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Dick DeVos May Make Michigan GOP
With Michigan settling ever deeper into the economic doldrums, Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm is taking the challenge from the presumed Republican candidate, businessman Dick DeVos, very seriously.
Granholm was elected in November 2002, defeating Republican challenger Dick Posthumus with 51 percent of the vote. At this point, she faces no challenger in her party's primary in August.
But then there's DeVos, the husband of the ex-state GOP chairwoman, who looks assured of having no opponent in the GOP primary. And he has plenty of punch to fire things up: He has personal financial resources to commit to his campaign and has been tirelessly stumping the state with what he hopes is a winning message.
It seems to be working. A new statewide poll shows that DeVos has now pulled even with Gov. Granholm, with each garnering 43 percent support among likely voters.
The poll also found that two-thirds of respondents believe the state is headed in the wrong direction.
The gubernatorial election is set for Nov. 7.
DeVos has been hammering home his call for eliminating the state's main business tax and touting his extensive experience as a businessman - a skill set he says would help him turn around Michigan's economy if he's elected governor. [For more info: www.DeVosforGovernor.com]
At the heart of that flagging economy is Michigan's 6.7 percent unemployment rate - nearly 2 percentage points above the national rate of 4.9 percent.
Granholm, who argues that nixing the business tax would blow a huge hole in the state's budget and just further strap the rank-and-file taxpayer, points to how her administration has been, in its own way, business-friendly - reducing, for instance, the red tape businesses face when seeking permits from the state.
She also has been emphasizing empirical results: Small firms growing by 2,400 in 2004; seven companies opening new headquarters in the state last year; and Toyota Motor Corporation's plans to invest $150 million in a new state-of-the-art research and development facility in York Township, generating more than 670 new jobs for Michigan.
However, DeVos, a former president of Alticor Inc. - the parent company of Amway Corp. - and the scion of one of Michigan's wealthiest families, keeps focused on what he describes as the very grim bigger and longer-range picture: "Our economy is in decline. Families are struggling. Jobs are leaving. And yet the rest of the nation continues to prosper," he intones as his campaign's signature mantra
.
According to one calculation, Michigan has lost one job for every 20 minutes since Granholm was sworn in.
DeVos insists that any real recovery for the Great Lakes state will take some dramatic and perhaps painful initiatives.
Along with banishing the single business tax, he has been publicly mulling the trimming of Medicaid, the health plan that has become a black hole in the state's strained finances. Medicaid costs Michigan $7.5 billion in state and federal funds. Of that, $2.1 billion comes directly from Michigan taxpayers.
DeVos favors what Missouri has done to save its Medicaid program from implosion - eliminating the program for some 100,000 people to save an estimated $310 million in the current fiscal year.
The trimming back has been anything but painless and bloodless in the Missouri test case. These were some of the cuts: feeding tubes, walkers, crutches, prosthetics and physical therapy. Health-care premiums for low-income families were hiked up and Medicaid for disabled people who work part-time was discontinued.
For her part, Gov. Granholm has thus far insulated Medicaid from any deep cuts - continuing even some benefits that aren't mandated by the federal government.
With the battle lines drawn, pundits are suggesting that Granholm and an entourage of Democratic support groups will burn through about $30 million during the campaign.
DeVos has pledged to be competitive with that treasure chest. "I'm just going to try and keep up."
Having eschewed any PAC contributions, DeVos and company say they are looking for smaller gifts from "thousands of individuals."
Despite the big end-game figures, fund-raising as thus far been relatively modest - with the DeVos campaign reporting that they raised $1.84 million last year.
Meanwhile, the Granholm campaign raised $4.96 million in 2005 and kicked off 2006 with nearly $5.13 million in ready cash.
DeVos has declined so far to reveal how much of his personal fortune he stands ready to expend on the campaign. His campaign trail rhetoric, however, suggests that he'll do whatever it takes: "I know that Michigan is desperate for leadership, and I know how to turn this ship around. I'll never give up on Michigan, and I'm flat out going to get it done!"
Granholm has not been heavy with the political polemics, instead reminding the electorate how Michigan's public schools in 2005 received record funding at levels promised by the previous administration.
The tenacious DeVos, however, is always ready with a return jab.
In a recent speech, he noted: "We continue to lag in education achievement, even though we rank near the top in money spent on education. Two-thirds of the class of 2005 failed to meet state standards in social studies. Almost half failed to meet state standards in math. Over 40 percent failed to meet state standards in science."
There are, of course, other distressed states in the union.
Whatever the final result, the volatile gubernatorial contest in Michigan may serve as a template for other important contests around the country where politicians frantically search for the perfect message to capture the fickle hearts and minds of the American electorate.
For more info: www.DeVosforGovernor.com
News Max.com ~ Dave Eberhart ** Dick DeVos May Make Michigan GOP
Posted by yaahoo_2006iest
at 4:55 PM EDT
Updated: Wednesday, 3 May 2006 5:15 PM EDT
Blackwell Wins GOP Nod
for Ohio Governor
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell won the GOP nomination for governor Tuesday after campaigning as the best candidate to deliver his party from a year of political scandals and infighting.
With more than half of precincts reporting, Blackwell had 257,531 votes, or 55 percent, compared with 208,481, or 45 percent, for Attorney General Jim Petro.
The gubernatorial primary was seen as a test of voter dissatisfaction that could foreshadow the party's prospects in November.
"The Republicans have a problem," said Carl Rullmann, a GOP voter who said he supported Blackwell.
Two other states also held primaries Tuesday, including North Carolina, where the district attorney prosecuting the Duke University rape case fought off two challengers, and Indiana, where congressional incumbents easily won their party nominations.
Blackwell's prominence as a leading black voice in the GOP could be pivotal to Republicans. He is the first black candidate to run for governor in Ohio. His ads sought to taint Petro with connections to the state's investment in rare coins that went awry and to tie him to Gov. Bob Taft, who pleaded no contest to four ethics violations last year involving a failure to report free golf outings and gifts.
Petro hammered Blackwell as a hypocrite who opposes abortion and gambling even though some of his multimillion-dollar stock portfolio is invested in those interests.
The GOP disunity may have turned off some voters.
"I saw a lot of backstabbing, name-calling, character assassination. I don't go for that kind of stuff," said James Martin, 66, leaving a polling place in the Cleveland suburb of Strongsville. He said the negative campaigning influenced his choice in the Republican primary, but he would not say who that was.
The Ohio scandals also emboldened Democrats who hope to end the Republicans' 15-year hold on the governor's office.
The winner of the primary will face Democratic U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland in November. Strickland is viewed as the Democrats' best chance to regain some control over a state government where Republicans control all three branches, as well as statewide offices and a majority of congressional seats.
Strickland handily defeated a former state legislator for the nomination. With 60 percent of precincts reporting, he had 331,823 votes, or 78 percent.
Republicans targeted the House seat Strickland leaves open as one of its best shots nationally to gain a Democratic congressional spot. They have been helped by the fact the Democrats' leading candidate must run as a write-in due to a filing mistake. National Democrats and Republicans have spent roughly $1 million in the race, more than they have for any primary in the past decade.
Ohio's U.S. Senate race will also be closely watched in the fall, but incumbent Sen. Mike DeWine and his Democratic rival, U.S. Rep. Sherrod Brown, easily emerged from the primary.
In North Carolina, the allegations against Duke athletes turned what might have been a low-key election into a referendum on Mike Nifong's performance.
In unofficial results, Nifong had 45 percent of the vote, with challenger Freda Black close behind with about 42 percent. There are no Republicans running in the general election, and Nifong needed only 40 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff.
In Indiana, all nine congressional incumbents advanced to the November election. Most challengers were short on money and party support. Sen. Richard Lugar, one of the most popular politicians in state history, had no Republican opposition.
spacey
Oscar-winner Dreyfuss campaigns against "shaped news"
LONDON - Richard Dreyfuss has challenged the establishment for decades and now the maverick actor and activist is taking on the mainstream media.
The Oscar-winning star says an obsession with delivering instantaneous news and images provides too little context for audiences to reflect and understand what is happening in the world.
"There is no room to pause, no room to think," Dreyfuss, who starred in films ranging from "Jaws" to "Mr Holland's Opus" told Reuters in a recent telephone interview.
"We don't build into our system of thoughts the need to explain, the media doesn't build that into its transmission of knowledge and information."
That creates what Dreyfuss calls "shaped news" -- a version of events according to how the mainstream media want audiences to see what happened, and a violation of journalism's core value of objectivity.
Citizen journalism is playing a vital part in broadening news coverage, as well as scrutinizing professional journalism, Dreyfuss said.
"Information from more than one source is good. I'm totally in favor of it, even if people send propaganda. In the aggregate you can find more truth than in one opinion."
But despite an explosion in blogs, people's views of the news is still shaped by what powerful media corporations print, broadcast and put on their Web sites, Dreyfuss, 58, said.
"Do the mainstream media ever tell their readers 'Don't believe everything we tell you?' No, they don't."
Dreyfuss said media coverage of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York was a pertinent example of how a non-stop supply of images and spot news shaped people's views.
"The falling Twin Towers -- pictures that produced anger, a lot of anger that were sent instantly around the world, they created a need to react."
"People in Kansas could see the Twin Towers fall at exactly the same instant as in Nigeria and Cairo. Such an instantaneous knowledge of a situation leads to an instantaneous reaction which creates demand for an instantaneous, reflexive response.
"The question is how do you get people to find out more, how do you get people to read not just what they are told to read."
The power of language is also an important factor in shaping the news.
"The 'war on terror' -- objection to using this term is dead. It's become part of our vocabulary, but what does it really mean? You should know more specifically what you are fighting."
Dreyfuss is eager to point out that he is not anti-technology: "I'm not in love with technology and speed but I don't want to sound like a luddite.
"We've got to be aware of the power of technology and the speed at which it allows us to transmit information.
"You have to encourage prose, analysis and detail -- otherwise people will go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan without really knowing why."
Dreyfuss, who won an Oscar for his performance in "The Goodbye Girl," has pursued his passion for political and social activism since his college days.
An active opponent of the Vietnam War, he has also worked to promote solutions to the Mideast conflict, campaigned for education and, most recently, has lent his support to a campaign for the impeachment of President Bush.
He is studying civics and democracy as a senior associate member at St Antony's College at the University of Oxford.
"Civics is no longer taught in the U.S, a sign of a neurosis that is inexplicable," he said. "Not to teach civics is suicide.
"Reason, logic, civility, dissent and debate -- five ancient words that should be taught again and better, at elementary level, so that people know the difference between news and shaped news," Dreyfuss said.
Howard Dean: Karl Rove Guiltier than Osama Bin Laden
The guiltier-than-bin Laden Rove, said Dean, is "a big liability for the administration," since he "continually reminds the American people that the president wasn't truthful about firing leakers, in addition to not being truthful about a number of other things."
He pledged that if Democrats win back Congress in November, they'll launch a new round of investigations into supposed White House corruption.
"No doubt there will be investigations because there's been so much corruption in the White House and the vice president's office, even the Republican Senate president is under investigation for insider trading."
Asked whether Democrats would try to impeach President Bush, Dean told O'Donnell: "It's possible."
silly
Must be a lul in his attention meter. Didnt he say this like 3 years ago?
Hollywood star Robbins blasts US media ignorance of 'high crimes' in Iraq
Acclaimed American actor/director Tim Robbins blasted the US government's policy on terrorism -- and the US media's failure to examine it critically -- at a news conference in Athens promoting his stage version of George Orwell's "1984".
"We have right now a media that is willfully ignoring the high crimes and misdemeanours of the president of the United States," the star of Hollywood hits including "Mystic River" and "The Player" told reporters.
"Clinton lied about a blowjob, and got impeached by the media and Congress," Robbins said.
"(Bush) got us into (the Iraq) war based on lies that he knew were lies. ... His war has recruited more Al-Qaeda members than 
"This is exactly what Orwell was talking about when he spoke of thought crimes," he added.
Orwell's bleak classic, published in 1949, is based on a futuristic society in which the government, known as "
In what dimension did that happen???
Spitzer Blasts Scalia's 'Constructionist' View
Democratic candidate for governor Eliot Spitzer on Monday criticized the strict "constructionist" view of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who views the Constitution as unalterable by cultural or social trends.
"As a citizen, and as the state's lawyer, I believe in an evolving Constitution," said Spitzer, the state attorney general, at the annual Law Day ceremony at the New York Court of Appeals. "A flexible Constitution leaves room for us to consider not merely how the world once was, but how it ought to be."
The next governor will have at least two spots to fill on the seven-member court with Judge Albert Rosenblatt's term ending on Dec. 31 and Chief Judge Judith Kaye's ending next March.
Spitzer said that under the strict "constructionist" reading of the Constitution favored by Scalia and others, the "separate but equal" policy of segregation would still be allowed, there would never have been a Roe v. Wade decision protecting abortion rights and children could still be executed for felonies.
Scalia (right) is considered one of the most conservative members of the court.
Spitzer, leading in the polls to be New York's next governor, declined to discuss what type of judge he would nominate to the state's highest court, but said he would favor someone whose Constitutional analysis jibes with his own.
Republican Gov. George Pataki will have the chance to fill one more spot on the court with Judge George Bundy Smith's term ending in September. Smith has applied to be reappointed to the bench.
Republican candidate John Faso criticized Spitzer for his comments.
"I think that it's very unfortunate that an attorney general would attack by name a sitting justice of the U.S. Supreme Court," he said. "It's one thing to question a judicial philosophy, but I think this shows a certain lack of respect for the court."
Faso said Spitzer didn't accurately characterize the judge's views.
Andrea Tantaros, spokeswoman for Republican candidate Bill Weld, called Spitzer's comments "hairsplitting obscure theories of jurisprudence." She said Weld, a former federal prosecutor, is instead "focused on creating jobs, keeping New Yorkers safe, and changing the culture in Albany."
Totalitarian tourism is nothing new. Seventy years ago, American tourists used to admire the cleanliness and orderliness of Nazi Germany. How handsome those Hitlerjugend boys and the German Girls' Leaguers looked in their clean uniforms. Look at those wonderful Autobahns. And Mussolini made the trains run on time.
Those of the opposite political stripe would visit the USSR. Things weren't so good there. Moscow University invited hundreds of American college students to study for a year there, then abruptly and without explanation cancelled classes when they arrived. So the American students spent their time hearing the lies of their Intourist handlers. Lies like, they might be surprised to see workers' children playing in the parks since in the United States only rich people's children get to do that. Lies like, they might be surprised to see such large collective farms since American farms are all small and full of stony fields.
The American students, who had sung "The Internationale" as their ship left the dock, didn't embarrass their guides with facts. It's unlikely that their grandchildren will act any different in North Korea.
The apex of totalitarian tourism wasn't Lincoln Steffens, who after his visit to the Worker's Paradise remarked, "I have seen the future and it works." Steffens was outdone by the Vice-President of the United States, Henry Wallace. He visited Kolyma in 1944 and didn't realize he was looking at the most notorious Gulag prison camp. He thought the 40,000 inhabitants of Magadan were pioneers instead of slave laborers. He said of the Communist regime, "There is nothing irreconcilable in our aims and purposes. Those who so proclaim are wittingly or unwittingly looking for war--and that, in my opinion, is criminal."
Had not FDR dumped Wallace in favor of Truman in the next election, this gullible totalitarian-tourist would have become President of the United States.
In the past Joe Kennedy and George Bernard Shaw both praised Hitler and Stalin....More Useful Idiots of the left...
HARVARD LOVES A THUG
Harvard University has a bizarre idea of how to advance the education of its grads: Instruct them to bow down to North Ko rea's paranoid dictators and show proper "respect" for the Axis of Evil.
It's the ultimate in radical Stalinist chic - the Harvard Alumni Association's $636-a-night totalitarian luxury tour of a rogue nation where thousands are deliberately starved to death.
"Demonstrations of respect for the country's late leader, Kim Il Sung, and for the current leader, Kim Jong Il, are important," instructs the Harvard Alumni Association's tour memo.
"You will be expected to bow as a gesture of respect at the statue of Kim Il Sung and at his mausoleum."
Harvard even tries to pretend that bowing down to thugs is perfectly normal - explaining that it's because "North Korea, like every country, has its own unique protocols."
Well, yes, that certainly is a charming use of euphemism to cover up an ugly and unique reality - since North Korea is not "like every country."
North Korea's "protocols" feature massive human-rights abuses, deliberate famine, concentration camps, religious persecution, gas chambers, likely genocide and trafficking in women and children.
Plus sending body snatchers to Japan and South Korea to kidnap children and force them to train North Korean spies.
Satie Yokota, the mother of a Japanese girl kidnapped in 1977 at age 13 while clutching her racket on the way home from school badminton practice, calls North Korea "enemies of humanity." Now 70, she fears she'll die before she ever sees her daughter again.
Then there's the Stalinist personality cult - when the Harvard alums bow down, they'll be joining the national worship that requires every North Korean to wear a Kim Il Sung lapel pin or else.
Not surprisingly, the Harvard alums are also instructed to carefully censor their reading matter because "certain types of literature may not be allowed into North Korea."
The reason the rooms are so expensive is that North Korea controls all costs - and is in desperate need of foreign currency. The visits effectively subsidize Kim Jong Il's rule.
The ostensible excuse for granting visas to Americans this summer is so they can see the spectacle known as the Arirang games or the Grand Mass Gymnastic and Artistic Performance.
Walter Keats, Harvard '67, whose travel agency is helping to set up the trip, gushed to USA Today that the spectacle is like seeing "Aida" at the Great Pyramids or "Turandot" in Beijing's Forbidden City.
Never mind that the athletes are really slave labor performing under extreme duress - imagine the punishment that awaits anyone who spoils the spectacle by tripping.
At High Country Passage, a tourist agency handling Harvard bookings, agent Tamara Starkes said the alums will stay in "very nice four-star hotels that are tourist-only. The locals cannot go."
High Country's chief, Chris Springer, says he's also packaging North Korea tours for Columbia, Princeton, Duke, the National Trust, MIT, and the University of California-Berkeley.
Asked if he's uncomfortable about totalitarian tourism, Springer says "it's a good question" but argues that outside visits could help open up North Korea. Maybe. But something is very wrong when Harvard - whose motto is "veritas," Latin for "truth" - feels comfortable instructing its alums to bow down to evil thugs
.
Deborah Orin, The Post's Washington bureau chief, is a Harvard grad who won't be taking this tour.
irritated
This Is Truly An Outrage!
Nihad Afroun, Victim of Islamic "Teaching"
This is an electronic translation from French, so it may be a little difficult to understand...
Tetouan: a imam attacks a young girl
Nihad Afroun, a six years little angel, was violently beaten by its teacher at the school Sidi Ahmed El Bekkal, in Te'touan. A board of inquiry was diligente'e, Tuesday April 25, to draw this obscure history with light.
A scandalous business with Te'touan shakes the local public opinion and the mediums of teaching. Nihad Afroun, a six years little angel, was victim, last week, of physical violence, made by its teacher at the school Sidi Ahmed El Bekkal, located with the district Jbel Darssa. In addition to the psychological effects, this violence had serious physical consequences on the small girl. The face tumefied, Nihad present of the bruises at the eye-level and fractures at the level of the nose.
"The business goes back to Wednesday April 19. At 15 hours, the school invited me to announce to me that my daughter fell. When I arrived, it bled. I then asked him what arrived to him. She told me that at the time when the pupils entered in class at 13 hours 30 mn, the teacher made his prayer of the "Dohr". Without paying attention, it put the foot on its carpet ", affirms Fatima Ouled Abdelwahhab, mother of Nihad. And to add: "After having finished his prayer, the teacher gave a violent blow to my daughter so much so that it fell while knocking the face against the ground. One did not opinion me that nearly two hours after the incident".
chatty
Right-to-life case goes to Europe
A man with a brain illness who wants to prevent doctors withdrawing nutrition when his condition worsens, is going to the European Court of Human Rights.
Les Burke, 45, had a landmark High Court ruling, preventing doctors withdrawing food and drink when he cannot speak, overturned last year.
The Court of Appeal upheld an appeal by the General Medical Council and he was refused leave to appeal to the Lords.
Mr Burke, from Lancaster, lodges his case in Europe next week.
"I feel really that it's one-all at the moment and we need the European Court to decide," Mr Burke told the BBC.
Public interest
Mr Burke could be left paralysed and unable to speak but with his mental faculties unimpaired.
Mr Lyons said this would be a denial of his client's human rights.
The GMC maintains doctors would be put in an impossible position if Mr Burke were to win his case.
The Department of Health has said that if the original ruling were upheld, patients would be allowed to demand other treatments, which would have serious implications for the NHS.
d'oh
Wow, this is just like Rush Limbaugh's situtation. NOT!
It appears that two of the Baldwin brothers are having a bad week. Alec Baldwin's brother Daniel Baldwin has reportedly been arrested in Los Angeles on charges of possession of cocaine reports TMZ.
The story, broken by TMZ reports that Daniel, 45 brother to Alec, Stephen and Billy, was arrested on April 22nd, after cops received a call that a woman had been threatened at the Ocean Park Motel in Santa Monica, California.
The web site reports that it has been told that the police responded to a motel room where Baldwin and man named Buddy Winston were front and center.
Cops said they found cocaine and arrested both men. Baldwin's bail was set a $10,000
.
It may not be so bad though as sources tell TMZ that the Los Angeles County District Attorney has declined to prosecute the case and referred it to the Santa Monica City Attorney.
That means, at worst, Baldwin could be prosecuted for misdemeanor drug possession.
No comment yet from any PR folks for the actor.
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