Republican grasping at straws in same sex marriage debate

In a number of cases across the country, including Michigan, Republicans are fighting progress and asking that their states be allowed to discriminate against people based on sexual preference by allowing same sex marriage bans approved by voters and state legislatures to remain legal.

This is being done in spite of rulings that these bans are unconstitutional.

One of the arguments used by lawyers in support of their state's same sex marriage ban asserts that there isn't enough data on how children of same sex couples fare in life. Since when did we decided that the constitution only applies to those who can provide a child with an arbitrarily measured "good life"? Children from poor families are less likely to "fare well" than children for wealthy families. Does that mean we get to refuse to recognize the marriage of two individuals until their combined earnings reach a congressionally sanctioned level?

Perhaps what these people really mean is same sex couples may raise their kids to believe that everyone is created equal and to avoid prejudging people based on a certain characteristic. Don't these gay couples realize that such tolerance only applies to people who love guns, Jesus, and Duck Dynasty? Because these groups are the ones that are truly ostracized in this country.

Perhaps what these people really mean is that being gay is a disease that can spread like the "great cooties outbreak of 52". If same sex couples are giving access to children they will turn them all gay and soon take over the nation like the zombie apocalypse.

Regardless of their motives the idea that how children fare with same sex parents despite the counterfactuals suggests this argument is perhaps the pinnacle of stupidity.

The other argument these lawyers appear to be making is that decisions on same sex marriage should come “not through the courts, but through the people.”

Clearly the idea that each state should be allowed carte blanche to determine which parts of the constitution they will follow and which parts they won't is universally considered an awful idea. But having the Republican legal delegation from Michigan make such a contention is very odd.

Where was this concern for the people when Michigan residents voted to remove the emergency manager law from the books only to see the legislature replace it a few months later?

Where is the concern for the Raise Michigan petition that was going to give voters the opportunity to voice their opinion on setting the minimum wage for Michigan businesses before the legislature killed the law and replaced it - rendering the petition null and void without a single Michigan voter’s stamp of approval?

Where is the concern for Michigan residents that want a voice in whether we as a state allow wolf hunting or not? Even with multiple ballot initiatives on the topic ready for November the legislature stepped in and agreed to allow wolf hunting regardless of how the majority of Michiganders feel.

Where is the concern for the Michigan legislature’s abuse of power in shielding laws like these and others from voter referendums? By including small and unnecessary budgetary stipulations the legislature has decided to unapologetically silence the people they claim should hold all of the power when it comes to a decision on the legality of same sex marriage.

But if these Republicans are serious about giving people a voice on the fate of Michigan's constitutional ban on same sex marriage, then they should pull a few strings and put the question on this year’s ballot and see if the attorney general is really fighting for what voters want or if this is just an excuse to use the bigotry of a bygone era as justification to propagate an uneducated phobia.

In the end no matter how much work the legislature, the governor, or the attorney general do to circumnavigate, hinder, or quash the will of the people their jobs will always be in the hands of the voters. November affords all voters the perfect opportunity to voice their opinion. It's possible that these lawyers and legislators really do speak for the citizens they represent, but just to be on the safe side they might want to give their resume a quick once over because polls and recent court decisions suggest these bastions of democracy are on the wrong side of history when it comes to same sex marriage.

Conservative media coverage of Michael Brown is embarrassing

Over the past couple weeks there has been a considerable amount of attention paid to the events of August 9th in Ferguson Missouri. Unfortunately the color of your skin or your political affiliation plays a big part in how you view this case. If you are white or Republican you are likely to think the racial component of the shooting of Michael Brown is getting far too much attention. If you are black or a Democrat you are likely to feel the opposite is true.

This divide suggests we don't live in a post racial America like many would have you believe. The problem is that the typical white experience with law enforcement is completely different than the typical black experience and as a result each group has a drastically different view of the events in Ferguson.

Compounding this issue is how the media covers such events. As Bill O'Reilly suggested “Decent people step back and allow the facts to emerge,”

While O'Reilly was directing his comments at "liberal media" if jumping to conclusions is an issue O'Reilly might want to take a quick look at conservative media outlets first. Pat Roberts suggested Michael Brown might have been on drugs. Is that an example of letting all the facts come out before drawing a conclusion? Pat Dollard wrote and article claiming Michael Brown was part of a violent gang. Is that an example of responsible reporting? Charles Johnson and others reported that Michael Brown might have a criminal record. Is that an example unbiased coverage?

Of course even Bill's employer couldn't help themselves. After allowing any number of talking heads air time to chastise liberals for making a white cop killing a black teen a racial thing they still managed to fall all over themselves to report the slightest modicum of evidence that supports the white guys story. Making the YouTube video statements of someone who hasn't even been confirmed as a witness the headline of your 4 o'clock newsfeed doesn't suggest that conservatives are exhibiting the sort of reasoned impartiality they keep preaching for others to practice.

These attacks by conservative media go beyond simple speculation. Rather than covering the facts surrounding the shooting of an unarmed teen these organizations pivot quickly to assert a new narrative. For example even though the front page of the Fox News website is inundated with stories related to Ferguson Missouri they still manage to have on correspondents who claim supposed liberal news outlets have turned white on black crime into a cottage industry to boost ratings. Beyond the blatant hypocrisy of such a statement this attempt to belittle the legitimate concerns of how the Ferguson police interact with black residents is shameful.

The old "liberal media" claim is just one of many slick tactics the conservative media uses to legitimize their viewers prejudices. One look at the Fox News coverage and you will see the standard attack on Reverend Al Sharpton. It should be noted that by showing up Al Sharpton is hoping to draw attention to the situation. If you think he doesn't deserve the attention then why comment on his presence every time? Just once it would be nice to see Fox News not make Al Sharpton a core part of their coverage and use his presence as an excuse to dismiss a culture of abuse with repugnant uninformed topics like "black on black crime" and "black leaders’ role".

Having said that do conservatives complain when the NRA makes a statement after every mass shooting? Do they lament when Dick Cheney makes the rounds every time Iraq or torture is in the news? Do they whine every time Dr. Ben Carson speaks out during racially charged events?

Perhaps the worst narrative to come out of the conservative media recently was from Kimberly Guilfoyle who offered this word of advice when discussing the events that occurred in Ferguson "don't commit crimes". This is possibly the biggest lie that conservatives tell themselves. The protests in Ferguson are not about defending those that have committed a crime but rather how police treat every black citizen as a criminal. The senseless shooting of Michael Brown is the catalyst for their response but they are a result of years of abuse.

So while everyone from Barack Obama on down can urge the residents of Ferguson to refrain from looting and vandalizing because it doesn't help the situation, few have set the same expectation for those in charge of keeping the peace. Does anyone think that a police office antagonizing protesters with the statement "Bring it! All you f*#king animals." helps? Does anyone think a St. Louis County Police Lieutenant urging his offices with the phrases like "Let's have a black day," and "Let's make the jail cells more colorful." helps? Does anyone think that police threatening to shoot and mace reporters helps?

Maybe instead of castigating the few bad apples masquerading as protesters we should start by requiring the abusers, racists and bullies masquerading as police officers be held accountable.

In the end the reality is that the conservative media needs this to be about race far more than any of the "liberal media" sources because in the conservative bubble racism against blacks doesn't exist anymore. But if you’re one of those racist blacks or people with "white guilt" and can't see the forest for the trees feel free to check out any of the altruistic conservative media sites so you can get a thorough education in how the white guy is always justified in beating, mistreating and murdering the savage black criminal. If you're not convinced then clearly you are the worst kind of racist - a racist against the poor oppressed white majority.

Republican's offer ironically awful attacks on Mark Schauer

Polls show that over the past few months Mark Schauer has closed the gap in the Michigan governor's race with Rick Snyder. It comes as no surprise that this has put Republicans on the attack. In the last week alone three of my conservative colleagues wrote columns attempting to attenuate the Schauer campaign. While most political campaigns employee selective data analysis to cast aspersions on a candidate the talking points being offered seem to indicate a level of desperation from Michigan's Right.

First to take a swing at Mark Schauer was Director of Communications for the Michigan Republican Party, Darren Littell. His complaints are two-fold. One being that Mark Schauer voted in the Republican primary of the 2012 election cycle to which he asks the question "where are the Democratic officials who condemn this type of behavior and why aren’t they admonishing Mark Schauer for his antics?" The second complaint is that he misses too many votes and lost a seat on the coveted Campaign & Election Oversight Committee for missing meetings.

Perhaps cross voting is a problem however it seems hypocritical for the MRP to chastise Mark Schauer for his single vote when the guy they support for governor, Rick Snyder, appealed to Democrats to vote for him in the 2010 primary election.

As far as the missed meetings are concerned reports show that Schauer attended every meeting that was held in Lansing but missed the four that the Republican controlled committee held elsewhere. Of course Schauer wasn't unique in missing meetings either. In fact while one Republican also missed four meetings but didn't lose his seat, the chairman was the only member to show up to all 9 meetings.

But if Republicans are really serious about Mark Schauer's record on voting attendance they would acknowledge that as a member of the US House of Representatives his 0.8% missed vote rate is much better than his successor Republican Tim Walberg's rate of 2.2% and superior to that of Michigan worst voting representative Mike Rogers at 5.8%.

As a Michigan State Senator his 2.4% rate compares favorably to the rest of the Senate and falls short of the number of votes missed by 10 of his Republican colleagues.

If Republican's believe missing votes shows a politician doesn't deserve their job then they might want to do some house cleaning before pointing a finger at Mark Schauer.

Next up in the bash-a-Schauer sweepstakes was editor at HermanCain.com, Dan Calabrese who while appreciative of the effort found Mark Schauer's jobs plan to be boilerplate liberal policies. Ironically Dan goes point by point using boilerplate conservative logic to prove these ideas wrong. The problem is this doesn't make one side right and the other side wrong. Part of the reason an idea becomes standard fair for political parties is because the parties believe these ideas work. How boilerplate they are doesn't address their effectiveness.

Of course if just being boilerplate is an issue it should be noted that Rick Snyder's revolutionary ideas to create jobs are cutting taxes, reducing regulations, and busting unions. Are there Republican circles where these concepts qualify as avant-garde?

The last applicant to attempt a take down of Mark Schauer is Republican activist Brandon Helderop who attempts to draw a parallel between President Obama and Mark Schauer suggesting that the presidents current approval rating of 39 percent speaks to his results as president. Of course if this low approval rating reflects poorly on the presidents abilities then it should be noted that Rick Snyder's approval rating stands a touch lower at 37 percent.

Brandon also has concerns that over his 12 years in the Michigan legislature Mark Schauer voted to increase taxes over 40 times. It should be noted however that in just four years Rick Snyder has supported or signed into law a tax on pensions, a tax on gas, an increased taxes on homeowners, an increase in taxes for low income Michiganders, an increase in taxes for families with children, as well as eliminating tax credits for food banks, homeless shelters, college tuition, adoptions, and donations to universities, and public radio stations. All told around half of Michigan tax payers have seen a tax increase under Rick Snyder.

If the average Michigan family is worried about their tax rate going up they should probably be less worried about the nebulous tax increases Mark Shauer may have supported fifteen years ago and more interested in the increases that Rick Snyder offered to pay for his big corporate tax give away.

To end his article Brandon states that "Schauer has run a campaign based on rhetoric and little substance." While this seems like a claim that could be made against nearly every candidate for public office over the past century or more one wonders if Republicans were inspired by the specifics of Rick Snyder's first campaign when talking about the number of jobs his corporate tax cut would create "Can we quantify all the numbers? No. But we know it's going to happen." Now that's substance.

And if vapid rhetoric is a major problem shouldn't Republicans be concerned that as a candidate Rick Snyder was against taxing pensions, against increasing gas taxes, and against picking winners and loser yet suddenly supported them as governor.

It's fine to believe the Mark Schauer isn't the right man for the job but if these attacks are meant to prove that point Rick Snyder should be very concerned since these Republican metrics indicate he is even less qualified to be governor than Mark Schauer.

Campbell Brown's education reform isn't good for children

When it comes to fear mongering vocal Republicans have no equal. Even though the only legislation passed during the Obama administration regarding gun rights actually expanded those rights, that doesn't stop the NRA from claiming the president is trying to take guns away. Even though the Affordable Care Act has never been responsible for euthanizing a single grandparent as part of the "death panel" provision that doesn't stop nearly 50% of Republicans from believing it is does. Even though renewable energy is adding jobs faster than coal is losing them and the jobs lost in the coal industry are due to competition from other energy sources many still believe Democratic energy policies are killing jobs.

Of course if there is one thing Republicans hate more than anything else it is a successful government program. So it comes as no surprise that Republicans are leading the charge in the manufactured "crisis in education". The latest vocal Republican to pick up the "broken education" pitch fork is former CNN and NBC news anchor Campbell Brown.

According to Campbell Brown when determining which education improvements to support we should always ask "is this good for a child"?

With that in mind what revolutionary ideas are Campbell Brown and her organization offering? More charter schools, eliminate unions and kill teacher tenure.

Perhaps Campbell would be interested in knowing that charter schools, non union schools and schools without tenure protections don't outperform their counterparts. If the goal is to improve the educational outcomes for children and these "solutions" don't do that then it starts to look like reformers have ulterior motives.

Imagine if a salesman walked into the corporate office at Ford Motor Company and told them he had a solution to fix their lagging sales which would result in no additional sales. Does anyone think a multimillion dollar corporation would make wholesales changes for zero improvements? Absolutely not. So why would these people who worship at the altar of the free market make these decades old failed ideas the crux of their education utopia? Follow the money and you will see it has nothing to do with what's good for the children.

Take tenure for example. The complaint is that firing a bad teacher is costly and takes a long time. So how will ending tenure change this and improve education? It will give administrators the opportunity to remove underperforming teachers without the hassle of proper documentation and due process. But will that really save money and end protracted legal battles? Probably not.

Without such a system teachers will be forced to sue school districts for wrongful termination. For one New York teacher that meant an award of $3.5 million on top of the standard court costs. Given that the estimates for firing a tenured teacher come in at about $220,000, districts could afford to fire around 16 tenured teachers for every instance of wrongful termination.

Since when did Republicans support making changes that would lead to more lawsuits? When it comes to health care, Republicans are adamant that the threat of legal action causes doctors to practice defensive medicine which increases costs. After one big loss administrators and school boards would become gun shy when it comes to removing teachers. No matter how legitimate the defense, many believe our court system to be rife with frivolous lawsuits that supposedly cost millions. If the reason for removing tenure protects is to limit the costs and time involved, our health care system suggests such a change would do neither and may actually make matter worse.

It should also be noted that less than a third of teachers in the US have tenure protections while top performing countries such as Finland, Korea, and Singapore have much higher rates. Perhaps the answer to the fictitious crisis in education is more tenure not less.

Perhaps more astonishing than the fallacy of her attacks on tenure is Campbell's inadvertent support of these protections. In a recent interview with Stephen Colbert in which she was asked to reveal who is funding her organization, Campbell Brown said she would not expose these people to the public for fear of retribution? The irony of this statement is astounding.

Let's say a teacher has a personality conflict with an administrator, vocally supported a losing school board candidate, or fails a prominent citizen’s child - shouldn't that teacher have some sort of protection that prevents a retaliatory dismissal - A system that forces those in power to be accountable for their actions? Apparently only those who agree with Campbell Brown deserve a shield from reprisal.

While tenure may not be a perfect system when did we become a country that simply discards everything that has a minor flaw? Congress is clearly more broken than our education system yet few rational people would consider scrapping our Democratic Republic. Corporations have lied, cheated and stolen money harming millions of people over the years yet hardly anyone suggests we should abandon our free market principles. The US is one of the world leaders in gun deaths per year yet only a small fraction of the people argue for a repeal of the 2nd amendment. Suggesting that the only way to fix the perceived issues with tenure is a complete elimination represents a childish and uneducated position.

The reality is that reformers like Campbell Brown aren't serious about improving education. If they were they we admit that even if every reform idea they supported were adopted and as wildly successful as their echo chamber reports they would still fall woefully short of the improvements in educational outcomes of reducing poverty.

For all of the attention the achievement gap gets the gap between poor and well off students is far more pronounced. A study by Harvard University found that small boost in income for a family living in poverty raised a child's score to that of a child whose family makes twice as much. Data also shows in the US and across the world the more impoverish students a school has the lower the scores. Other statics show that when adjusted for poverty the US already has the best education system in the world.

All of the attention that improving education has received recently is a good thing. Now what we need is for Campbell Brown and others like her to take her advice and ask "is this good for a child" because the real answer to that question would lead them in a completely different direction.

Invest in Detroit: An opportunity for cerditors

Sometime in the next month Detroit pensioners, creditors and the DIA should have some clarification as to how they fair in Detroit's bankruptcy. While all groups involved can expect to receive a reduced level of compensation the current agreement protects the DIA and limits the loses for pensioners. Bond holders stand to see the biggest drop which explains why they are also the most vocal opposition to the current plan that many are calling the grand bargain.

As with any bankruptcy the goal is to restructure debt in a way that allows the entity - the city of Detroit in this case - a chance to recover and become a functioning entity again. For this reason protecting the DIA from a fire sale makes a lot of sense. The DIA hosted over a half million visitors last year and has seen in increase in attendance for each of the past four years. It brings people to Detroit and gives the community a world class cultural facility.

It should be noted that the DIA while perhaps the most valuable asset in Detroit is far from the only asset in Detroit. If Michigan officials are serious about rebuilding Detroit then they should consider taking some of the 50,000 or so government owned properties and offer them to the creditors. This could be a win/win for both parties since it offers creditors a chance to recoup some of their lost profit by constructing commercial properties, parking structures, grocery stores, apartment buildings, shopping malls, or entertainment complexes.

Imagine if the motor city were to have a new complex that hosted NASCAR or Indy car races that also served as a state of the art facility that the big three could use to show off new products. Imagine if the Detroit casinos were flanked by a number of Las Vegas style theaters that hosted acts like Cirque du Soleil, the Blue Man Group or top Michigan music acts. Imagine if Detroit had the facilities to host a top golf, tennis, boxing or horse racing event.

The more attractions Detroit can provide the more people will visit and these visitors will create jobs that Detroit and Michigan can obviously use.

Of course free blighted properties aren't necessarily a prize for these investment companies however if the state also offered tax abatements to these groups as well they might be more motivated to develop the property or partner with a company that will.

No one should feel bad for some of Detroit's biggest creditors since they knew full well going in that they could lose their investment and they would receive a good return based on this risk. But in the end when it came to finding a solution that avoided devastating financial damage to the hard working men and women of this city while also protecting a valuable asset and iconic Michigan institution these groups were able to find creative options, there is no reason this can't be done with other creditors as well with an eye towards expediting the transformation of Detroit.