, but luckily, Detroit was spared. Detroit had just witnessed the worst riot in state history the year before, and 43 people had been killed and scores more injured in the race riot that set portions of the city ablaze in 1967.

Just a month after King's assassination the country would further be rocked on June 5, 1968, when U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated as he celebrated a win in the California Democratic Presidential Primary.

To mark the fact that King’s last act before he was murdered was to help organized municipal employees, the Young Democrats of America Labor Caucus, Lansing Democratic Future and Michigan Young Democrats are hosting a community tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King and the public employee unions at 6 p.m. April 8 at the Teamsters Local 580 hall, 5800 Executive Dr. in Lansing. A donation is requested.

Federal Court ruling muddies primary picture

U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds issued a ruling Wednesday afternoon that threw even more confusion and uncertainly into Michigan’s already muddled Presidential Primary election fiasco.

The ruling struck down as unconstitutional a provision in the law that would give the voter lists from the Jan 15 primary only to the two major political parts and to no others, saying it violated the First Amendment right of other parties to access and to report on information of public interest. The minor political parties had joined with the Metro Times and a political consulting firm to challenge the statute, saying it was illegal because it excluded everyone but the Republican and Democratic parties from accessing the list that should be public record.

The Hillary Clinton campaign quickly seized on the decision, and in a press release they called for Sen. Barack Obama to join her in calling for a new election.

“In the wake of today's court ruling regarding Michigan’s January 15th primary, we urge Senator Obama to join our call for a party-run primary and demonstrate his commitment to counting Michigan's votes,” said Clinton Campaign Manager Maggie Williams.

Mark Grebner, founder of Practical Political Consulting, was the plaintiff in a state lawsuit first filed in Ingham County Circuit Court challenging the provision. He eventually lost the state lawsuit in the Michigan Supreme Court on a split vote. Following that a separate group filed a new lawsuit in federal court. Grebner said the statute was aimed at companies like his East Lansing company that sells targeted political mailing lists.

“This suit was aimed at me personally,” he said. “It was aimed at my business.”

In a report in the Detroit Free Press, State Elections Director Chris Thomas said the state would not appeal the decision. Grebner said the Secretary of State has is treating the election like there was no election at all, based on the ruling.

“The Secretary of State issued a statement saying the election never took place, so she’s not giving out the list to anyone,” he said. “It seems like a bizarre idea to me.”

Spokespersons for the Republican and Democratic parties could not be reached for comment.

As Iraq war toll hits 4,000, ex-GI says media isn't telling the story

Don Bortz of Waterford served a year in Iraq as a member of the U.S. Army Reserve. As someone who follows events in Iraq and keeps track of former comrades-in-arms, the war is never far from his mind.

But this month, as the war entered its fifth year and the 4,000th American soldier was killed in combat -- 169 of those from Michigan -- he is frustrated with the lack of media coverage of the conflict and the impact that has on how Americans view the war.

“I think the media doesn’t like to cover things unless there is a big change or there is something they consider newsworthy,” he said. “For the soldiers it’s Groundhog Day -- every day is pretty much the same.”

According to a study by the Pew Research Center, only 3 percent of the news in February 2008 was devoted to covering the war, a statistic lamented by groups like the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

Like many Americans, Bortz enlisted in the military following the 9/11 attacks. After basic training he was immediately deployed for 11 months to a location he can't disclose. In 2005 he was sent to Iraq for 12 months. Although Bortz is against the war, he said only health problems stopped him from re-enlisting and going back to serve another tour in Iraq. However, his allegiance is to his fellow soldiers, not the mission.

“There are no greater bunch of guys than soldiers,” he said. “I just thought about how I would have felt if I didn’t go back, and a friend of mine was killed while I was sitting at home. I don’t think I could have lived with myself.”

Bortz is one of the many Iraq or Global War on Terror vets running for political office. He is a candidate for the Oakland County Board of Commissioners. “There are a lot of problems with our state and country, and I want to help solve them,” he said.

For example, if elected, Bortz wants to help returning veterans further their education and adapt to civilian life, as the GI Bill did for returning vets of other wars. The GI Bill was been diluted steadily over the years, he says, and the result today is considerably fewer benefits and more red tape. He wants the county to provide free tuition to Oakland County Community College for Iraq vets.

“I talked to a lot of people about this idea, and it has been received well,” he said.

A bit of history: Michigan's only labor museum taking shape

MONROE -- Michigan has a long and rich history of organized labor, but that history is being lost as labor union membership falls off and some smaller unions fold.

Bill Conner, the president of the Monroe County Council CIO Social and Welfare Association, is putting his labor, sweat and money into preserving that history with the restoration and improvement of the only labor museum in the state. Since 2001 the association has been planning to turn the historic Phillip Murray Building in downtown Monroe into the Monroe County Labor History Museum, and in February of last year after lots of work it opened for business.

Conner is also the curator of the museum, housed in a two-story brick building that was built in 1912, and Conner, who was born and raised in Monroe, is a walking encyclopedia of labor history in the area. He said the building had been used off and on for a union meeting hall for a number of years before it was owned by the association. In 1935 some eight unions that represented production and factory workers within the American Federation of Labor – that consisted primarily of skilled trades -- split to form the Congress of Industrial Organizations.

Monroe once had numerous paper factories, and those workers were represented by the CIO. At their peak the unions in the CIO represented more than 6,000 paper mill workers.

“It was not uncommon in those days for the kids to come into the plants and bring their father their lunch or dinner,” Conner said. “They ran 24-seven, and if their relief did not show up, they worked for 16 hours.”

On Feb. 5, 1946, the CIO purchased the building after making a down payment by assessing each member a one-time fee of $12.75. In 1953 the building was dedicated to Philip Murray, the first president of the United Steelworkers of America, following his death in 1952.

Over the years, the building fell into disrepair, and the first floor was divided into two buildings with a marriage wall with a separate entrance; the west side of the building was leased to a social club. Three years ago the association began a fund-raising effort to raise $1.5 million for the renovations, and the association took over the entire building.

“We are asking the labor unions in the area to make a financial commitment over a period of years,” Conner said. “In a perfect world we would like to raise the money in three years.”

Renovations began in the west-side, first-floor portion of the hall, and the renovations revealed a beautiful wood floor and a ceiling that resembles the impressive, decorative ceiling in the state Capitol.

“Once we got in here and started the renovations, we realized what a gem we had,” Conner said. “We have been doing a lot of renovations, and we have made some great discoveries.”

The first display opened for visitors last February in the west side of the building, and the museum used a grant from the Michigan Council of Humanities to create a display called “The Eyes of the Nation Were on Monroe” to mark the bitter and violent attempt by the CIO to organize the Republic Steel plant in Monroe in 1935. Some 100 strikers were met by an armed posse deputized by the mayor of Monroe and the Michigan National Guard. The display features 20 displays, each 24 by72 feet, that are lightweight and can easily be moved for a traveling display, as well as easy storage to make way for new displays.

The museum has even received some corporate help from companies like Consumers Power, but the biggest help has been from in-kind donations from the building trade unions in sweat equity.

“They are giving us a lot of help,” Conner said. “The money we raise goes toward material, and we take advantage of the free labor. It will be a great showcase for them.”

Much of the expense will be to make the building compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Plans are to knock out an entrance between the two halves of the building on the first floor. An elevator will be built in the back of the first floor in the east side of the building, and ADA restrooms will be built on the first floor. A large office on the first floor of the east side of the building will be turned into a hands-on display for elementary school students.

“We are really aiming at kids in the fourth and fifth grades, and we have also gone into the schools to bring the history of labor to them,” Connor said. “We need to teach a new generation to understand that the standard of living we all enjoy came on the backs of organized labor.”

The second floor is still used as a meeting hall for union and community groups, and that will continue. However, there are plans to build five small offices in the rear of the hall on the second floor that will be rented out to union locals that will help pay for upkeep of the building. Conner has lined the walls of the second floor with the framed charters of defunct union locals he has found during the renovations.

“When they went out of business, the charter was pulled of the wall and chucked in an office,” he said.

Conner said the Walter P. Reuther Library at Wayne State University is also working on some permanent displays for the walls that will highlight organized labor’s accomplishments, like the eight-hour workweek, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA)and the Social Security Act.

The museum is free and open to the public from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.To make a donation of memorabilia or artifacts contact Conner at lwconnerjr@mail.com. To make a monetary contribution to the renovation fund contact Robert Hoffman at reh453@hotmail.com.

'IT and Global Economy': WSU program to help small automotive suppliers

LANSING -- Competing in a global economy means keeping costs as low as possible and continuing to look for ways to cut costs. Wayne State University and the state of Michigan hope to help the state’s tier II and III auto suppliers compete by improving their information technology.

Wayne State’s School of Business Administration has been piloting a program called "Information Technology and the Global Economy" that puts students into the small, specialty plants that supply parts to the auto industry and other manufacturers to improve their IT capability.

"If you look at the firms that are successful, they are the ones that are using info technology," said Myles Stern, a professor at Wayne State. "Some companies lack basic info technology."

The pilot program has been so successful that WSU hopes to export it to the rest of the state. Last week WSU presented the program to the state House of Representatives’ Commerce Committee.

"This is a very important segment of our state’s economy," said Rep. Andy Meisner, D-Ferndale, the chair of the House Commerce Committee. "It is a very important segment of our economy that’s in trouble."

WSU has piloted the program at Lear, one of the world's largest suppliers of automotive interior systems and components based in Southfield, a company that has more than 20 facilities all across Michigan. The program will benefit both students and the plants.

When it starts in the fall, it will be a three-year program. Undergraduate and graduate students will form teams of two to three students and visit four to six plants a year. They will observe, make recommendations for improvements, work with the plant manager to implement the recommendations and train the plant personnel to use the IT fix.

Do you have questions? Ask Granholm live on Wednesday

Gov. Jennifer Granholm will talk about subjects that are on the mind of every Michigan resident -- the economy, jobs, health care, education and more -- during a special televised town hall meeting Wednesday night in which she will take questions live.

The state’s six NBC affiliates will broadcast the meeting live beginning at 8, originating from Grand Rapids. The meeting will be moderated by WDIV Detroit anchor Devin Scillian and WOOD Grand Rapids political reporter Rick Albin.

“Michigan's economy has been challenged like no other state in the nation, and I am looking forward to talking with citizens on how we can move our state forward," Granholm said. "I am grateful to the NBC affiliates for their generosity in hosting and broadcasting a town hall on this very important issue."

The meeting will be aired as a public service on WDIV Local 4 in Detroit, WOOD-TV8 in Grand Rapids, WEYI-TV NBC25 in Saginaw, WILX-TV10 in Lansing, WPBN/WTOM TV 7 and 4in Traverse City and WLUC-TV6 in Marquette.

It's alive! Michigan health-care reform package is resuscitated

After months of negotiations and hearings, a package of bills aimed at reforming health coverage in the state may be pushed through the Michigan Senate within days.

The Senate Health Policy Committee, chaired by Tom George, R-Kalamazoo, a medical doctor, has been holding hearings on House Bills 5282-5285, known collectively as the Individual Market Reform package. The committee received the bills from the House last fall. Versions of the complex and controversial package are to be considered in the next week or two.

The bills, whch are backed by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, would change and update the rules for individual health insurance coverage as more and more employers choose to end coverage for employees to cut costs. The individual health care market was once just a very small piece of the health insurance business, but it is growing larger fast as employers eliminate care.

Proponents of the bills say that, if passed,they would prevent insurance carriers from increasing rates for people who get sick during their coverage period, establish uniform criteria for all insurers and create a fair and competitive playing field for all consumers and insurers. Opponents say the bills would eliminate competition, increase costs and reduce access to health care.

Blue Cross is tax-exempt in Michigan, and in exchange they are the insurer of last resort, meaning they cannot turn anyone down for health coverage. They also administer Medicare and MI Child in the state.

The four-bill package was introduced last October, passed quickly by the House on Oct. 24 and sent to the Senate. The bills had bipartisan support in the House, with two of the four bills in the package sponsored by Republicans, and it was thought they would be signed by Gov. Jennifer Granholm before Christmas. But opponents of the bills slowed the Senate process to a crawl.

Some strange political bedfellows have joined forces to oppose the bills, including the United Auto Workers, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, a Republican, and the Gray Panthers of Metro Detroit.

Legislative offices of both parties have received numerous letters, emails and phone calls for and against the bills. Many letters of support have come from Blues employees, while opposition has come from employees of other insurance providers in the state. A group calling itself the Coalition For a Fair and Competitive Insurance Market formed in opposition to the bills. The coalition consists of other insurers in the state, including AAA of Michigan, Auto-Owners and Citizens Insurance.

On Thursday.the coalition launched a web site called "Stop the Bluesopoly." In the press release announcing the new site, the coalition said it is particularly concerned about HB 5284 and 5285 because they do not deal with individual health insurance. The coalition says that the bills will enable the Blues to spend subscriber dollars to expand their monopoly rather than reduce subscriber rates.

“These two bills open the door for Blue Cross Blue Shield to use the tax-free billions it has accumulated to purchase any business, such as a hospital, casino, flower shop or restaurant,” said Kurt Gallinger, vice president and counsel for Amerisure Companies and a member of the coalition. “Allowing the Blues to enter other markets and use their tax-exempt status to unfairly compete could drive out other competition and extend its monopoly into any business.”

The comedy styling of Saul Anuzis

I enjoy laughing and comedy. That’s why my favorite radio show is the “Stephanie Miller Show.”

Usually it’s not a good thing to generalize, but. Liberals are actually funny. Conservative's lame attempts at comedy almost always fall flat. For examples, we just need to look at “comedians” Rush Limpbaug and Ann Coulter or the Faux attempts at the Daily Show rip-off, the Half-Hour News Show. Limpbaug and Coulter are hilarious if you are a racist homophobia.

In addition to my daily doses of Stephanie to make me laugh, I also have Michigan’s Republican Party Chair Saul’s Anuzis’s daily dose of spin via what he calls “Articles of Interest” on his “blog.” It’s not really a blog because he does not allow any comments. I guess I can’t blame him because of the crap his staffers write, but he should not call it a blog. But I guess if I wrote that stuff I would not want to have to try and defend it. You find the kind of humor there that makes you say, “is he for real.”

Today, he is enjoying the fact that Kalamazoo businessman Jon Stryker is under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department. This is the same Justice Department that fired U.S. attorneys because they refused to investigate and make up charges against Democratic politicians. The same Justice Department that for the first time in history has been politicized and used as a weapon by the bushies. Nixon used the IRS to go after his enemies, but Bush used a department that is supposed to uphold the law to go after enemies. I guess former Nixon aide John Dean had it right when he used the title “Worse than Watergate” for his book about the Bush Administration.

And why do Anuzis and the GOP hate Stryker? What is his crime? He contributes to Democrats. In his daily does of BS, Anuzis claims that Stryker “spent more than $5 million of his own money buying a majority in the Michigan House of Representatives.” I hope Anuzis keeps believing that was the reason.

But the funniest line from Anuzis is this one, “”After spending millions of dollars to buy Governor Jennifer Granholm’s re-election…” That’s’ one of the sickly, funny lines. Hey Saul, did you forget who your candidate was in 2006? Your candidate's only qualification for the job was that he inherited millions of dollars from his family’s pyramid scheme. He spent millions of those inherited dollars trying to buy the seat.

Stryker is a rarity among Democrats who happen to be rich; he inherited his business that makes him rich. Almost every conservative billionaire has inherited their money.

The hatred of billionaire philanthropist George Soros if a perfect example of the misguided GOP hatred. Here is a man who escaped Nazi-occupied Hungary as a teen with nothing but the clothes on his back, and he managed to become a billionaire with his wits and hard work. He gives millions to charity, he helped end apartheid in South Africa by giving money for scholarships to black students there and he helped end Communism by funding dissident movements behind the iron curtain. You would think he would be a hero to the right and a model of what they say they stand for. No. Why? Because he contributes to liberal causes, he's the devil and evil. They call him the liberal sugar daddy.

Contrast that to the conservative sugar daddy – the one they hate to talk about - Richard Mellon Scaife. He got his money the old fashioned way, he inherited it by being a principal heir to the Mellon banking, oil, and aluminum fortune.

Scaife is the class act that bankrolled the conservative hit magazine “The American Spectator,” and he also financed the so-called” Arkansas Project” that paid people to come up with dirt on President Bill Clinton.

For an excellent story on that you should read “Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative” by former American Spectator writer David Brock, who now operates the web site that Bill O’Reily calls the “Left Wing Smear site Media Matters.” All they do at Media Matters is post his words and actual videos.

No wonder billo hates them.