Broke Ass Benton Harbor

End of Democracy, or the End of the Party?

In Benton Harbor, Michigan, a state-appointed emergency financial manager has suspended the decision-making powers of cash-strapped Benton Harbor officials.

The order emergency financial manager Joseph Harris means that Benton Harbor officials can only call meetings to order, adjourn them and approve minutes of meetings. They've been stripped of any actual power.

Harris' action is likely the first since Gov. Rick Snyder signed a law in March granting more powers to emergency managers the Treasury Department appoints to take over distressed schools and communities. (Which is probably unconstitutional - to the Michigan Constitution)

One elected Benton Harbor official, City Commissioner Bryan Joseph, said he wasn't upset. He said he has watched financial mismanagement for decades, and a desire to address that disarray was one of the reasons he ran for election in 2008.

Joseph said the city has struggled with a contentious trash hauling contract, lawsuits related to that contract, new competition for water services and city officials who sometimes clashed so fiercely meetings dragged on for hours.

"I have seen for more than 30 years the mismanagement of funds and personnel in the city," he said. "Infighting has been going on for decades."

But Harris' action drew a strong rebuke from Mark Gaffney, the president of the Michigan AFL-CIO, which represents administrative workers and others. Why? Because all the city union contracts are now null and void.

"This is sad news for democracy in Michigan," he said. "With the stripping of all power of duly elected officials in Benton Harbor ... we can now see the true nature of the emergency manager system."

The new powers of emergency managers include setting aside collective bargaining. Harris' order comes only days before a scheduled training session for prospective emergency managers and turnaround experts.

Emergency managers are in place at Detroit Public Schools and in the cities of Benton Harbor, Ecorse and Pontiac. I wonder if the company they work for is called Omni Consumer Products?

Harris, a former chief financial officer for the city of Detroit, is a certified public accountant with 10 years of local government management experience.

Well, it doesn't take an accountant to figure out that Benton Harbor is broke.

Let's just see if the place is worth fixing.

Wisconsin is Greece

Tens of thousands of state workers and their supporters have turned out at the Wisconsin State Capitol since Tuesday to protest the governor's proposal.

Walker wants to help shore up the state's projected two-year, $3.6 billion budget shortfall by increasing public employees' costs for pensions and health-care coverage. Firefighters and police are exempt from the measure.

In addition to eliminating collective-bargaining rights, the legislation also would make public workers pay half the costs of their pensions and at least 12.6 percent of their health care coverage - increases Walker calls "modest" compared with those in the private sector.

On Thursday, state Democratic senators left the Capitol to deny Republicans -- who control the state legislature -- a quorum to vote on the governor's bill. The bill is expected to pass. The same run-away-and-hide measure that the Texas Democrats used not that long ago.

Politico: The Politics of Education Upended

Question -at what point will it be enough? Will they just keep demanding more until there is a collapse - or a State bankruptcy? And if that happened, and they caused it, shouldn't they be the first to suffer? This isn't about the right to form a Union or to organize -- it's the plain and simple fact that there's no more money!

The funny part is, in the private sector - there's contraction. People lose their jobs. These people are on the streets demanding more. They're calling their Governor Mubarak and Hitler - so much for civility in politics, eh?

Well, on the bright side, the kids are getting a couple days off.

One Nation, Indivisible - Except Alabama

Robert Bentley, the new Republican governor of Alabama, delivered an oddly exclusionary message on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the Birmingham News (via Political Wire) reports:

''I was elected as a Republican candidate. But once I became governor ... I became the governor of all the people. I intend to live up to that. I am color blind."

...

''But if you have been adopted in God's family like I have, and like you have if you're a Christian and if you're saved, and the Holy Spirit lives within you just like the Holy Spirit lives within me, then you know what that makes? It makes you and me brothers. And it makes you and me brother and sister."

Bentley added, ''Now I will have to say that, if we don't have the same daddy, we're not brothers and sisters. So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother."

His press secretary later told the News, "He is the governor of all the people, Christians, non-Christians alike."

This is hardly the first time a Southern governor has gotten in trouble for making statements that offend non-Christians. At a 1992 Republican governors conference, Mississippi Gov. Kirk Fordice famously said:

"The United States of America is a Christian nation, which does not mean in any way to infer any kind of religious intolerance or any kind of particular dogma that that is being forced on anyone," Fordice said. "It is just a simple fact of life in the United States of America. ... And the less we emphasize the Christian religion, the further we fall into the abyss of poor character and chaos in the United States of America."

At that point, South Carolina's Carroll Campbell stepped up to the lectern and hastily extended that point to include America's Judeo-Christian heritage. The Washington Post reported what happened next:

Campbell then stood back, put his arm on Fordic's shoulder and said quietly: "I just wanted to add the Judeo part." Fordice, appearing to glare at Campbell, said: "If I wanted to do that, I would have done it."

Justin Elliott is a Salon reporter. Reach him by email at jelliott@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @ElliottJustin More: Justin Elliott

New Chariman

So, amazingly, this just happened...

Pat Quinn named chairman of Midwestern Governors Association

"I am honored to become Chairman of the Midwestern Governors Association. The association has a long history of governors who are committed to working together to improve our entire region, and I look forward to continuing that legacy," said Governor Quinn. "Now, more than ever, we need to band together to create sustained economic growth and success throughout the Midwest."

Governor Quinn assumed office on Monday, January 10, 2011 and will serve as chair through February of 2012.

The other governors must have awarded him this honor because he's going to increase their revenues so much from the stampede to get the hell out of Illinois - or Quinn is just so damn good at lying that they decided to make him their leader. Maybe he promised he was only going to raise their dues 'a little bit.'

"Sometimes I think you WANT to fail" ~ Restaurant employee #1, from my favorite Simpsons episode, New Kid on the Block (1992)

Sweet, sweet Jebus.

Whitman: Arizona immigration law OK for Arizona

California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman is now in support of the anti-immigration legislation she recently opposed shortly after she stated she supported it, unless you speak Spanish.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman - who has campaign billboards and Spanish-language ads in California declaring "NO to the Arizona law" - told talk show hosts Wednesday that the same controversial immigration law should be allowed to stand in Arizona.

"You know, I'm running for the governor of California so I had to make a decision," Whitman said. "Does the Arizona law make sense for California? And I have said no, I don't think the Arizona law makes sense for California because we have a much bigger state with much bigger geography."

Whitman appeared on the America's Morning News, a conservative show that's a venture of the Talk Radio Network Entertainment and the Washington Times newspaper. The first question Whitman was asked had to do with Arizona's immigration law.

Whitman was interviewed shortly before a judge issued a temporary injunction blocking much law of Arizona's law because of arguments it infringes on federal responsibility.

Whitman was pressed for her opinion on whether Arizona, as a state, had the right to enact such a law to deal with the problem of illegal immigration.

"I would let the law stand for Arizona," Whitman said.

Huffington Post blogger Chris Kelly has posted the audio to Whitman's interview here.

To court Latino voters, Whitman began airing Spanish-language TV ads during the recent World Cup soccer games and has kept it up. In one ad, a narrator says: "She respects our community. She is a Republican who opposes the Arizona law and she opposed Proposition 187 (California's 1994 measure that sought to deny public services to illegal immigrants)."

I guess it's good there's no such thing as a bilingual person, right? What? Oh, oh!

Cuomo Running

Andrew M. Cuomo Announces Candidacy for Governor of New York

Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo of New York announced that he was running for governor in a video on his Web site. The announcement is available at andrewcuomo.com.

Oh, hey, it looks like it's time for Blasphemes' Vocabulary Booster Shot for Saturday Morning! Today's word is Oligarchy.

An oligarchy (from Greek ὀλιγαρχία, oligarkhía) is a form of government in which power effectively rests with a small elite segment of society distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, military might, or religious hegemony. The word oligarchy is from the Greek words "ὀλίγος" (olígos), "a few" and the verb "ἄρχω" , "to rule, to govern, to command".

Such states are often controlled by politically powerful families whose children are heavily conditioned and mentored to be heirs of the power of the oligarchy.

Oligarchies have been tyrannical throughout history, being completely reliant on public servitude to exist. Although Aristotle pioneered the use of the term as a synonym for rule by the rich, for which the exact term is plutocracy, oligarchy is not always a rule by wealth, as oligarchs can simply be a privileged group. Some city-states from ancient Greece were oligarchies. The combination of the words plutocracy and oligarchy make the word plutarchy.