http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Daily-Reports/2012/February/13/State-Reax-to-Contraceptive-Deal.aspx

Saying that religious liberty is under attack, Schuette announced Thursday plans to make Michigan [...]]]>

I’ll be on First Shift this morning to discuss Bill Schuette’s actions so far as Attorney General. Here’s some of the research I have for the topic:

• Schuette is using his office to promote a right wing social agenda.

  http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Daily-Reports/2012/February/13/State-Reax-to-Contraceptive-Deal.aspx

  Saying that religious liberty is under attack, Schuette announced Thursday plans to make Michigan the lead state in filing briefs in support of lawsuits filed by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a group that leans conservative and fights for religious rights (Warikoo, 2/10).

  http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/supreme-court-unanimously-shoots-down-obama-admin-churches-have-right-to-ch/

  Mark Rienzi, senior counsel at The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and a law professor at the Catholic University of America, said he thought Schuette was the first state attorney general to participate in Becket’s cases.

• Schuette has stated that police officers who return medical marijuana that has been legally OR illegally seized, may be prosecuted as drug dealers.

  http://www.citizen-times.com/article/C4/20111113/COL04/111130466/Brian-Dickerson-Schuette-wages-war-against-people-s-law?odyssey=mod_sectionstories

  In his latest initiative, Schuette has opined that police have a legal obligation not to return pot seized from licensed medical marijuana patients because possession of marijuana is still prohibited under federal law. (Never mind that the U.S. Justice Department, which has bigger fish to fry, especially in Detroit, has made clear its lack of interest in prosecuting patients in Michigan and other states that have authorized medical marijuana.)

  In fact, the AG warned in an opinion issued late last week, officers who return illegally confiscated marijuana (in seeming compliance with a provision of the MMA that specifically bars its seizure from medical users licensed by the state) are themselves risking criminal prosecution as drug dealers.

• Schuette is inconsistent in his views on constitutional authority.

  http://bloggingformichigan.com/2011/08/08/the-ongoing-hypocrisy-of-bill-schuette/

  In a brief filed with the court, Schuette sides with Livonia, arguing that the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act is preempted by federal law and that local communities should not be forced to sanction criminal activity.

  …
  On July 1, the appeals court, in a 2-1 decision, struck down Michigan’s Proposal 2, which bans the consideration of race and gender in college admissions and government hiring. Judges R. Guy Cole Jr. and Martha Craig Daughtrey said it put an unconstitutional burden on minorities who would have to launch their own statewide petition drive to try to undo the law.
  Schuette is appealing the ruling because it is “nutty” and because Michigan residents have the right to make laws to protect white people at the state level

• Schuette interferes in elections

  http://bloggingformichigan.com/2011/10/25/gov-snyder-and-att-gen-schuette-involvement-paul-scott-recall-is-clumsy-and-nakedly-partisan/

  Gov. Rick Snyder and Attorney General Bill Schuette filed requests with the Michigan Supreme Court today, asking the court to delay the Nov. 8 recall election targeting state Rep. Paul Scott, R-Grand Blanc.
  In documents filed with the court, Snyder and Schuette said the legal tangle surrounding the case – which has been ordered on, off and back on the ballot over the course of the last two months – has left voters confused and in danger of being disenfranchised.

• Schuette uses the AG office to interfere in university matters on a regular basis

  http://www.freep.com/article/20110318/COL04/103180441/Brian-Dickerson-Bill-Schuette-civil-liberties-champion-

  In a friend of the court brief filed this week, Schuette asked the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a lower court ruling that EMU was within its rights when it suggested that Julea Ward — a former graduate student who maintains that her Christian beliefs preclude her from ministering to gay and lesbian clients — find another course of study at another school.

• Schuette looking for media, face time

  http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2012/03/us_supreme_court_to_michigan_a.html

  Justices denied a late bid by Schuette to join oral arguments over life sentences without chance of parole for minors in death cases.

  The court’s March 5 rejection was quick, 10 days after Schuette’s office sought to participate in arguments that will help decide the fate of 2,500 inmates nationally. One in seven are in Michigan.

  Schuette’s office limited its comments to a short statement by spokeswoman Joy Yearout, who said Schuette acted at the request of the defending attorneys general of Alabama and Arkansas.

  “We will continue to defend and fight for justice for victims and their families at every opportunity,” she wrote.

• Schuette proposing bad policy to pander to electorate / campaign for higher office

  http://bridgemi.com/2012/03/lock-em-up-and-send-taxpayers-the-bill/#.T2aEUPVUTHo

  Schuette’s proposal, which his office touted as his “plan to make Michigan safer,” calls for a mandatory 25-year sentence for a violent crime perpetrated by a criminal who has committed three previous felonies.

  “For too long, there’s been too much fear, not enough jobs, too much fear, not enough cops,” Schuette said in announcing what he called his VO-4 plan. “Too much fear means seniors can’t walk in the park.”

  Longer prison terms for habitual offenders, he suggested, would lead to safer streets – and, presumably, parks

• Schuette campaigned on keeping more people in prison: http://www.billschuette.com/protecting_our_families

Well I was checking out this article on the MLK march on Snyder’s residence, and found this tidbit here:

“We elect mayors, we elect city council members, and we would like them to be a part of the process … in terms of rebuilding these urban cities,” Williams said.

“We don’t want our [...]]]>

Say what?

Well I was checking out this article on the MLK march on Snyder’s residence, and found this tidbit here:

“We elect mayors, we elect city council members, and we would like them to be a part of the process … in terms of rebuilding these urban cities,” Williams said.

“We don’t want our elected officials to be unilaterally dismissed,” he said. “And that’s the message that we’re sending here today. We ask that you would let the governor know.”

That was the message delivered by Reverend Charles Williams to Dennis Muchmore, Governor Snyder’s chief of staff. 

Washtenaw County Commissioner Yousef Rabhi was also at the protest, and had this to say,

“This is about democracy,” … “That’s what we — the working people of America — have is our democracy,” he said. “And when the governor steps in and tries to take that away, that’s when we’re really going to have a problem, and that’s what folks are standing up here about.”

Other statements express similar concerns regarding the fact that Snyder’s Emergency Managers are destroying our democracy.

Dennis Muchmore responded by saying that Monday’s Occupy for Democracy rally was a great example of “democracy in action.”

I know, right?

Oh, you kids know how I love me some Mike Bishop. Sometimes I blog about him, sometimes I doodle –

– sometimes we bring in some outsiders to expose his [...]]]>

This was originally posted as an open thread on BFM. I’ve tweaked it a bit to bring it here to cbdc.

Oh, you kids know how I love me some Mike Bishop. Sometimes I blog about him, sometimes I doodle –

– sometimes we bring in some outsiders to expose his alter-ego. (Muwahaha!!) But do you all remember why I started loving him? Let me take you back.

2007, summertime. We had just opened the doors on BFM Soap. Wizardkitten was beating on the Senate Republicans, Mark Schauer was trying to get some things done in the Do-Nothing Senate, and I was off doing my own thing. Suddenly the Michigan State Senate was no longer allowed to access to BFM and the next thing you know, Mike Bishop goes down in history as the only elected Michigan official to ‘censor’ a blog.

And that’s when Mike Bishop got my attention.

Now some of you may remember that this little ditty was re-worked and run as an opinion piece in the Detroit Free Press? Well you all know what a cesspool the Detroit Free Press online can be. And what do you have in a cesspool?

Big flaming piles of poo.

One of these big flaming piles of poo, who I shall call “Darth Poo” found me on the Free Press and decided to start posting here. (Not sure if you can see his comments; he was troll-rated before being banned) I wasn’t a part of this discussion because I was working down in Warren that day, and I had a wicked cold/flu thing. I told the Warren peeps to call me if they had a problem, and I took off early. By 3pm I was sleeping merrily in my bed, never having even looked at this thread.

Meanwhile, Darth Poo thought that I, Christine, was every single one of those people in that comment thread.

Really, he did.

I’m sleeping. My phone rang. I answered it, thinking it was someone at Warren who needed help.

Stupid. Stupid.

For the next few minutes, Darth Poo gave me a bunch of crap about France and Syria and BFM. (Keep in mind I just woke up.) And then he went on about Ann Coulter and how we liberals are pathetic for hating her. (I just woke up) And then he went on about how he could take down BFM any time he wanted if I didn’t let him back on the site. (Just woke up … shuffling my way to the computer now … can’t even see yet.) And how he knew my home address and my phone number … ( Email from Wizardkitten, “just banned some guy name Darth Poo, he’s nuts!”)

(AWAKE NOW)

Oh crap.

I managed to get him off the phone with some civility, and I thought that was the end of it. Until I saw what he was saying about me & BFM over on the Free Press forums. That was a mess that we had to clean up, but that wasn’t the worst of it.

Darth Poo had one of those right wing nutbag forums where they talk about the goodness of Bush/God and the badness of Nancy Pelosi/France. He posted my name, address, and phone number with instructions to “feel free to drive this bitch crazy.” Few days later, he posted the same info on a “people to be shot on sight” list, right under Nancy Pelosi and Cindy Sheehan.

Ok. So I went to the state police post on M-21 in Flint, right there by Linden Road, but the cop there couldn’t even be bothered to put down his coffee cup while he told me to go away. “You’re a victim where you live, and you don’t live in Flint.” (ssslurp) “You’ll have to go find someone where you live.”

I didn’t know how to explain that I’ve pretty much offended everyone in the place where I live, so I can’t imagine them helping me. The Corunna MSP Detective? He’s featured in a post with a picture of Officer Barbrady. The Sheriff’s Dept? Yeah, I had gone after the Sheriff too. Kinda.

See, rumor at the time was that there was something creepy going on at the SCSD. I tried to figure it out, but I just got shot down. No one wanted to talk to me, and I’m pretty sure they knew what I was after. Not sure who the Sheriff’s friends were, or even if they cared about what a blogger does. But if they did care, they probably didn’t like me.

Ok back to the story. So I’m driving back to Shiawassee from the Flint cop shop, slow as I can go without getting a ticket for going too slow. (Clinton Twp will write you for anything) (Really, it’s true) And right about now I hate myself.

I called a friend. (Yes, while driving. Don’t judge me.) “You have friends at the Sheriff’s Dept. Give me a name, I’m telling him you sent me. Help me.” And she told me to go see Detective XYZ. So I went straight to the Sheriff’s Department and said, “I am here to see Detective XYZ and Mr. and Mrs. ABC sent me.”

And a few minutes later, Detective XYZ invited me to his office, and we talked. Since he didn’t know much about computers/Internet/Ethernet/whatever, he invited Detective WWW in to talk to me. (Detective WWW knows a little something about the web, as you might deduce from his name)

Detective WWW sat down and took a look at the evidence I brought. And then he said, “I read your blog.”

Oh crap. I hate myself anew.

Silence. Long time.

Finally, I force out, “I was trying to help you guys.”

I hate me so hard.

Well to make a short story long, the good detectives helped me, the shoot-on-sight list came down, and I never heard from Darth Poo again.

Now one thing that you have to understand is that up until this point, I hated the police. I had no faith in them whatsoever, and I directed a lot of angry blogging their way back in my early blogging years. I was less angry by this point, but I still had no faith in them. So when they helped me, it was huge. I can’t explain it, but the world changed for me on that day. And that was when I decided that I would get to the bottom of that Sheriff thing.

I’ll tell you about that in my next post.

You can catch up with Lisa Geise over at West Michigan Rising.

Last Thursday, I received the most amazing email …

Christine-

In about an hour, we’ll announce the blogs selected for the State Blogger Corps at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Congratulations. I’m writing to let you know that Blogging For Michigan will be the credentialed blog from Michigan. …

Just. Wow.

I’m [...]]]>

Wow.

Last Thursday, I received the most amazing email …

Christine-

In about an hour, we’ll announce the blogs selected for the State Blogger Corps at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Congratulations. I’m writing to let you know that Blogging For Michigan will be the credentialed blog from Michigan. …

Just. Wow.

I’m really humbled by the opportunity to represent Michigan at the Democratic National Convention. I’m not a delegate … I don’t get to vote or anything … but I get to sit with the delegation and report from the floor. This is really an honor.

The application process consisted of submitting examples of work that distinguished us as a blog. For this, we submitted some original investigative work that I had done, the digest of the BFM budget diaries, and a sample of Wizardkitten’s photoblogging. (I’ll add the other links later when I find them again).

We also had to explain why our blog should represent Michigan at the DNCC, and give examples of how our blog was “an effective agent of change.” Michigan has a bunch of excellent bloggers with a history of accomplishment. This was a skoch intimidating.

Ultimately it all came together in our favor. I don’t why we got lucky, but I’m grateful for the opportunity to go.

Here’s some media coverage -

USA Today
Grand Rapids Press

And on the blogs –

Stone Soup Musings
BFM’s announcement article

Howard Dean’s congratulations video, and the full list of the State Blogger Corps, are over the jump …

From the Democratic National Convention Official Site —

The Democratic Convention State Blogger Corps -

STATE – BLOG NAME – BLOG URL

ALASKA – Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis – http://divasblueoasis.blogspot.com
ALABAMA- Doc’s Political Parlor – http://www.politicalparlor.net
ARKANSAS- Under The Dome.com – http://www.underthedome.com
ARIZONA – Ted Prezelski – Rum, Romanism and Rebellion – http://www.rumromanismrebellion.net

CALIFORNIA – Calitics- http://Calitics.com
COLORADO -SquareState.net – http://squarestate.net
CONNECTICUT -My Left Nutmeg – http://myleftnutmeg.com
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA- DCist.com – http://dcist.com
DELAWARE – TommyWonk – http://tommywonk.blogspot.com/
DEMOCRATS Abroad – Democrats Abroad Argentina – http://www.yanquimike.com.ar
FLORIDA – Florida Progressive Coalition – http://flaprogressives.org
GEORGIA- Tondee’s Tavern – http://www.tondeestavern.com
GUAM – No Rest for the Awake – Minagahet Chamorro – http://minagahet.blogspot.com
HAWAII – iLind.net: Ian Lind Online – http://www.ilind.net
IOWA – The Iowa Independent – http://iowaindependent.com
IDAHO – 43rdStateBlues.com – http://www.43rdstateblues.com
ILLINOIS- Prairie State Blue – http://www.PrairieStateBlue.com
INDIANA- Blue Indiana – http://www.blueindiana.net
KANSAS – EverydayCitizen.com – http://everydaycitizen.com
KENTUCKY – BlueGrassRoots – http://www.bluegrassroots.org
LOUISIANA – Daily Kingfish – http://www.dailykingfish.com
MASSACHUSETTS – Blue Mass. Group – http://www.bluemassgroup.com
MARYLAND – The Center for Emerging Media – http://www.centerforemergingmedia.com

MAINE – Turn Maine Blue – http://www.turnmaineblue.com
MICHIGAN – Blogging For Michigan – http://bloggingformichigan.com
MINNESOTA – Minnesota Monitor – http://minnesotamonitor.com
MISSISSIPPI – The Natchez Blog – http://natchezms.blogspot.com
MISSOURI – Fired Up! LLC – http://www.firedupmissouri.com
MONTANA – Left in the West – http://www.leftinthewest.com
NORTH CAROLINA – BlueNC.com – http://bluenc.com
NORTH DAKOTA – NorthDecoder.com – http://www.northdecoder.com
NEBRASKA – New Nebraska Network – http://www.NewNebraska.net
NEW HAMPSHIRE – Blue Hampshire – http://www.bluehampshire.com
NEW JERSEY – PolitickerNJ.com – http://www.politickernj.com
NEW MEXICO – Democracy for New Mexico – http://www.DemocracyForNewMexico.com

NEVADA – Las Vegas Gleaner – http://www.lasvegasgleaner.com
NEW YORK – Room 8 – http://www.r8ny.com
OHIO – Ohio Daily Blog – http://www.ohiodailyblog.com
OKLAHOMA – DemoOkie – http://www.DemoOkie.com
OREGON – BlueOregon (blog) – http://www.blueoregon.com
PENNSYLVANIA – Keystone Politics – http://www.keystonepolitics.com
PUERTO RICO – Jusiper – http://jusiper.blogspot.com
RHODE ISLAND – Rhode Island’s Future – http://www.rifuture.org
SOUTH CAROLINA – CracktheBell.com – http://www.crackthebell.com
SOUTH DAKOTA – Badlands Blue – http://www.badlandsblue.com
TENNESSEE – KnoxViews/TennViews – http://www.knoxviews.com
TEXAS – Burnt Orange Report – http://www.BurntOrangeReport.com
UTAH – The Utah Amicus – http://utahamicus.com
VIRGINIA – Raising Kaine – http://www.raisingkaine.com
VIRGIN ISLANDS – Democratic Party of the US Virgin Islands – http://groups.yahoo.com/group/democratvi

VERMONT – Green Mountain Daily – http://greenmountaindaily.com
WASHINGTON – HorsesAss.org – http://www.horsesass.org
WISCONSIN – Uppity Wisconsin – http://www.uppitywis.org
WEST VIRGINIA – West Virginia Blue – http://www.wvablue.com
WYOMING – Hummingbirdminds blog – http://hummingbirdminds.blogspot.com