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.
With the failure of the bailout bill in the House yesterday, both parties are pointing fingers at one another. The most ridiculous bit of blame mongering came from House Minority Leader John Boehner:
House Republican leaders blamed Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House, for the bill’s failure, saying she had scuttled a bipartisan compromise with a “partisan speech” shortly before the vote. Pelosi started her speech by citing “the Bush administration’s failed economic policies — policies built on budgetary recklessness, on an anything-goes mentality with no regulation, no supervision and no discipline in the system.”
“I do believe that the vote could have succeeded,” Boehner said in a news conference. “But the speaker had to give a partisan speech … that poisoned our caucus.”
Worse yet, this has become John McCain’s official spin as well:
“Just before the vote, when the outcome was still in doubt, Speaker Pelosi gave a strongly worded partisan speech and poisoned the outcome.
“This bill failed because Barack Obama and the Democrats put politics ahead of country.” — McCain-Palin senior policy adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin
Barney Frank’s reaction was dead on:
Rep. Barney Frank, the House Democrats’ main negotiator on the package, called the Republicans’ finger pointing an excuse.
“Because somebody hurt their feelings, they decided to punish the country?” Frank said. “I don’t believe they had the votes. They are covering up the fact that they don’t have the votes.”
Even other Republicans couldn’t stomach such a ridiculous argument:
Rep. Michele Bachmann, a Minnesota Republican, denied that the bill’s opponents had voted against it because of hurt feelings. “I want to assure you that is not the case. We are not babies, sucking our thumbs,” she said.
Well, your party’s leader in the House just claimed that you are. You might wanna take that up with him.
Even the conservative Commentary Magazine couldn’t take Boehner’s nonsensical claim:
Max, the only thing worse than the vote was the complaining afterwards that Nancy Pelosi’s speech was too partisan. So they voted against the only viable measure to prevent a market meltdown because Nancy was mean to them?! That takes the cake.
An ironic cliche, to say the least; cake, I suspect, is what they will be telling us to eat soon.
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