It is noteworthy with the second Obama term beginning next week that in many parts of the country life for the poor has not improved. Instead, for many, life is more difficult.
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Citing the significant disruption to the teaching and learning process Lapeer Superintendent Matt Wandrie stated that his district will be starting their Christmas break early due to rumors and concerns of violence within Detroit. In the wake of the tragic events in Connecticut, school officials of several Detroit Districts have decided to cancel school rather than risk any incidents. Other area schools are indicating a stepped up police presence.

While these may be prudent decisions on the part of the schools one might question the missed opportunity to quell rumors and Middle-Ages type hysteria rather than accept and embrace it.

Of course, I may be wrong.

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Here is an interview with Steven Crowder after the fact with Dana Loesch:

Crowder suffered bruises to his face and a chipped tooth in the assault. Additional footage can be seen on the Sean Hannity show on Fox News Channel.

“The passage of Right-to-Work is a win/win for Michigan,” said Michigan State Director Scott Hagerstrom in a statement. “Despite this victory, it took place amid union brutality and violence. I am saddened by the union protestors’ complete disregard for safety and freedom of speech, tearing down an AFP tent and stomping on peaceful AFP demonstrators trapped under the tent.”

Volunteers and staffers for Americans For Prosperity across the nation have come out in social media force to expose the violence in Michigan, but also to showcase the hypocrisy of the unions who claim to support free speech and peaceful protest.

John Cooney, State Director of Minnesota which also saw demonstrations related to proposed right-to-work legislation, had this to say.

“Disappointingly, unions have continued their pattern of violence and rejection to civil discourse today in Michigan just as they did earlier this year in Minnesota with multiple disruptions at the state capitol during a senate hearing on employee freedom. The threats and acts of physical violence, not simply intimidation, are shockingly a common tool used by union thugs to protect the confiscated wages of hard working Americans and were caught on camera today.”

Cooney joined Americans For Prosperity last summer and has been a conservative activist in various capacities for more than 13 years.

“Americans For Prosperity remains committed to free market reforms and principles of freedom and liberty,” concluded Cooney’s statement.

The video of the AFP tent being torn down and the union mob screaming profanity-laced chants has been shared by many of the individual state chapters across the U.S.

Public workers in Michigan are now free to work without being forced to pay legalized extortion to unions as a precondition of their employment.

As union labor gathered by the thousands, Michigan’s legislature voted approval Tuesday to “right-to-work” legislation.  The House and the Senate both approved the measure, making membership and payment of union dues optional.  Governor Rick Snyder has promised to sign it into law.

More than 12,000 protestors from around the Midwest gathered for the vote.  Union thugs dissatisfied with the vote attacked the Americans for Prosperity tent, tore it down and slashed it apart with knives while members of AFP were still inside.

Union promised there will be more to come.

From the floor of the Michigan House of Representatives, Democratic State Representative State Representative Douglas Geiss threatened “There will be blood.”

Barack Obama described the legislation thusly:  “These so called right-to-work laws, they don’t have anything to do with economics, they have to do with politics.”

This is coming from someone whose entire position on the so-called fiscal cliff negotiations in Washington DC has nothing to do with economics.  It is all about politics.  It is all about destroying the Republican Party and promoting a patently un-American fringe Marxist ideology.

Michigan’s right-to-work law makes it illegal to require financial support of a union as a condition of employment.  When it comes to recruiting businesses to Michigan it will make the state more competitive.  Critics claim it will cripple the ability of unions to fund their political policy objectives.

Unions are forgetting some fundamental principles.  No one should be forced against their will to join a union or to have their paycheck skimmed by unions.  If someone disagrees with their politics, no one should be forced to fund union politics.

For “progressives”, who lay claim to sole possession of concern for working people, forcing Americans who object to their political policy objectives to fund then as a precondition of employment is hypocrisy in the most classic sense.

Hypocrisy, when it comes to speaking about “progressives”, is par for the course.

It is morally right for workers to have the power of decision where it comes to supporting labor unions financially.  People should have the right to work without being forced to pay union dues.  Americans who want to work should not be enslaved by unions.

http://mjfellright.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/free-michigan/

If this is what unions promote no civilized American should want any part.

The tent was erected by the Michigan chapter of Americans For Prosperity, a free market activist group. The tent, according to reports via social media from those in attendance, had women and children inside who were unable to get out because of the weight of the tent as well as union protesters standing on the edges. It’s clear from the video that there are people under the tent after it had fallen.

Reports on Twitter and Facebook claim more violence such as popular conservative activist Steven Crowder was punched in the face at least four times. Video of his encounter will be released later today via social media and again on the Sean Hannity show on the Fox News Channel later tonight.

See additional video courtesy of conservative blogger Lee Stranahan here: Frightening Mob

The bill would allow workers at union-represented employers to not pay dues even though the union would be bargaining on their behalf. Advocates of the bill say it will help attract business to the state which has unemployment over 9%;  while unions, who represent over 17% of the workers, believe this bill will weaken their bargaining position by cutting financial resources.

Governor Rick Snyder is expected to sign the bill into law Tuesday.

UPDATE: Listen to the replay here or follow the link above to download.

The advertisement assures “recipients” that the “sign up process is easy and will only take a few minutes to complete”.

Just as the Obamaphone Lady made it clear, if you “are on food stamps, SSI, Medicaid or Section 8 you are welcome to receive a free cell phone”… well, that is, (while supplies last).”

Cam Edwards speaks with John Chevilott, a groundskeeper for Wayne County, Michigan Department of Public Services who recently found a handgun while he was mowing a lawn. He secured the firearm and took it in to a nearby Garden City police station, but later he was notified that he had been fired for possessing a firearm on county property. Chevilott was on 2 years away from retirement, and his union has filed a grievance with the county on his behalf

Up until Tuesday night’s debate, Rick Santorum had held the lead in Michigan polls. A lackluster debate performance that included booing from the audience seems to have changed the minds of Michigan voters according to a Rasmussen Reports telephone survey.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Republican Primary Voters in Michigan shows Romney with 40% of the vote and former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum with 34%. The poll was conducted on Thursday night, following the last scheduled debate among the GOP candidates.

Digging into the survey results deeper shows an interesting conflict. When asked “If the 2012 Republican Primary for president were held today, would you vote for Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul?”, 40% chose Romney while 34% chose Santorum – a reversal from a February 20th poll where Santorum held the edge on that question 38% to 34%. If the question is reduced to asking “Suppose the 2012 Republican Primary for president were held today and you only had a choice between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum.  For whom would you vote?” Santorum takes the lead 46% to 44% so which of the other candidates is having an effect on Michigan election?

Ron Paul was selected 10% of the time and Newt Gingrich 9% of the time so both of the lower-tier candidates appear to be taking more of Santorum’s base than those that might vote for Romney.

” Electability” appears to also be driving poll results. When asked who survey respondents thought could beat Obama in the general election, 74% felt that Romney was very or somewhat likely to beat the president while only 59% said the same about Santorum. 44% of those responding to the survey thought that Newt could beat Obama while only 19% believed that Ron Paul stood a chance against the incumbent.

With the vote in Michigan being held next Tuesday, the trend and sentiment seem to be going Romney’s way.

Much ado has been made about the Super Bowl Clint Eastwood/Chrysler commercial, expressing the theme that Detroit, and America at large, is making a comeback. In some conservative circles, “Dirty Harry” has been criticized as shilling for President Obama.

But after reading this article by Mara Gay of The Daily, I’m convinced that the tough-guy libertarian may be the ideal spokesman for Motor City. Facing huge cutbacks in the city police force, abysmally poor response times to calls for service, and a general lack of police effectiveness, the residents of Detroit- which purportedly has the nation’s second-highest per capita murder rate- are arming themselves in record numbers- and self-defense shootings are up 79% year-over-year, and 2200% above the national average.

The article, while clearly left-biased (it describes armed citizens as “vigilantes”), illustrates a major shift in public thinking in Detroit: People are realizing they must provide for their own protection. The city police department, with its long history of mismanagement, is even more of a failure today than it ever has been. Even as the department faces multi-million-dollar budget shortfalls, the city paid over $6 million for a former casino building (VIDEO) to convert into a new police headquarters; and DPD is rolling out a “virtual precinct” program which directs calls for crimes reported after-the-fact during evening and overnight hours to an officer at headquarters to take a report. Translation: If you come home after work to find your house has been burglarized, DPD will take a report and get around to investigating it sometime. It’s no wonder foreclosed houses are selling (or not) for as little as $50 in Detroit.

Those who can afford to move out of Detroit have already done so, and those who can’t are at the end of their rope. Big-government, predominantly-Democrat Detroiters are now fully realizing that their city government can’t even provide essential services, and so they are forced to become self-sufficient.

Stated another way: Residents of one of the most liberal cities in the nation are getting the harshest “wake-up call” one can receive on the failings of big-government liberalism as a theory of governance: The promise of greater safety, which is the most-effective and most-often used means of convincing the public to give up their money and their liberties, is now a broken promise in Detroit. The usual socialist responses to such a crisis are unavailable: Raising taxes isn’t an option, because there’s nothing left to tax; begging for money from the state government isn’t an option, because the state is broke; harsher gun control laws would be opposed, because people across the political spectrum are buying and carrying guns; and more stringent enforcement isn’t a possibility, because Wayne County Jail has no room to house convicts.

As Detroiters begin to cope with the “new normal” of self-reliance, they’ll also ask questions about the condition of the city’s police force. They’ll want to know how it could get to be so bad. The answers to these questions- corrupt Democrat politicians, incompetent management, greedy and self-serving public sector unions, short-sighted liberal policies, overspending and overtaxing- can’t be concealed behind socialist rhetoric any longer. The city government has run out of excuses and other people’s money, and there’s no room in the budget to hire Robocop.

Big changes in self-defense thinking are nothing new for Detroit: The Sweet Trials of 1925-1926, which took place in Detroit, were the first occasion in our nation’s history in which an African-American successfully claimed self-defense in court.

Maybe the star of Gran Torino is a good spokesman for Detroit after all.