Ramona's picture

    Michigan under threat of Dictatorship. NOW can we panic?

    By Ramona on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 9:38am | Politics
    Friends and neighbors,
     
    The call has gone out and I'm asking everyone who can to take Wednesday [3/16/11] off and head to the State Capitol in Lansing to protest the cruel and downright frightening legislation currently being jammed down our throats.


    What is most shocking to many is that the new governor, who ran against the Tea Party and defeated the right wing of his party in the primaries -- and then ran in the general election as "just a nerd from Ann Arbor" who was a moderate, not an ideologue -- has pulled off one of the biggest Jekyll and Hyde ruses I've ever seen in electoral politics.

    Governor Snyder, once elected, yanked off his nice-guy mask to reveal that he is in fact a multi-millionaire hell-bent on destroying our state and turning it over to his buddies from Wall Street.

    Michael Moore, Letter to my Fellow Michiganders - 3/14/11


    Rick Snyder pulled a fast one, all right.  He even fooled trusting old Bill Milliken, the only Republican I ever voted for and one of the best governors Michigan ever had.  Gov. Milliken endorsed Snyder, thereby causing thousands of fence-sitters to get up off of their doubts and give the "millionaire nerd" their votes, along with the keys to the kingdom.
    I'm a Michigander who voted against Rick Snyder by voting for Virg Bernero (sigh).  Instead of putting us on a path to order and sanity, which is where Virg would've taken us, the election gave us an entire state Republican majority who saw their win as a power-grabbing mandate.

    Once safely ensconced in Lansing, Snyder figured out a way to take over the entire state, town by town, school by school, poor schnook by poor schnook.  With the upcoming vote on Wednesday  (pretty much a slam-dunk unless a few Republicans in the legislature decide they're not into state privatization), Michigan will officially become the only state in the union under threat of full dictatorship.

    His big idea is to cut aid to Michigan cities and towns and when they get into trouble because they have no money he can then declare any municipality or school district a financial emergency and send in a financial emergency manager who will have the authority to take over the town or school district and dismiss all local officials.  They can disband unions and pretty much make the town or school district into anything they want.  A  take-over.

    We should have know something smelly was brewing when his first order of business was to "balance the budget" by figuring out a way to squeeze 1.7 billion dollars out of seniors and the poor so that he can give back 1.8 billion dollars in the form of tax breaks to Big Business.

    There is a lot of talk about what this is or isn't but fortunately Rachel Maddow has been studying up on it and understands it better from afar than most of us do from within our own state.  (Seven minutes long, but worth watching.  Rachel talks fast and gets a TON of information out there.)

    Even Forbes Magazine saw this power grab for what it was. Rick Ungar reported on it in his article, "Union Busting, Michigan Style".

    I hope and pray (Did I say that?) that Michiganders and their BFFS everywhere will listen to Michael Moore and Rachel Maddow and everyone else sending out the call to action tomorrow at noon on the steps of the Capitol Building in Lansing.  

    More of Michael Moore's letter:

    These actions are breathtaking when you realize they will drive our already battered state straight into the ground. What we needed right now was an inspiring leader to help us reinvent Michigan and to find creative ways to create new jobs and lift us out of our economic depression. The rest of the country may call what they're experiencing the "Great Recession," but few argue that Michigan is suffering a "one-state Depression."

    I know many of you are filled with a great sense of despair and a justifiable loss of hope these days in Michigan. But you must not let things get even worse. You must stand up against these Draconian measures and this outrageous attempt to rip our democratic rights from us by turning our state over to well-paid hacks from Wall Street and corporate America. They see our state as one big fire sale -- and they are licking their chops to get their hands on what is still a state rich in natural resources and industrial infrastructure.

    Please show up at noon on Wednesday for our first mega-rally against this insanity. Hundreds of groups are already organizing car pools and buses. You can right now just declare yourself an organizer and get your friends and neighbors committed to being in Lansing. If ever there were a day to call in sick, Wednesday is it (because this IS sick). Students, if ever there were a day to cut class and become a participant in your democracy, Wednesday is it. This event needs to be HUGE -- and I believe it will be if you will simply be there and take a stand.

    Much attention has been paid to Wisconsin in recent weeks. Well, they got nothing on what's going on here in Michigan. Rick Snyder is Scott Walker on steroids. There's never been what even the AARP calls "an all-out attack" like this on us. Trust me, you will rue the day you sat home and did nothing while thieves posing as politicians stole your Great Lakes State from you.

    Don't let it happen. Be at the capitol by noon on Wednesday for the largest demonstration the state has ever seen.


    The AFL-CIO is looking for volunteers.  Go here.

    The UAW is providing free transportation in five locations:

    GET ON THE BUS FOR WEDNESDAY PROTEST:

    UAW Region 1A in Taylor (313-291-2750)
    UAW Region 1A in Flint (810-767-0910)
    UAW Region 1D in Grand Rapids (616-949-4100)
    UAW Local 699 in Saginaw (616-949-4100)
    UAW Local 652 in Lansing (517-373-7581), shuttle
    from 426 Clare St. at 10:00 AM

    All are welcome, no charge – but you MUST
    call to reserve a seat!

    Note, too, that this is happening today:

     Tuesday, March 15th: Early Bird Special
    Join the AARP, Michigan League for Human Services and others from
    11:00 AM-1:00 PM to say NO to Republican attacks
    on Michigan's seniors.

     I'm a thousand miles away, and it's frustrating that I can't be there today and tomorrow, but I'm there in spirit and I'll keep spreading the word. 


    If we ever needed solidarity, we need it now.  In every community, in every state.  We can't let this die.


    *

    (Cross-posted at Ramona's Voices.)

    *

    Topics: 
    Politics

    Comments

    it looks like there was a meeting of twenty or thirty corporations back when and a plan was implemented for many states.

    This is nuts!!

    A huge transfer of wealth from the middle class and the poor; cutting taxes for the rich and raising them for everyone else in the form of real taxes and 'fees'.

    With so many states involved there is more than a hint of conspiracy here!


    by Richard Day on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 10:43am

    it looks like there was a meeting of twenty or thirty corporations back when and a plan was implemented for many states.

    DD, where did you see this?  I found it once and then lost it again.  If you can find the link, would you post it here?  Thanks.


    by Ramona on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 11:21am

    Well I suppose I meant 'as if'.

    But the next couple days I want to take a look at the entire picture. Ohio is doing the same things as Michigan as Wisconsin as RI, as a number of states.

    The repubs sneak in with a multipronged attack on the middle class.

    Destroy collective bargaining, cut public sector jobs, cut wages and benefits for existing lower level public employees, take away the powers of municipalities to deal with their own problems destroying elective offices etc., privatize prisons and other public domains, cut taxes for rich and corp;orations....

    There is a pattern here and there are repub think tanks that are fronts for corporations to fund propaganda programs:

    All these rep;ubs, state and federal are ON THE SAME PAGE.

    Here are just a few links:

    A list of think tanks:

    http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Think_tanks

    Feds

    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/14/top-10-most-shocking-spending-cuts-republicans-voted-for/

    Ohio

    http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/12/12/public-sector-unions-in-ohio-may-soon-be-under-siege.html

    Notice the Ohio link predicting what will be going on back in December.

    And the Congressional repubs are cutting aid for firefighters...

    This cannot be coincidental.

     


    by Richard Day on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 1:30pm

    Thanks so much, DD.  Great links.  Yes, the December article about Ohio is on the mark.  I liked this:

    Ohio State law professor Charles E. Wilson, who represented Celeste's administration during labor negotiations in the 1980s, said recent governors such as George V. Voinovich, Bob Taft and Strickland have been hard-nosed in their dealings with unions.

    "The way to control labor costs is to decide what you can pay and bargain accordingly," Wilson said. "You can't both eliminate strikes and binding arbitration. Otherwise, it's collective begging."


    by Ramona on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 10:52pm

    FEES - that's it in a nutshell.

    When the government privatizes an state function, the corporate owners levy fees for services. Services you have no other choice to select from...a state-controlled monopoly run by a private enterprise with a guarentteed, fixed income that the public has no control over, especially when it come to maintaining projected growth ratios to keep Wall Street investors happy at the expense of the public served.

    Privitization means it will cost you more out-of-pocket money than it did when the state ran the system. Money which is in short supply at the public level.


    by Beetlejuice on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 2:30pm

    A great article, Ramona.

    I wrote on this one as well, but you've got me fired up all over again.  I just love the feeling of righteous outrage, and I love to read people who can bring it out in me. 


    by Wattree on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 12:40pm

    Eric, you're no slouch when it comes to righteous outrage, yourself.  Couldn't we have used buckets full of it during the Bush administration?  Oh, right--we were spewing buckets-full.  Nobody was listening.


    by Ramona on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 10:47pm

    Isn't the State Supreme Court your last refuge? Can't someone petition the courts to review these new laws and determine if they have an ounce of legal credibility in the State Constitution? That Party politics is trumping the will of the people? Question if all legal means to remedy the "problems" were exhausted prior to the draconian measures they settled for? Just because legislators and the governor are elected doesn't automatically entitle them to carte blanche authority with enacting actions the public has deemed, in this case, above and beyond the campaign rhetoric. That the public's input has purposefully been shut out of the process they have every right to participate in.


    by Beetlejuice on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 2:23pm

    Curious that you should bring up the State Constitution, Beetle.  On the ballot last November, the voters were asked about rewriting the MI State Constitution, yea or nay.  Nays won.  Now, wouldn't it have been interesting if the insweeping TB Republicans could have refashioned that written doc to their own liking?

    Is it possible we here in MI dodged at least one bullet?

    JHC.  I think I just scared the shit outta myself.


    by wabby on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 10:06pm

    LOL!  Ooooo, that last line. . .know what you mean.  When they put it on the ballot I was terrified.  Given the way the election went, I was convinced they were going to get it all.

      I hate to even think what would be happening now if the GOP had swept the gov't and then cleaned house completely by rewriting our constitution.  Horrors!


    by Ramona on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 10:45pm

    If the State constitution is set up like the US Constitution, the each branch, Legislative, Executive and Judiciary both Check and Balance each other. I get the impression both legislature and executive branches are out of balance and unchecked so the courts need to step in to balance them to the will of the people instead of the Party.


    by Beetlejuice on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 1:33am

    Michigan Constitution Article 1 Section 10 :  No bill of attainder, ex post facto law or law impairing the obligation of a contract shall be enacted. 

    I was at the capitol today and attended the House Committee on Education meeting on House Bill 4306.   I asked my representative Lisa Brown, who is against these bills, for an explaination of the constitutionality of the bills being proposed and  passed.  If you point out the Judicial Branch is responsible for upholding the Constitution you are correct.  I was told that our elected officials are aware that these bill/laws could end up being challenged in the Michigan Supreme Court. 

    If you know that something is illegal and against the constitution, why proceed?  Who is paying for the introduction of these bills, the process of them becomming law and then the subsequent court case?  Thats saving money folks.

     


    by A Smith (not verified) on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 2:35pm

    Thanks, Ramona, for informing me of the protest.  I'm livid about this and what has been going on in this state.

     

    Lansing, noon, tomorrow.  I'll be there.


    by oeden on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 10:19pm

    Wonderful, Oeden!  Wish I could be there, too.  If you go, we would love to know what went on.

    Thanks.


    by Ramona on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 10:29pm

    Interesting comment in the thread following MM's letter....

    amy_attorney
    Posted March 14th, 2011 2:15 PM

    Mike: Giving an EFM the power to disincorporate townships may be a violation of the Northwest Ordinance. Both Wisconsin and Michigan are Northwest Ordinance states, and were created under that federal law after surveys which are based on townships. Pull out your deed to any real property you own in Michigan and look at the legal description - it describes metes and bounds based on townships, not actual landmarks. If the township is disincorporated and boundaries change because the EFM puts two townships together, etc., your deed now describes...nothing. It may also violate the 5th and 14th Amendments (eminent domain) - how do you bring an eminent domain claim when you can't prove what you own, because the township plats have been invalidated by the disincorporation of the township? This Michigan bill isn't just about union busting, or a simple power grab, it kills the right to own land! Talk about a return to serfdom! I have yet to see this aspect of the bill covered in ANY mainstream media - get another highlighter and challenge the media to cover THIS!!!!

    So, I looked up the Northwest Ordinance which was written in 1787, but could not find anything about using surveys to mark township boundaries within that document, so I'm thinking that was law school knowledge she is referring to and not knowledge a layperson would have. 

    I am wondering if the Northwest Ordinance still has relevance in 2011.  Do those guidelines still have strength since the Northwest territories have since been divided up into states?  I'm askin'.


    by wabby on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 10:23pm

    Hmmm, good question.  She's right that all land in Michigan is divided into 36-square-mile townships, which are then divided into 36 sections of one square mile each. Legal descriptions of properties are in metes and bounds, based on those township sections.  But what that has to do with the Northwest Ordinance, I don't know.  I'm sure there must be many legal ways to stop what the Snyder Gang wants to do, so I'm interested to see which of them will be used in court.

    I wonder how we could find out about the relevance of the Northwest Ordinance?  How many changes has it gone through since 1787?  And is it pertinent?


    by Ramona on Tue, 03/15/2011 - 10:41pm

    I've been thinking more about what she said about disincorporating townships.  What happens when a township incorporates into a city?  As far as deeds go, I don't think anything changes.  A metes and bounds property description is still based on the old township sections. 

    From what I can remember when I was in Real Estate many long years ago, some property descriptions are metes and bounds and some are subdivisions.  It could be that if you went deep enough into the subdivision descriptions you would unearth an original metes and bounds, but once a property becomes a platted subdivision, the legal description changes to reflect that.

    As I said, I don't know what it all means, but she seemed to be saying that there are ways to make your deed description null and void.  I don't think that's possible.


    by Ramona on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 7:13am

    Ramona:

    Wow, I love seeing my writing cross-posted!  ;)

    Yes, that is indeed exactly what I'm saying.

    Among the other powers granted them recently, the EFMs now have the power to disincorporate a township. The Act makes no distinction between "land" or "legal" townships (also called "survey townships" or "Congressional townships"), on the one hand, and "political" townships (akin to a city, village, etc.), on the other - it just says "township". If you own real estate in Michigan (or any Northwest Ordinance state - MI, WI, OH, IN, IL), pull out your deed or mortgage, and read the legal description of the land. You'll see it's described in terms of sections of ranges and TOWNSHIPS. Those are "land" or "legal" townships. The Township of Benton Harbor, which recently made the news as the first area in Michigan where an EFM essentially rendered all of the elected officials powerless (also a new power), is a "political" township.

    On July 13, 1787, the Confederation Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance ("the NWO"). The NWO created a system of government for the Northwest Territory (which became the states listed above). It also specified how the various parts of the Northwest Territory could become states. Earlier legislation, such as the Ordinance of 1784 and the Land Ordinance of 1785, had only said that the territory would someday become states and had described how the federal government would sell the land to private citizens. The Land Ordinance created the pattern along which American public land would be divided and sold until the passage of the Homestead Act in 1862. The Ordinance of 1785 ruled that the western lands north of the Ohio River would be divided by surveyors into a square grid. Because these federal statutes had related subjects and relatively similar names, in later years "Northwest Ordinance" became a sort of shorthand for all of them.

    Under the system created for legal descriptions of land - still used today - each survey township measures six by six miles and is subdivided into thirty-six one-mile-square sections. Each section (measuring 640 acres) could then be further divided, usually into half, quarter, eighth, or sixteenth-section lots of 320, 160, 80, or 40 acres. Certain sections had restrictions placed on their sales; for instance, money from the sixteenth section of every township was to be set aside to fund public schools in the township. Many schools today are still located in section sixteen of their respective townships, although a great many of the school sections were sold to raise money for public education. In later States, section 36 of each township was also designated as a "school section".

    The first territorial survey took place in what is now southeastern Ohio, and it measured land that stretched westward from Little Beaver Creek to the Tuscarawas River and southward to the Ohio River. A total of about 91 townships were created (although some of them were fractional and did not contain a full 36 sections), with about 3,276 sections comprising 2,096,640 acres of land ready for development by U.S. farmers. A one quarter-section of land was the amount allocated to each settler. Stemming from this are the idiomatic expressions, "the lower 40", which is the 40 acres (160,000 m2) on a settler's land that is lowest in elevation, in the direction towards which water drains toward a stream, and the "back forty", the portion farthest from the settler's dwelling.

    So, if a survey township is disincorporated, your deed now describes...nothing.

    Also, the EFMs are now empowered to tear up ANY contract - not just collective bargaining or other employment contracts.  From the Act (MI Pub. Act No. 4, 2011):

    Sec. 19. (1) An emergency manager may take 1 or more of the following additional actions with respect to a local government which is in receivership, notwithstanding any charter provision to the contrary: ...

    (j) Reject, modify, or terminate 1 or more terms and conditions of an existing contract.

    -----

    Contrast that language with the following sub-section, which reads (in pertinent part):

    ----

    (k) After meeting and conferring with the appropriate bargaining representative and, if in the emergency manager’s sole discretion and judgment, a prompt and satisfactory resolution is unlikely to be obtained, reject, modify, or terminate 1 or more terms and conditions of an existing collective bargaining agreement.

    ----

    The legislature is presumed to understand the terms it uses, and to have selected its terms carefully; thus, when it says "contract" in subsection j, but "collective bargaining agreement" in subsection k, rest assured, it means two very different things.

    Deeds are contracts if consideration is paid for the land (they are quasi-contracts if the deed is gifting land - one of the few quasi-contractual agreements allowed under law). Mortgages are contracts, as well.

    So, once your deed/mortgage contract is useless and/or terminated, the EFM can seize your land. You can't prove that you own it, because even if you still have the deed/mortgage, the survey plats on which the legal description is based are invalid. So much for an eminent domain claim to at least get paid for the seizure.

    It's probably a violation of federal law - the NWO, as well as the 5th and 14th Amendments (eminent domain), but private citizens have no power to sue to enforce the NWO, and, as noted, how do you prove your eminent domain claim without a valid legal survey of the land? You can't.

    One other thing: disincorporating a township does NOTHING to get rid of the township's debt, which is what the Republicans claim is the whole point of the law. (It's not about the budget.) Plus, we already HAVE a means of ridding municipalities of debt they can't handle - it's called Chapter 9 bankruptcy!

    -amyattorney


    by amyattorney (not verified) on Tue, 04/26/2011 - 4:52pm

    Wow, Amy, that is really important information.  Thank you SO much.  Would you consider either putting it into a post here or allowing me to post it?  It needs to see the light of day someplace other than in a comment on a blog post.  It actually would also be pertinent to the one I posted today. 

     


    by Ramona on Tue, 04/26/2011 - 5:52pm

    Repost at will. :)  By the way, if anyone does the research and can prove me wrong, I'd appreciate it. I do not WANT to be correct, although I fear I am.


    by amyattorney (not verified) on Wed, 04/27/2011 - 10:21am

    Thanks so much, Amy.  I'll be posting it soon.


    by Ramona on Wed, 04/27/2011 - 10:51am

    fight the good fight!  we are all in solidarity...we are continuing our fight in wisconsin!!  we will not back down....."they" are disregarding democracy....it is about the people!


    by Kim (not verified) on Wed, 03/16/2011 - 9:59pm

    Thanks for commenting, Kim.  We are all in this together and we have to work hard to stay that way.  We need our voices to be heard loud and clear, and the more of us the better.


    by Ramona on Thu, 03/17/2011 - 7:57am

    The governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, is lowering taxes on businesses while increasing taxes on poor and working-class people. Snyder plans to cut business taxes by 86 percent, which will cost the state nearly $2 billion in revenues. He will make up the difference by raising personal income taxes and hiking the rates on the lowest earners (but not the richest!). If a town or school district faces a deficit because of the state's reckless tax cuts for business, then the governor will have the power to remove the elected government and replace it with an emergency financial manager, empowered to break any and all contracts and rule by decree. As E.D. Kain wrote in Forbes online, why are there no protests from the Tea Party or Fox News about these big-government policies in Lansing that suspend democracy? There is a word for this kind of anti-democratic collaboration between business and government, but we haven't used it much since the 1940s: fascism.

    From Diane Ravitch's latest post, "An Age of Hypocrisy", at:

    http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2011/03/an_age_of_hypocrisy.html


    by AmericanDreamer on Tue, 03/22/2011 - 12:06pm

    Dreamer, nothing has gotten under my skin more than what's happening in Michigan, especially in the town Benton Harbor, which has a very high black population.

    I'm a distance from Michigan, but I missed the civil rigthts marches and I'm about to pack the car and head out there.

    The absolute arrogance of Snyder is unprecedented, even in the Republican party.

    The Republican governors obviously got together and plotted these extreme moves in the hopes of killing off the base of the Democratic Party before they could recover from their losses in 2010.

    Well, guess what, they woke the sleeping giant. 

     


    by Oxy Mora on Wed, 04/27/2011 - 10:45am

    Thanks for your support.  Michigan welcomes your concern!  If you haven't seen my latest on our troubles, you might want to read it:  http://dagblog.com/politics/were-michigan-and-most-us-dont-deserve-9973


    by Ramona on Wed, 04/27/2011 - 10:53am

    Thanks. One of Synder's miscalculations is the seasonal aspect. The snow is melting, the fish will soon be jumping up in the Straits, then the blueberries and cherries--what a wonderful time to be there in the summer, living out of my van, fishing, going to marches. Then drop down to Ohio and work on the recall. Can't wait. Maybe a dagblog retreat.


    by Oxy Mora on Wed, 04/27/2011 - 11:18am

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