I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
The Senate failed to get 60 votes to end debate and take a vote on the auto bailout passed by the House on Wednesday night. CNN reports:
Senate Democrats and the White House failed to find 60 votes to end debate on a $14 billion auto bailout bill and bring it to a vote Thursday night, killing the measure for the year.
The 52-35 vote followed the collapse of negotiations between Senate Democrats and Republicans seeking a compromise.
It now looks like the bill is dead and won’t be taken up until next year:
“We have worked and worked and we can spend all night tonight, tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday, and we’re not going to get to the finish line,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on the Senate floor before the vote. “That’s just the way it is. There’s too much difference between the two sides.”
Reid acknowledged the bill would not survive the procedural vote.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the sticking point was the United Auto Workers’ refusal to set a “date certain” to put employees at U.S. auto manufacturers at “parity pay” with U.S. employees at foreign automakers in the United States.
Currently, analysts estimate the union workers at U.S. automakers make about $3 to $4 per hour more than the non-union U.S. employees of foreign automakers like Toyota and Honda, according to the Center for Automotive Research.
The House easily passed the bailout bill earlier this week, but it quickly ran into trouble in the Senate, where Republicans objected to several provisions. Negotiations Thursday involved a compromise proposal put forward by Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tennessee, but the senators could not reach agreement.
The article did note, however, that the Bush administration may be prepared to step in with financing for the automakers from the $700 billion TARP fund established a few weeks ago. That is what the Democrats have wanted all along, but it means that the money will be given with few safeguards to how it might be spent and little oversight.
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