Michigan's GOP Passes Law That Could Cancel Whole Towns?

Yeah, I think he's trying to drop a deuce. . .

Whatever you think of politics, or where you are on the conservative/liberal spectrum, you must acknowledge that what is going on in state politics right now is unusual. Republicans were swept into both national houses of Congress, many state houses and state Governorships. I maintain that the GOP tsunami was because of a) fickle voters; b) whiny, not voting Democrats; c) low-information voters, otherwise known as FOX "News" viewers; d) the Supreme Court's Citizen United decision and the resultant flood of corporate cash into the election cycle.

There are other reasons in the mix, but the fact is that this GOP wave was allegedly driven by a bad economy that wasn't getting better, and the (misguided) belief that Republicans would focus on jobs, jobs, jobs. But they haven't. Like they usually do, they've come down like a hammer, smacking everything they don't like. Gay marriage. Abortion. Unions. You'd think they'd been out of power for decades rather than a couple of years. All the while, they're doing their corporate masters' bidding, enacting legislation that is preferred by--let's just say it--people like the Koch Brothers. Particularly the newbie GOP Governors.

We've seen what Wisconsin Scott Walker's idea of governance is. And he's one of a dozen or more trying to just crush anyone and anything that gets in their way of conservative utopia. Or rather, they call it conservatism. It certainly isn't. That trick they pulled in Wisconsin to cram through the union smashing bill? Hardly conservative.

And how about this one? In Michigan, they're giving unelected people the power to overrule elected officials. Taken to its extreme, it could lead to the dissolution of school districts and town governments. I can't imagine how freaked out conservatives would be if they heard that Democrats even fantasized about such an idea.

[Except]

Emergency financial manager bill clears state Senate


. . .it could lead to intervention or, in the worst cases, the state installing an emergency manager who could cancel employee contracts, fire administrators or declare bankruptcy.

The law would include new triggers to allow the state to step in. For example, a city or school district that misses a payday or ends a year with a deficit of 5% or more of its budget could get a financial review. . .

Read more at: Detroit Free Press

And then there is this perspective:

[Excerpt]

Michigan is under siege. Is Anybody Watching?


. . .If I had been watching anyone but Rachel Maddow last night I never would have believed what I heard. Rachel, so far, isn't given to exaggeration or hyperbole. She does her homework. She has a staff who work tirelessly to get things right. But I heard what I heard, and what I heard is that Michigan's governor is on his way to one-upping Wisconsin's Governor big time. He not only wants to kill the unions, he wants to take over whole villages and towns and give them to his own private Genghises of Nottingham. . .
 
Read more at: DagBlog