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.
A hat tip to West Michigan Rising for catching this press release by Rep. Pete Hoekstra touting the importance of a bill passed by the House that will fund research crucial to saving West Michigan’s agricultural sector. That bill, Hoekstra said, “contains $346,000 for research on combating Phytophthora capsici, a non-native fungal-like pathogen that lives in soil and causes plants to rot, and $346,000 on research to combat the Apple Fire Blight pathogen.”
“Phytophthora and Apple Fire Blight pose a major threat to Michigan’s agricultural economy,” said U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Holland. “Researching how to combat and control their spread remains a top priority for Michigan’s farmers.”…
Vegetables such as cucumbers, pumpkins, squash, watermelon, cantaloupe, tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, eggplants and lima beans are particularly susceptible to Phytophthora. Crop rotation is mostly ineffective because it can survive for 10 or more years in the soil.
“Phytophthora has been a major stumbling block for vegetable growers in Michigan,” said Roger Victory, an Ottawa County grower. “We haven’t found the silver bullet yet, but with the federal assistance toward research we have made considerable progress toward stopping the spread of the disease.”
Fire Blight is a devastating bacterial disease of apples. It often enters the plant during bloom and also infects trees that have suffered wounds from hail, wind and insects. Since crop year 2000, Michigan apple growers have lost more than $50 million to the dreaded disease.
Wow, that sounds serious! It’s a good thing Rep. Hoekstra was on the job, making sure that research would get funded to fight that “major threat to Michigan’s agricultural economy.” There’s just one little problem here. According to the House website on the roll call vote for that particular bill, Hoekstra voted no on the bill.
Is the House website wrong? Or did Hoekstra really send out a press release congratulating himself for the passage of a bill to save Michigan agriculture after voting against that same bill?
Incidentally, Mike Rogers voted against it too. So did Thad McCotter.
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