Obsessed with Congress' flaws, Justin Amash finds himself alienated from Republicans as a libertarian crank

The Detroit News here highlights how in "Michigan GOP leaves Justin Amash to fend for himself", including this from Mike Rogers who evidently feels more free to speak because he's baggin' it:

Rogers has sparred with Amash on foreign policy intervention and fought off an Amash attempt last year to curb the National Security Agency phone surveillance program. Rogers points to Amash’s lack of support on Iran sanctions, a vote against a balanced budget amendment and the “embrace” of isolationism that’s “not consistent with what’s in the best interest of the future of the United States. I just worry you have somebody who’s more concerned about their brand than the substance of the issues,” Rogers said.

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Congress' flaws are legion, but their remedy is not libertarianism. Their remedy is in representation.

In his zeal for the constitution Justin Amash has little to say about representation, perhaps because he represents the libertarian interests of a few, not the broader interests of his constituents. Which is odd, since lack of representation was the key complaint of the founding era which wrote it.

Today we have a Congress which is an artifact of the 1920s, not of the founding era. Representation has ceased to grow with population since the 1920 Census, by an act of Congress itself, the effect of which has been to turn the Congress into a powerful oligarchy arrayed against the great masses of the unwashed taxpayers whose wallets are plundered by it.

The Tea Party would be more convincing if it actually believed in a more representative Congress, which means a far more numerous Congress than the 435 member one we have now. So far we haven't seen the Tea Party demonstrate passion for any such thing, even from its preeminent leaders like Justin Amash who claim to be inspired by everything constitutional, except for representation at the level of one per 30,000.

Americans hate their Congress in unprecedented numbers, and the reason is because their individual representatives don't speak for them.

If the Tea Party had any genuineness to it, it would make fixing that job #1. 

Unreliable Conservatism: Judge Bernard A. Friedman, Reagan Appointee, Overturns Michigan's Marriage Amendment

As a Democrat in recovery, Ronald Reagan proved more than once that his journey to conservatism was incomplete.

On the social issues he was full of soothing words to keep the religious rubes in the Republican line at the voting booth, but appointed to the courts people confused by liberalism (the Reagan Democrats), such as Judge Bernard A. Friedman in Michigan, who openly encouraged in 2012 lesbian plaintiffs to challenge Michigan's constitutional amendment of 2004 defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Appointed as Friedman was in 1988, conservatives may wish to console themselves with the thought that Ronald Reagan was already senile in his last year in office and was co-opted by the George H. W. Bush faction. You remember him . . . the same guy who happily signed his name recently as a witness to a lesbian "wedding" in his own dotage.  

And here we are in 2014 and the same judge Friedman has struck down what was passed by the voters with 59% approval just 10 years ago:

In his 31-page written opinion, Friedman said the constitutional amendment known as the Michigan Marriage Act, passed by 2.7 million state voters in 2004, was unconstitutional because it denied gays and lesbians equal protection under the law.

When conservatism admits liberal ideas into its universe, a queer thing known as libertarianism, the rule of law goes out the window because the rules go out the window. Societies form around consensus (culture springs from the cult), and when the consensus breaks down so does the concept of society. Order gives way to chaos, whether imposed from without by judicial usurpation or by voter apathy, acquiescence or decadence.

If capturing the heights through elections has shown us anything it is that sometimes leaders can persuade the people from the ramparts, but unless the laws spring forth organically from the beliefs of the people the future of the idea of one nation remains in doubt.

As many have pointed out, marrying your dog, multiple men or women, a herd of sheep, or minor boys and girls cannot be far behind unless Nature and Nature's God once again capture our imaginations.

Michigan Spends 53% More Per Mile On Roads Than The National Average

The news is full of doom and gloom about Michigan spending on roads based on per capita measures. You can get that news here from the Detroit News, where you will learn Michigan is in dead last for spending per capita and that road industry lobbyists think this is terrible and advocate more spending to solve Michigan's road problems.

What a shock. Industry wants us to spend more money on roads.

From all that you wouldn't know that Michigan spent 53% more per mile than the national average, as reported here in 2013 (overall story here).

Michigan actually ranks 37th in total disbursements per mile.

That's quite a different picture than being dead last per capita.

Think about it. If Michigan roads are so bad, maybe spending per mile has been spent on the wrong people, namely the unions in control of the industry. If we're not getting what we're paying for, maybe we should hire someone else instead of throwing more money at the problem.

Over 200,000 Still Without Power In Michigan On Christmas Day After Ice Storm

Consumers Energy outage map showing some of Michigan's 200,000 without electricity on Christmas Day

According to The Detroit News, here:

Roughly 214,000 homes and businesses across lower Michigan were without power late Tuesday. Officials at the area’s major provider, Consumers Energy, described the storm that hit the region over the weekend as the largest Christmas-week storm in its 126-year history. Overall, it’s the largest storm in the last decade, they added.

Over Two Times As Many Getting Stuck With Medicaid Vs. Insurance Under ObamaCare

"Coverage" does not equal care.

The Detroit News reports here:

Nationwide, 1.9 million people completed online applications in October and November, but just 365,000 selected an insurance plan. Those planning to buy on the health insurance marketplace — healthcare.gov — must enroll by Dec. 23 to have a policy in effect by Jan. 1. ... An additional 803,077 Americans were found eligible for Medicaid or the federal Children’s Health Insurance Program. That number includes 7,363 residents of Michigan, one of 25 states and the District of Columbia that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

TARP Bailout Funds To Be Used To Throw Out Vacant Michigan Homes

At a cost of about $25,000 each, the $100 million would demolish just 4,000 of Michigan's roughly 50,000 vacant properties. That doesn't make any sense.

Story here.

Nolan Finley Of The Detroit News Wants To Junk The IRS, And The Income Tax

THIS IS NOT NOLAN FINLEY

Here:

"[R]eplace the income tax with a national sales tax. You’d pay tax on the money you spend instead of the money you earn. That would eliminate the need for an IRS that audits tax returns, hands out non-profit status and enforces a tax code that is egregiously complex and unfair. If the national sales tax isn’t the answer, then a similar outcome might be achieved by drastically lowering current income tax rates in exchange for eliminating all deductions and credits. With no reason to examine returns, the IRS could be much smaller. Without auditing power, it’d be less intimidating."

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Why not do both? A low flat sales tax and a low flat income tax? We already have one flat tax, called Social Security. And we already pay an average state sales tax of 5+% everywhere. Just abolish the income tax and augment the current flat Payroll Tax with the new one. Business everywhere is already set up to collect that and withhold, so dovetailing that with a corporate flat tax should also be easy to do. Presto. No IRS needed for America's 151 million wage earners and the millions of businesses who employ them.

Herman Cain's more or less revenue neutral 999 plan looks better and better with every passing day of the IRS scandal targeting Obama's political enemies: a flat 9% federal sales tax, a flat 9% tax on all income, and a flat 9% corporate income tax.

A man before his time.

Gov. Snyder Is Nuts: Gas Taxes In Michigan Are Already 6th Highest In America

Michigan in January 2013 had the SIXTH highest overall gasoline taxes in the nation, and Gov. Snyder is talking about raising them higher still to fix the roads. He is quite clearly nuts.

The excise tax on gasoline is already double the rate you would pay in sales tax on a box of Kleenex or a roll of toilet paper and is one of the most regressive taxes in the state and in the country. The excise tax on gasoline penalizes the working poor the most who depend on their cars to get to their crummy jobs, if they are lucky enough to have one. And Governor Snyder only wants to make it worse.

Here are the top six states for combined federal, state, and local gasoline taxes as of January 2013:

New York:   69.0 cents per gallon

California:   67.1 cents

Hawaii:        65.5 cents

Connecticut: 63.4 cents

Illinois:         57.5 cents

Michigan:     57.1 cents.

The federal portion EVERYWHERE is fixed at 18.4 cents per gallon, so that means Michigan already takes 38.7 cents out of your pocket every time you put a gallon of gas in your car.

Today's average price for gasoline in Michigan is $3.743, meaning the base price at the pump is $3.172, including all profits and costs before the taxes are applied. That means the federal tax of 18.4 cents represents a federal excise tax on gas of 5.8%, and that your Michigan excise tax on gasoline is a whopping 12.2%, more than twice the sales tax rate of 6%. The average sales tax nationwide is just 5.04%.

Michigan is one state which bears the full brunt of the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931, resulting in road workers getting top dollar. Funny how we have some of the worst roads in the country in exchange for that. Maybe the governor should spend more time trying to figure that out before picking the taxpayers pockets again.

If the country needs anything, it is a tax cut on gasoline. The national average tax is 48.8 cents a gallon. Backing out the federal portion, that means the states on average are taking 9.3% on gasoline, a tax rate 85% higher than the average state sales tax rate.

Your Food Costs More Because Of Obama's Stalinist EPA Ethanol Policy

Feed prices have skyrocketed as a result of drought and dedication of ever larger portions of corn harvests to fuel production instead of for feed, and it will get much much worse according to this in depth story in The Detroit News:

This year, the Renewable Fuel Standard requires the use of 13.2 billion gallons of corn ethanol, the production of which could require using more than half the country's corn crop, up from 5 billion gallons in 2007.

Next year, the standard increases to 13.9 billion gallons. By 2022, the U.S. must use 36 billion gallons of biofuels, though 21 billion gallons are supposed to be from advanced cellulosic ethanol.

The Detroit News Attacks Obama's Imperial Presidency, Congress' Servility

"The imperial presidency Obama is building should worry Democrats as much as it does Republicans. This has never been an "end justifies the means" nation. Even if you agree with the outcomes the president is seeking, his running roughshod over the rule of law should be objectionable, because the powers he is claiming will not be forfeited by the next Republican president."

Read it all, here.

Two Years Later, Incompetent FBI Can't Return Acquitted Hutaree Property Yet Because It's Not Finished Doing The Inventory

The story is here, in The Detroit News:

Stone asked a federal judge to force the government to immediately return the wedding ring and other property, including the title to his vehicle. The FBI told Stone's lawyer, William Swor, the agency was still inventorying the property, which was seized in March 2010, according to the court filing.

These are the folks who want to run healthcare.

Yeah right. Into the ground.

Hutaree Militia Acquitted On Second Anniversary of Arrests for Sedition

Government prosecutors and the FBI prove their incompetence yet once again.

The Detroit News has the complete story here, and begins with this:

A federal judge acquitted seven members of the Hutaree militia Tuesday of the most serious charges following six weeks of testimony in a high-profile terror case.

On the second anniversary of the Hutaree arrests, U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts granted a defense motion Tuesday to acquit the militia members on seven charges, including seditious conspiracy and conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. The most serious charge could have resulted in life prison sentences.

She ordered the trial to continue against Hutaree leader David Stone Sr. and his son, Joshua Stone, on weapons-related charges.

Rick The Snake Santorum Wants MI Democrats To Pick The Republicans' Candidate

So reports The Detroit News today here, claiming Santorum is making robocalls to Michigan Democrats to get them to turn out and vote for him:

"Michigan Democrats can vote in the Republican primary on Tuesday," said an unidentified man on the call, which Talking Points Memo said was left on someone's answering machine in Trenton. "Why is it so important? Romney supported the bailout for his Wall Street billionaire buddies, but opposed the auto bailouts. That was a slap in the face to every Michigan worker, and we're not going to let Romney get away with it. On Tuesday, join Democrats who are going to send a loud message to Massachusetts' Mitt Romney by voting for Rick Santorum for president.

"This call is supported by hard-working Democratic men and women and paid for by Rick Santorum for president."


Isn't Santorum's opposition to auto bailouts a slap in the face to Michigan workers?

Michigan Democrat Calls Truly Closed Republican Primary "Phony"

The Detroit News has the story, here:

Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer, D-East Lansing, described the process as "unnecessary" and costing taxpayers $10 million. The candidate selection, she argued, should have been handled via a party caucus, which is how the Democrats will choose their delegates in May.

"Since you chose to play games with Michigan's elections, don't be surprised if voters choose to play games with your phony primary as well," she warned Republicans.

Treasury Dept. Has Boosted Auto Bailout Cost From $14 Billion to $23.77 Billion

As reported here by The Detroit News.

What Fun! Bailouts Crash! Treas. Dept. Says Autos Cost Taxpayers $80 Billion, TARP $57 Billion

So The Detroit News here:

The Treasury Department dramatically boosted its estimate of losses from its $85 billion auto industry bailout by more than $9 billion . . ..

In its monthly report to Congress, the Treasury Department now says it expects to lose $23.6 billion, up from its previous estimate of $14.33 billion.

The Treasury now pegs the cost of the bailout of GM, Chrysler Group LLC and the auto finance companies at $79.6 billion. ...

[For TARP t]he government now expects to lose $57.33 billion, including the full cost of the housing program, up from $36.7 billion. The new estimate means the government doesn't believe it will make an overall profit on its bailouts.

In other words, the bailouts were a failure, and the taxpayers got stuck with the bill. But you already knew that.

FORD = Fascist Obama Reelection Debacle

FORD Wimps Out Again, Pulls Anti-Bailout Ad After White House Intimidation

And Daniel Howes for The Detroit News sums it up this way, here:

Ford supported the bailouts before Congress, in public statements and still does today, despite the recurring snarkiness you hear around its offices in Dearborn that it "didn't take the money."

No, it didn't. But Ford did seek a line of credit from the feds, borrowed billions under a government program to "retool" its plants and effectively failed first. That's why it recruited a superstar CEO from Boeing Co. and gave him some $23 billion in borrowed money to save the Blue Oval from bankruptcy.

Or it would have taken the money, too.

Food Stamps in Michigan: 30K College Students Removed From Program

Who knew? Apparently that number on the program was huge, 10 times more than in other states.

New rules for eligibility are coming, requiring assets to be counted. Like lotto winnings.

The Detroit News has the story here:

Even after the recent removal of 30,000 college students from the food stamp program, close to 2 million Michigan residents — one in five — are on the program, [Brian] Rooney [Deputy Director, Department of Human Services] said.

Nolan Finley: The Bigger Government Gets, The More it Will Waste

Mr. Finley of The Detroit News wonders here why we recently wrung our hands and wrangled over cutting a mere $38 billion when the GAO had already issued a report, now mouldering on a shelf somewhere, detailing how elimination of reduplicative programs could easily have netted the taxpayers $200 billion in savings.

As our fathers used to say: Only government can screw up a two car funeral.

Hutaree Militia Update: Big Talk, No Plot?

All behind the scenes stuff about what is and is not evidence in the case:

Defense lawyers have spent the past year arguing over evidentiary issues and trying to frame the case as a First Amendment fight.

There was no plan and no target identified by the Hutaree members, said lawyer Todd Shanker of the Federal Defender Office, who represents the Hutaree leader's stepson, David Stone Jr.

"A few of the people talked a lot and talked big in front of their friends and fellow militia members," Shanker told The Detroit News.

"But everybody, I think, was there for different reasons."

There's more here at The Detroit News.