Well, we finally have the official census figures, and for the first time in history, Michigan lost people in the course of a decade. Worse, we'll have fewer members of Congress.
Join me over the fold for a reasonable solution, what will likely happen instead, and other bad news for the Great Lakes State from the 2010 U.S. Census.
A few days ago, I posted a diary in support of Lance Enderle's campaign in which, along with several other key points, I pointed out his opponent, 5-term incumbent Republican Mike Rogers' extreme position on reproductive rights for women:
4. MIKE ROGERS WANTS RAPE VICTIMS FORCED TO CARRY RAPISTS' OFFSPRING: The whole nation is abuzz about Alan Grayson's opponent, "Taliban Dan" Webster. Well, guess what? Republican Mike Rogers is also so extreme on abortion that he wants women who are the victims of rape to be forced to give birth to their rapist's offspring. I can't imagine the injustice of police detaining & supervising rape victims for 9 months until their rapists' spawn are born. Yet that is the necessary consequence of Mike Rogers' position.
(What does it tell you that even Mike Cox has complained against this group? - promoted by ScottyUrb)
You may have heard about J.D. Hayworth, the former Congressman and conservative challenger to John McCain, and his recent troubles involving a 2007 stint as an infomercial spokesperson. The company he filmed the infomercial for was called National Grants Conferences (NGC). This infomercial was the kind that explains if you simply purchase a ticket ($500-1,000 each) to their seminar, they will show you how to get thousands of dollars in free money grants from the government (and this will pretty much solve all of your problems).
What NGA didn’t explain, was that the information they give to you at the seminar is available on the Internet and at your local library for free. This is the kind of thing that 99% of the people see and recognize is a scam right away. Still, because NGA had a former U.S. Congressman say, “this is for real!” there is always that 1% that fall for their scheme and pay the high fees for free information.
The truth is, individual citizens are not even eligible for the vast majority of federal government grants. Also, grants that individual citizens may qualify for are very restricted in how and what they can be spent on. All U.S. Congress members are well aware of this.
What does this have to do with Michigan's 9th Congressional district?
J.C. Watts recently visited Oakland County to give an endorsement to the campaign of Paul Welday, a Republican who hopes to defeat Rep. Gary Peters in November. Do you remember J.C. Watts? He, like J.D. Hayworth, is a former Republican Congressman and also once served as a spokesperson in one of NGC’s infomercials. In fact, he was the one that informed Hayworth about the fantastic NGC opportunity. A quick and easy way to make a few bucks from unsuspecting consumers that are fooled into paying NGC lots of their hard earned money for information available at the local library.
How shady is National Grants Conferences? In addition to having a F-rating from the Better Business Bureau, 34 state attorney generals, including Attorney General Mike Cox, jointly filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission. In 2006 the state of Vermont sued NGC in a consumer fraud lawsuit, which ended up with a settlement of over $350,000 in fines paid by NGC. All of this was known before J.C. Watts recommended this opportunity to his friend J.D. Hayworth.
What does Republican Paul Welday have to say about consumer predator and NGC promoter J.C. Watts? Welday said, “I am humbled and honored to have the support of JC Watts. I have known and admired him for years.”
I wonder if Welday saw one of J.C. Watts' infomercials and bought a ticket, which led to a lot of free money, which led to his admiration of Watts?
Here is the NGC infomercial staring former Congressman J.D. Hayworth.
Friday night on the corner of 13 Mile Rd. and Woodward Ave. close to 100 people joined Gary Peters to show their support and feelings on the matter of Wall Street reform. Garrett Arwa, the Michigan Director for Organizing for America warmed up the crowd for Congressman Gary Peters. After the chants of “Gary, Gary, Gary,” Arwa addressed the crowd, saying that those that had gathered are concerned about Wall Street reform. He reminded the crowd that our economy was in freefall.
Congressman Gary Peters town hall was interesting. I would say the crowd wat 60/40 in favor of health care reform. But the thing that really struck me, even though it's been obvious from the beginning, is that the people against health care reform are not interested in hearing how it will help them or learning the facts. The anti-health care reform faction was yelling about tort reform. Michigan already has the most stringent tort laws in the country.
The new Republican meme is to start over. It took us 60 years to get this far and there is no going back now. It's time to pass health care reform now.
This is the coverage from Fox 2 in Detroit.
This screaming lady really doesn't know what she's talking about, but she sure screams loud. This is theWXYZ coverage.
1:30-2:30p MEETING WITH LOCAL VETERANS AND GENERAL CLARK
American Legion Post 346 2079 12 Mile Rd, Berkley, MI 48072
The American Legion is bringing together a group of veterans (including recently returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans) for a roundtable discussion with General Clark and Congressman Peters.
4:00-6:30p Fundraiser for Congressman Gary Peters with General Wesley Clark
The text below is part of an e-mail I received from Ashley Dowser, who is now working for the Alliance for Climate Protection (she formerly was with the Obama campaign in Birmingham). I am appalled that Gary Peters would even consider voting against this bill. It should be a no brainer. Please call his office and let him know how important this bill is to our future and the future of the world.
Lately there has been a lot of Debate over the number of Democratic Congressional Districts that Democrats could gerrymander out of the state of Michigan if they had complete control (right now they hold the Governorship and State House. They stand a good chance at taking control of the State Senate while the Governor's race is a tossup). A few people have said that it is possible to succesfully draw a map that would yield 12 Democratic seats and only 2 Republican seats. I've been trying for several weeks to draw a 12-2 map, meanwhile protecting endangered incumbents (specifically Schauer) and I've determined that a 12-2 map would be far overeaching and in a neutral or Republican leaning year might end up 9-5 or worse. I think the best Michigan Democrats could do is create 11 safe or Democrat leaning districts and 3 strongly Republican districts. I've drawn a map that I think does just that, although I still am not entirely confident that we could hold both of my "Thumb" districts in a Republican year. But without further ado, here's my map.
Congressman Gary Peters appeared on The Ed Show tonight talking about the announcement that GM is going to furlough its workers for 9 weeks this summer.
Today's Washington Post brings one of the answers to Marcie Wheeler. In an earlier meeting with the banks, Steve Rattner gave them the news:
To save Chrysler, he told them, the four banks and several other financial firms would have to surrender their claims to most of the $7 billion the automaker owed them. And what would the banks get in return for this sacrifice? Nothing.
As the article notes, "jaws dropped." And it's one more affirmation why we have Gary Peters.
"These are banks that have received substantial investments from the government," said Rep. Gary Peters (D-Mich.)..."We hope they will understand that what was given to them was not for their benefit, but to get the economy moving again and maintain American jobs."
The banks didn't see it this way at all, and rejected the 15 cents/dollar proposal. It was unfair. And besides, says one unnamed spokesperson,
" What's the incentive to provide loans if the government can come in at any time and trump you?"
The article helpfully fills readers in as to what's at stake: 180,000 jobs. And with that the further descent of Michigan, despite the best efforts of our leaders. There is, however, one other item to bring to the fore: what will the Obama administration do? Will they cave to the banks?
At this point, I wish I were much more economically literate. But for the moment, as Simon Johnson, James Kwaak and others have pointed out, the real challenge in the present crisis is by the financial oligarchs, and the corresponding need for their constraint. The battle for Chrysler is a case in point. The financial community's determination to harvest their share (estimated at fifty cents on the dollar) regardless of the damage such behavior does to community -- this is the challenge before the Obama administration. Will they they have the backbone? A Democratic Party unable to constrain the banks will face much more difficult time as it turns to pick up the pieces with a gubernatorial election looming.
Last night on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, the No. 4 story was the AIG bonus and what the government is doing to recoup the $165 million in bonuses AIG paid to it executives. Congressman Peters has introduced legislation to put a 60% surcharge tax on those bonuses, on top of the 35% tax people in their tax bracket already pay.
WASHINGTON -- Rep. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township, said Monday that he will introduce legislation that would essentially tax 100 percent of the controversial bonuses paid to employees of bailed-out insurance giant American International Group Inc.
"It is beyond outrageous that the very people who brought AIG to its knees and helped create the current financial crisis are scheduled to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses while tax dollars keep their company afloat," Peters said in a written statement.
This morning, my 3-year old son and I had the honor of attending a roundtable/press conference event with freshman Congressman Gary Peters (MI-09) to discuss the first bill that he's introducing to the 111th Congress.
My wife and I are both self-employed (myself for 10 years as a website developer; her for the past year as a professional coach/consultant). We share a home office (not easy to do with your spouse, but we've pulled it off so far!), and our son is in daycare 4 days a week (we alternate taking care of him one day a week, which is why I was able to bring him with me today).
Needless to say, the $600+ or so per month is quite a hit to our pocketbooks, only beaten out by our mortgage and health insurance premiums.
Since child care is rightly considered a legitimate business expense (paying someone to watch your kids frees you up to actually make a living), there's a federal child care deduction. In 1981, the Dependent Care Tax Credit (DCTC) was set at 20% of a maximum of up to $3,000 for one child an $6,000 for 2 or more children.
After Friday's meeting with local mayors, I got to spend just a few minutes with Congressman Gary Peters and ask some questions that came to mind from the meeting.
One question I had for the Congressman was the fact that some women’s groups have expressed concern that so much of the focus is on infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, which while there are some women employed in the constructions field, it is still a male dominated field. Peters answered by pointing out that there is also a substantial amount of money targeted at fields that employ many more women, such as teaching and health care.
I also wondered, with all the money being poured into construction, whether there would be a requirement that when construction equipment has to be purchased and new vehicles, such as trucks are purchased, whether they would have to be American made. Peters answered that that provision is not currently in the bill, but his take is that anyone that receives help should commit to buy American.
On the issue of another round of loan defaults in the areas of car loans and commercial real estate, Peters replied that he thought the main focus needs to be the residential real estate market for now.
During the campaign before Nancy Skinner dropped out of the race, Peters and Skinner participated in a forum. One of the questions that came up was health care. At the time, Peters stated that he supported a Medicare for all solution.
When I asked the Congressman about his position on Congressman Conyers’ H.R. 676, single-payer plan and whether he would sign on to co-sponsor the Conyers bill, Peters seemed to back off his former support for Medicare for all and instead now supports the Obama health care plan which envisions offering the same health care plan that Congress gets being offered to all citizens, and also allows people to purchase higher levels of coverage.
It looks like change is finaly coming in the 7th and 9th Congressional districts of Michigan. Gary Peters and Mark Schauer have the policies, have raised the money and done the hard work to earn the endorsements of major newspapers in Michigan and the trust of the voters.
No matter what shape the state is in or how much Michigan voters gripe about Washington, they have a pattern of retaining their representatives in Congress. It's pretty tough to knock off an incumbent on these peninsulas. The result is challengers who are sometimes unqualified, usually underfinanced, and generally unable to offer assets equivalent to the experience and seniority that matter so much in the Washington power structure.
This year, however, two challengers have made the case.
In the 9th District, which spans Oakland County from Farmington Hills north through Pontiac, the Free Press endorses Democrat GARY PETERS of Bloomfield Hills over eight-term incumbent Republican Joe Knollenberg of Bloomfield Township. In the 7th District, which encompasses all or most of seven southern lower Michigan counties, state Sen. MARK SCHAUER, D-Battle Creek, would do a better job than incumbent Republican Tim Walberg of Tipton has managed in his first term. Click here to read the rest of the story.
You can tell we're two weeks outside a major election ... my Inboxes are filling up, by the hour, with stuff that's going on. So, let's break it down to highlights...
CD07 -- According to a press release from the Schauer campaign, the Democrat raised $226,000 in the first two weeks of October, compared to $157,000 raised by Tim Walberg. The Schauer campaign reports having $735,000 on hand entering the last two weeks of the campaign, while the Walberg campaign either has $691,000 on hand if you believe a Schauer campaign press release or $412,000 if you believe Deb Price of The Detroit News.
*--Responding to threats by the Walberg campaign over an ad that it is running in the 7th District, Health Care for America Now has responded by pouring more money into the district in adverstising. Walberg threatened to sue HCAN over this ad, and in response the group purchased more air time. Also, the group purchased space in the weekly newspaper The Tecumseh Herald for this full-page ad.
CD09 -- In a new internal poll, commissioned by the DCCC, Grove Insight found that Gary Peters had opened up a double digit lead over Joe Knollenberg. According to a press release, when 400 residents of the 9th District were polled, 46 of them said they plan to vote for Gary Peters. Thirty six percent said they would back Joe Knollenberg. Jack Kevorkian received 2 percent of the vote.
(He's right ... this is huge. - promoted by Eric B.)
This is unbelievable. The Oakland Press, a paper known for Republican ties and almost invariably endorses incumbents, especially Republican incumbents, has endorsed Gary Peters for the 9th Congressional District over Republican Joe Knollenberg. Click here for a larger image of the editorial.
