Good morning all and thanks for visiting BFM today. A little bit of housekeeping … we’ve been having some internal discussions on how to structure the front page in such a way that you can easily scan through all of the new posts. If you have any suggestions on this or anything else on the site, feel free to comment here or send me an email at christinebarry at gmail. Also a reminder that we have some sponsors and advertisers here. If one of them can be useful to you, please consider doing business with them and letting them know that you came from BFM. Our advertisers are helping us out so we want to make sure they get some love.
Also an FYI for those of you who blog here (thank you very much!!) we’ve had to change the wysiwyg editor on the back end. I updated CKE editor to the latest version and it crashed in Firefox. So I turned it off rather than spend the time troubleshooting right now.
And now on to the good stuff.
I worked the Shiawassee County fair last week. That was a good time. We had four petitions going … Fire Snyder, Repeal PA4, Protect Social Security and Protect Medicare. You wouldn’t believe how many people were anxious to sign and to tell their stories. We have a few a-holes, of course,
Me: “Help us save Social Security and Medicare?”
Them: “We’re Republicans!”
Me: “You still qualify …”
(they’re gone now)
Me: “Help us save Social Security and Medicare?”
Him: “I wish I had a gun I would shoot that guy” (pointing to President Obama)
Me: “Ok thanks.” (Not really sure what to say to that)
Me: “Help us save Social Security and Medicare?”
Him: “I’m still mad at the idiot for appointing Palin!” (pointing to President Obama)
Me: “WTF????”
(He stayed for about 5 minutes, just to complain. Then he moved on to the VFW booth …)
I also was able to meet the awesome Dennis Pank, who filled me in on the latest in the Fire Snyder campaign.
Our booth wasn’t as nice as the Republican booth .. it never is. They have a lot more money to spend, so they set up putt putt golf , big displays, etc. Unfortunately this time they also had dozens of pictures of elected officials, because in the last election they basically swept the county. We won a few local races, and we have the two Senators and the President, but that’s it. So that was a little embarrassing.
One thing that shocked me when I was working the booth, was looking over to the GOP booth and seeing Connie Ball, in her big bright yellow “Ben Glardon” t-shirt, peek around the corner of the GOP booth and point and laugh. Connie is the wife of our former GOP state Rep, Dick Ball. If you need a primer on Dick Ball, check this and this.
So I don’t have any respect for her feeble minded husband, for sure, but I was neutral on Connie Ball until she turned out to be cut from the same (lying sack) cloth as Dick. See, when Pam Drake launched her campaign for State Rep last year, Connie Ball said she supported her, and in fact appeared in Pam Drake’s website photos as a supporter. Unfortunately her “support” for Pam was fake; she was actually working for Ben Glardon. Pam found this out after Connie was caught canvassing for Glardon. So Connie is a lying sack, just like Dick. Oh and their troll kid David will be along any minute to whine about how his parents are being picked on by the bloggers. Cry cry cry little man.
There is some awesomeness in the shadows though … “A lying pair of Balls” but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. One valueless rant in a brunch is good enough; I don’t need to devote a whole post to them. (But imagine the parody potential!)
Ok moving on.
Managing Director of the Oakland Co Road Commission says that they need more money to take care of the roads. I agree. Then he suggests that the state should raise vehicle registration fees and gas and diesel taxes. With this, I do not agree. To do this in a climate where the currently elected Teapublicans are pushing legislation to lower workers’ wages and raise taxes on the poor would be a destructive blow to the lower and middle classes. This is an excellent issue for progressives to talk about. Can you afford to have your wages lowered at the same time they are raising gas taxes? Can the college kids who were thrown off of food stamps afford to pay more for gas? I’m not sure how to reduce these issues to propaganda nuggets though. I’m taking suggestions.
The “Free the Weed” cause is alive and well in Michigan. Richard Clement filed recall language, again, against Bill Schuette. Schuette is a raging hypocrite when it comes to medical marijuana. I don’t know that it’s going to get enough traction for a recall, but I appreciate the sentiment.
Michigan Dems sent Rick Snyder a birthday card, saying “thanks for nothing.” I don’t really get the point … I’d rather pretend to be corporation and thank him for lowering the wages of the people who work for me. Or pretend to be an Asian corporation and thank him for giving me my US based rival. A spokesman for the Governor called the card “repugnant.” Which I think is rich considering all of the repugnant things these pig people have done since taking power. But, whatev.
Michigan Politics Minute on whether Republicans can beat Debbie Stabenow. Christine says the answer is no. Pete Hoekstra? Relatively safe in his own district, can’t win anything else. Clark Durant? Charter schools champ? I’m reminded of the awesome Betty White – Sandra Bullock – Ryan Reynolds video. Nobody knows who you are Clark. Nobody knows who you are. They know who Debbie is. We’ll have to spend some money to fight off the billionaire boys club, but we’ll keep this seat.
and finally, please congratulate Eclectablog. His work was featured on Rachel Maddow again. Nice job!!!
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