Snyder: Give Detroit what it Needs

Get on with it, Governor Snyder. Put an Emergency manager in charge of Detroit. You will never win the hearts or minds of the overwhelmingly Democratic city. But the longer you wait, the weaker you'll seem to everyone else. Just do it and get it over with.

Detroit is a classic case of the tail wagging the dog. Detroit leaders appear to think that Detroit is Michigan. That may have been the case at one point. It isn't anymore.

There are about 700,000 residents where there used to be 2,000,000. That's something in the area of seven percent of the population of the entire state. Detroit does not, or at least should not, have the clout it once had. The only real thing the city has going for it is political: the situation can be painted as David and Goliath, of Democrat against Republican; of plain old racism, even.

None of which is fair. Detroit got herself into her mess and is essentially refusing to get herself out of it. Someone else must. That someone is you, Governor Snyder. You wanted to be governor; you wanted to run the state like a business. So, do it. Maybe you won't be a hero to Detroit, but that was never going to happen anyway. Go on and be a hero to Michigan. Detroit may actually learn a lesson from that.

This and That on a Thursday

President Barack Obama appeared in the metro Detroit area yesterday, asking for money. For him, that is, and not to trim the exploding federal deficits. It's all about priorities, you know. He needs to get reelected so that he can do something about the monster he's created. Anybody see the irony here? We note with sadness the passing of the legendary Dick Clark, who died yesterday of a heart attack at the age of 82. The effect he had upon American culture and rock and roll music simply cannot be quantified. It was too high and too significant. He translated that into many other activities, game shows and what not, and somehow manged to become an icon in an entirely different area: he became the symbol of New Year's Eve. God Bless, Dick Clark. December 31, 2012 simply won't be the same without you. The President's Detroit trip wasn't all pomp and circumstance. A group of about 100 people calling themselves '100% fed up' protested outside of the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, one of the President's stops for the day. The group was headed by a conservative activist, Dr. David Janda, who said he will quit his practice is Obamacare isn't somehow overturned. Others at the protest included housewife Patty McMurray, who asserted that she understood economics despite that career choice. You go, girl. Don't let the Democrats and the left insult your intelligence. An Ingham County judge has ruled that the state's Emergency Manager Law violates the Headlee Amendment because it forces added costs to local government. Maybe so, maybe no; but as irony is the word of the day here, let's apply it one more time. We have a judge acting as a judicial activist essentially arguing that a conservative law approved by voters prohibits a conservative law passed by the state legislature. Further, the case was brought about through a man now accused of misusing public funds. Robert Davis, who hates state oversight measures such as the Emergency Manger law, has been indicted for allegedly running a scam on the government which cost $380,000 in public funds. That's a double layer of irony there, friends. But public officials (Davis is a Highland Park school board member) demanding public dollars is nothing new. It's how they seed their lawns. Ah well. Enough for today. With a government like ours, irony will return. All too often.

Recall Snyder Again?

There is another effort in the works to recall Governor Rick Snyder. That's not surprising; there are groups of far left radicals who simply don't like the democratic process and will do anything to undermine it. In this case, it's really the same group but with a different name.

They were originally the Committee to Recall Rick Snyder. Now they're called Michigan Rising. But call them what you like, or let them call themselves what they like; the bottom line is that they're simply trying to disrupt the business of the state for no useful purpose.

Why try again, after their first initiative fell far short of the necessary signatures? Because you have to 'chop the head off the beast to slay the dragon', says Marty Townsend, the head of her own beast. What has that other beat been up to, the beast she's fighting? Cuts to education, and the emergency manager law, among other things.

It's interesting hat there were no such efforts to recall then Governor Jennifer Granholm while she too was cutting education budgets. This is important, because this recall group, reorganized into Michigan Rising, claims to be non-partisan. But a look at their website shows that they are anything but. The charges against Rick Snyder dominate the site, and they argue that there are 80 anti-union bills before the legislature. In short, their non-partisanship is fully anti-Republican.

Their leadership is dominated by community activists, social justice seekers, and worriers about corporate politicians (whatever they are). And interestingly enough, their CEO, one Julius Muller, doesn't even live in Michigan. He lives in Florida. But he lived here for eight years, so apparently he's qualified to keep his hat in the Michigan ring.

This effort is as doomed as the first. Those wanting to recall Snyder are simply a group of dissatisfied liberals who eat at the slops of the government trough and are seen by the voting public as such. Michigan Rising is doomed to fall hard.