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.
Congress has passed a “Saxbe fix” that will pave the way for Hillary Clinton to move from the Senate to the cabinet without running afoul of the constitution’s Emoluments clause.
As the Messenger previously reported, this action lowers the pay for the Secretary of State’s position back to where it was in January, 2007, when Clinton’s current Senate term began. This is necessary in order to get around an obscure clause in the Constitution that forbids a legislator from taking a job in the executive branch for which the pay has been increased while they were in Congress.
While this fix is a matter of some legal controversy — some legal scholar argue that it does not, in fact, get around the unconstitutionality of the situation — it is not politically controversial. The measure passed on Wednesday night without objection, as our previous commentary on the matter predicted. This same fix has been used several times by both parties over the years.
But as we also predicted, Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group that has filed many lawsuits against administrations from both parties, is threatening to file a suit to stop Clinton from taking the position even with this fix in place. The courts have never ruled on the matter.
As a result of this fix, Hillary Clinton will earn $186,600 a year; Condoleezza Rice earned $191,300 for the same job. This is still a raise over Clinton’s Senate salary of $169,300. But in reality, her new position is expected to cost the Clintons a good deal of money because it will mean Bill Clinton has to turn down speaking engagements around the world to avoid the appearance of possible conflicts of interest.
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