Palin and Bachmann need to read a history book

The brain power of two of the leading potential Republican presidential nominees, half-term Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and bat shit crazy Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, is underwhelming.

Bachmann, who apparently speaks for the teabaggers, gave the teabagger response to the President’s State of the Union address last week. Why I have no idea. But in one of her more notable quotes on the Founding Fathers she claimed, “the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States….Men like John Quincy Adams, who would not rest until slavery was extinguished in the country.”

There are, of course, lots of problems with that harebrained statement. About a third of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were slaveholders, as were many delegates to the Constitutional Convention, so the fact is many founders worked tirelessly to make sure slavery continued. Not only that, but John Quincy Adams was not a Founding Father.

Perhaps she got him mixed up with his father, the second President John Adams, who was a Founding Father.

After playing the victim after the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona, Palin appeared on the propaganda arm of the GOP, Faux News, last week where she didn’t have to answer any tough questions from real journalists. She gave her take on the SOU address, and she went on a ridiculous rant on the President’s use of the term “Sputnik moment” that embarrassed the U.S. that served as a wake up call that led to the U.S. putting the first man on the moon in 1969.

The name of the SOU speech was “Winning the Future,” and Palin referred it as “one of those WTF moments,” for what The Fuck. This woman wants to be president? It seems she wants to be Ann Coulter.

“That was another one of those WTF moments, when he so often repeated this Sputnik moment that he would aspire Americans to celebrate,” she said. “And he needs to remember that what happened back then with the former communist USSR and their victory in that race to space, yes, they won, but they also incurred so much debt at the time that it resulted in the inevitable collapse of the Soviet Union.”

Now we know why Palin couldn’t tell Katie Couric what she read. It appears not much, and it most definitely was not a history book or a dictionary. The word is inspire, not aspire.

No, the USSR did not win the space race. They managed to put the first satellite into orbit in 1957, but the U.S. took up the challenge and won the space race. In the process, President Kennedy inspired many young people to become engineers and scientists and made the U.S. the world leader in technology for years.

The fact is the Soviet Union fell in 1991, but it was because of a variety of economic and political issues. The biggest reasons were because of the nuclear arms race that almost bankrupted the U.S. in the process and the millions of dollars and manpower it poured into Afghanistan. I hope we don’t repeat the same mistake.

MDP Gun Ownership Caucus wants common sense gun control

The shooting earlier this month of Democratic U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona that killed six people and wounded 13 others illustrates clearly that common sense gun control is needed, but I heard a brief and interesting debate on Saturday from the chair of the Michigan Democratic Party’s Hunting, Fishing, and Gun Ownership Caucus, Jim Pedersen, that may shed some new light on the issue.

The Democratic Party has a big tent, and many Democrats are avid sportsmen who strongly support the Second Amendment. In fact, many Democrats have been endorsed by the NRA and given an "A rating,” such as former Vermont Governor and Democratic Presidential Candidate Howard Dean.

Pedersen’s point is that we lose voters with a knee jerk reaction to shootings like the one in Arizona, and I think he may be right. We should at least have the debate. He also thinks the sale of multiple, 30+ round magazines that the Arizona shooter used should not be banned because people already have them. I part company with him there, but some of his positions make sense.

We know a few basic facts, and it’s far too easy for mentally unstable people to get handguns. There are controls and restrictions on the 1st Amendment, so I can see no reason not to have some commons sense restrictions on something as deadly as a gun.

Every year in this country guns kill more 30,000 people, and 70,000 more people are shot and injured. Gun zealots to make the false claim that allowing more adults to carry concealed weapons significantly reduces crime in America, but that myth has been debunked by peer reviewed studies. The opportunity for a law-abiding gun owner to use a gun in a socially desirable manner--against a criminal during the commission of a crime--will occur, for the average gun owner, perhaps once or never in a lifetime. It is a rare event. Other regular citizens with guns, who are sometimes tired, angry, drunk, or afraid, and who are not trained in dispute resolution, have lots of opportunities for inappropriate gun uses.

Dean said guns and hunting are part of a way of life in Vermont, as they are here in Michigan and elsewhere.

“But I don't think any Vermonter or gun owners anywhere can argue against common sense changes to our background check system to make our communities safer and more secure,” Dean said in a press release.

Groups like Mayors Against Illegal Guns are proposing common sense changes. They have a two-part goal. First, we already have laws that make it illegal for guns to be sold to felons, drug abusers or the mentally ill. The problem is that states and federal agencies are not required to make sure these prohibited purchasers are included in the background check database.

Second, they say it’s time to stop the sales of guns without a background check at all. They say right now, anyone can go to a gun show and purchase as many guns as they want; no questions asked, no background check, nothing. It seems like common sense to fix these two loopholes and make America safer from illegal gun sales. It in no way infringes on the Second Amendment.

Hundreds of guns bought in Arizona through this loophole make their way to Mexico to help drug cartels destabilize the Mexican Government. This is not only a threat to the people of Mexico. When loopholes in our laws allow drug cartels in Mexico to stockpile guns, it is also a threat to the United States.

The Michigan Democratic Party is holding its Winter convention on Feb. 12 in Cobo Hall, and the Hunting, Fishing, and Gun Ownership Caucus is meeting at 8 a.m.

Senate Democrats go back to work to increase voter turnout

State Sen. Steven Bieda, D-Warren, is on a mission to ensure voting is easier and more convenient for Michigan residents.

On January 20 he introduced Senate Bill 49 that will allow no reason absentee voting. The Democratically-controlled House approved House Bill 4367 by a vote of 79-30 with 12 Republicans joining the entire Democratic caucus in approving the bill last session, but like the previous session, it died because the Republican-controlled Senate refused to take it up.

Under current Michigan law, there are only six reasons for A/B voting: age 60 years old or older, unable to vote without assistance at the polls, expecting to be out of town on election day, in jail awaiting arraignment or trial, unable to attend the polls due to religious reasons or are appointed to work as an election inspector in a precinct outside of your precinct of residence. If SB 49 becomes law, Michigan will join 28 other states that allow no reason A/B voting.

On Jan. 26, Bieda introduced SB 76 that would require the Michigan Secretary of State to develop a website which would allow electronic voter registration. Voters would also be able to update their registration records online.

“The intent of this legislation is to make it easier for Michigan residents to register to vote,” Bieda said. “Why should a person who moves be required to submit a written change of address? Numerous states run a secure online registration program without problems.”

Both bills were referred to the Senate Committee on Local Government and Elections were they are awaiting action.

Bieda has a history of working on election reform and trying to increase voter turnout and make democracy easier. There sessions ago when he was in the House, he sponsored House Bill 5792 that would allow 16-year-olds to pre-register to vote when they get their first driver’s license. The bill was approved on May 8, 2008 with a bipartisan vote of 88-18, but it died because the Senate refused to take it up. A similiar bill, HB 4261, was also approved with an even larger bipartisan vote of 92-19 in May 2009, but the Senate also refused to take it up.

These bills had the support of the Republican Michigan Secretary of State, The Michigan Association of Municipal Clerks, The Michigan Association of County Clerks, the Michigan Municipal League and The League of Women Voters.

“I think we need to do whatever it takes to encourage voters to get to the polls and ensure their voice in government is heard,” Bieda said. “This is a no-brainer, and something that would ease the burden of registering to vote.”

Senate Republicans have a history of blocking voter reform, despite widespread support. That’s one reason they continue to keep a majority in the Senate.

It’s ironic that they block every attempt to make voting easier, yet they want to make it easier to get and carry a handgun.

The solution to the epidemic of gun violence is more guns?

Every time I hear of a shooting, whether intentional or accidental, I always joke that the response from some 2nd Amendment zealots will be that the solution to the epidemic of gun violence is more guns, and that is, apparently, one Republican Michigan Senator’s response to the tragic shooting in Arizona; more guns.

Sen. Mike Green, R-Mayville, introduced Senate Bills 58 and 59 on Tuesday that would repeal so-called gun-free public zones that currently include sports stadiums, schools, university dorms and classrooms, day care centers, churches, hospitals and casinos. The bills would also take away the issuance of concealed carry permits from the local gun board, consisting of the elected county sheriff and other local law enforcement officials, to the Michigan Secretary of State.

Great; let’s arm drunks in Ford Field, and instead of the law enforcement officials who know their community issuing CCW permits, where they have to have a good reason to deny the permit, over to a clerk at the local SOS office. . I find it ironic that Republicans block every single effort to make registering to vote or to vote easier and more convenient, but they have no problem making it easier to get something as deadly as a handgun.

This makes no sense, and incidents continue to pile up that reinforce that. There are far more gun accidents, like the recent accidental shooting in Gardena High School in California, that instances of a gun owner using a weapon in self-defense or defense of others. There are far more murders with guns than instances of a gun owner using a weapon in self-defense or defense of others.

Every year in this country guns kill more 30,000 people, and 70,000 more people are shot and injured. Zealots like John Lott and others continue to make the false claim that allowing more adults to carry concealed weapons significantly reduces crime in America, but that myth has been debunked by peer reviewed studies, like the one called “Comparing the Incidence of Self-Defense Gun Use and Criminal Gun Use" by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, 2009,”

That study found that “The opportunity for a law-abiding gun owner to use a gun in a socially desirable manner--against a criminal during the commission of a crime--will occur, for the average gun owner, perhaps once or never in a lifetime. It is a rare event. Other Regular citizens with guns, who are sometimes tired, angry, drunk, or afraid, and who are not trained in dispute resolution, have lots of opportunities for inappropriate gun uses.”

Amen.

Last session, current Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, sponsored Senate Bill 747 that would have allowed concealed guns in classrooms and dormitories on college campuses. Law enforcement and college and university officials came out strongly against it. The good news is common sense prevailed, and the bill never got out of committee and died

Let’s hope the same thing happens to Senate Bills 58 and 59, which are currently in the Senate Judiciary Committee awaiting action.

The President inspires with his second of eight SOU speeches

President Barack Obama laid out a clear path for continued recovery that will require sacrifice and inspired confidence in his second of eight State of the Union addresses Tuesday night.

“We are poised for progress,” he said to a standing ovation. “Two years after the worst recession most of us have ever known, the stock market has come roaring back. Corporate profits are up. The economy is growing again.”

But he said that was not enough, and that the times are long gone that, especially here in Michigan, you just showed up at the auto plant and got a middle class jobs. The recovery will be tough for some people, and the recovery will take sacrifice, just like previous generations had to.

“Thanks to the tax cuts we passed, Americans’ paychecks are a little bigger today,” he said. “Every business can write off the full cost of new investments that they make this year. And these steps, taken by Democrats and Republicans, will grow the economy and add to the more than one million private sector jobs created last year.”

The President said future success will take education and innovation as we compete with the world, and that we must encourage American innovation.

“None of us can predict with certainty what the next big industry will be or where the new jobs will come from,” he said. “Thirty years ago, we couldn’t know that something called the Internet would lead to an economic revolution.”

The President said we must act with urgency, like the space race that put the first American on the moon, and we must do that by investing in biomedical research, information technology, and especially clean energy technology that is tied to national security, protects the planet and creates countless new jobs.

“We’re not just handing out money,” he said. “We’re issuing a challenge. We’re telling America’s scientists and engineers that if they assemble teams of the best minds in their fields, and focus on the hardest problems in clean energy, we’ll fund the Apollo projects of our time.”

The President said to ensure our continued climb out of the recession, we have to reduce the national debt with things like the health care insurance reform that if repealed will add $230 billion in the first decade to the deficit. But the President stuck to his long-running theme of bipartisanship, and he said he is willing to work with Republicans to make the law better.

“Now, I have heard rumors that a few of you still have concerns about our new health care law,” he said. “So let me be the first to say that anything can be improved. If you have ideas about how to improve this law by making care better or more affordable, I am eager to work with you.”

Perhaps his biggest and boldest proposal was to freeze annual domestic spending for the next five years that would reduce the deficit by more than $400 billion over the next decade, and that move will bring discretionary spending to the lowest share of our economy since Dwight Eisenhower was President.

“This freeze will require painful cuts,” he said. “Already, we’ve frozen the salaries of hardworking federal employees for the next two years. I’ve proposed cuts to things I care deeply about, like community action programs. The Secretary of Defense has also agreed to cut tens of billions of dollars in spending that he and his generals believe our military can do without.”

Republican candidate forced to apologize for lying

Perhaps the ugliest primary election last August and the one with the most extremist right-wingers got a little more weird after former state Rep. Kim Meltzer, R-Clinton Township, was forced by a court settlement to admit and issue a public apology in writing that her campaign lied about the legislative record of one of her opponents in the race, former Rep. Leon Drolet, R-Macomb Township, during the tight 2010 campaign in the 11th Michigan Senate District.

According to the Macomb Daily, “Drolet announced Monday that he has dropped a defamation lawsuit against Meltzer, in exchange for a statement from Meltzer conceding that her campaign’s attempt to paint Drolet as a candidate pushing a radical homosexual agenda was phony.”

The lit hit piece in question claimed that while in the House “Drolet had introduced legislation to legalize gay sex in public places.” Although Meltzer issued the required statement, she put the blame on someone else, claiming she “was unaware of the content of the flier and did not approve it ahead of time.” The joint statement reads as follows:

“A piece of campaign literature distributed by the Meltzer for state Senate campaign contained statements about Leon Drolet’s legislative record that are not true and were unapproved by state Rep. Kim Meltzer. The campaign literature falsely stated that ‘Drolet co-sponsored a bill that would have allowed sexual acts between homosexuals in public places, public parks and public restrooms –- exposing our children to that filth.’

“In fact, Leon Drolet did not introduce or support legislation that would allow such acts or homosexual gross indecency in public places, as was inaccurately stated in the campaign literature. False statements contained in the campaign literature were not approved by state Rep. Kim Meltzer."

According to the newspaper, Drolet issued one parting shot, blaming the incident on “McCarthy-like tactics by Meltzer’s campaign manager, Glenn Clark,” the former Republican Chair of the 9th Congressional District.

Drolet was behind the corruption filled 2008 recall effort against former House Speaker Andy Dillon, D-Redford, where two signature takers were indicted for fraud.

The three way-GOP primary for the 11th Senate District featured charges of carpetbagging, lying, inappropriate sexual behavior and a candidate playing an imposter.

Meltzer was accused of being a carpetbagger because she just rented an address in the safe Republican district just for the race. The eventual winner of the Senate seat, current Sen. Jack Brandenburg, R-Harrison Township, was accused of inappropriate sexual behavior by Jennifer Gratz, who led the crooked Proposal 2 campaign in 2006 that banned affirmative action programs that used fraud to get on the ballot.

Now is the time to improve health care insurance reform

Now that the U.S. House Republicans have placated their extreme base with a purely symbolic repeal of health care insurance reform, they are being urged to stop wasting time and really try to improve health care insurance.

Former Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who is also a medical doctor, said it was important to consider the bill the "law of the land" and move on from there. Now, I don’t agree with Frist on much, especially after the Terry Schiavo fiasco in 2005, but this is a great opportunity to improve the law.

Getting this historic, ground-breaking legislation through was a major and difficult task, but now that President Obama has accomplished something that U.S. Presidents since TR Roosevelt have tried to accomplish, now is the time to make a compromise bill even better. The Social Security Act was improved over the years to make it as popular and useful as it is now, and this should be no different.

One way would to make it better would be with a public option or better yet, a universal single-payer system like Medicare for all. Medicare is the most popular health insurance program in the U.S., based on patient surveys, and the program operates with less than 3 percent overhead compared to 15-30 percent by for profit providers, meaning that more money goes to actual patient care.

It would allow small business, which is the backbone of the U.S. economy, to compete with huge corporations, and it would allow U.S. corporations to compete with foreign corporations. Health care costs adds hundreds of dollars to the price of a U.S. auto, compared to Japanese, Korean or German made cars that do not have to factor that in because they have universal health care.

The good news is we are not going backward, and the U.S. Senate is not going to waste time and energy to take up something that does not have enough votes to pass and the President has made clear he will veto. However, that has not stopped Republicans from playing politics with it, which is what they do instead of actually governing.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-VA., has been taunting Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to waste more time and bring up the bill for a vote.

Even more ridiculous were the comments of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who pledged the Senate would vote on a repeal health care insurance reform. Good luck.

McConnell said “he's "perplexed" Democrats wouldn't want to hold a vote on one of their signature legislative agenda items.” Is he that stupid? I can answer that one, as can anyone with a brain: because they already held a vote and won after enduring threats, violence and lots of hard work. Why would they vote on something they have already won, unless Senate Republicans offer something better, like a public option or Medicare for all?

To quote an alleged Republican leader, health care insurance reform is the "law of the land" and we need to move on from there

The first assault on the popular and effective workplace smoking is launched

With the start of the 96th Michigan Legislature two weeks ago, the assault on the popular and effective workplace smoking ban has already begun.

Like the last legislative session, Rep. Doug Geiss, D-Taylor, reintroduced a bill to weaken the popular smoking ban that went into effect on May 1. The bill he reintroduced would turn back the clock to ineffective smoking sections, and the bill would allow bars to have “legal smoking rooms.”

Geiss introduced House Bill 4127 on Thursday, and it was referred to the House Committee on Regulatory Reform where it is awaiting action.

This is the same bill he tried last session that died in committee, but two facts stand in the way of passage this time around: the first is that at the beginning of the year, the U.S. Navy Submarine force, with the most sophisticated air exchange and purification system in the world, announced that it will ban all smoking on its submarine fleet because there are unacceptable levels of secondhand smoke in the atmosphere of a submerged submarine, and last month the U.S. Surgeon General issued a report that said “just inhaling smoke from someone else's cigarette could be enough to cause a heart attack and even death.”

The fact that the smoking ban actually increased business in bars and restaurants, as evidenced by sales tax collections in restaurants and bars that were up 2.84 percent over last year, was just a bonus.

Geiss and bar owners tried to sneak this past the many supporters of the ban with a stealth campaign, but supporters caught wind of it and flooded the committee hearing room last November leading the committee chair not to take it up.

Despite the huge turnover in the Legislature because of term limits, there are 10 members of the Regulatory Reform Committee who were in the House when the bill making the smoking bill law was approved in December 2009. Of those 10, six voted for the ban, including the chair of the committee, Rep. Hugh Crawford, R-Novi.

Based on that, I don’t see this bill as having much of a chance, but based on past experience, vigilance is the word.

This probably will not be the only and last assault on the ban that took years of hard work to enact, and the pro-smoking lobby is hoping a new Republican Governor and Republican control of the Michigan House and Senate can win exceptions or kill the popular, bipartisan workplace smoking ban.

The Michigan Licensed Beverage Association (MLBA), notorious for using false and debunked information to try and make its case, is again pushing hard to undo the ban.

We need to fight back with the facts.