Smart Cat Reacts To Self-Proclaimed Billionaire @realDonaldTrump

Sunday , 14, August 2016 Up North Progressive Sad! Leave a comment

 

We know how you feel, kitty.

Poverty Island Fire Sixty Percent Contained

Friday , 12, August 2016 Up North Progressive DNR, Environment, Upper Peninsula Leave a comment


A wildfire burning since June on Poverty Island is sixty percent contained according to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. The fire started by lightning strike on June 26, 2016 and so far burned around 127 acres. Fire fighting efforts focused on saving a historic lighthouse.

By using controlled burns to remove vegetation, fire fighters from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and Forest Service have contained enough of the fire on the island to save the lighthouse and two other structures. There are no other buildings on the island.

Recent rain will also help with controlling the fire. High winds could push smoke far enough where it may be viewed from a distance. The fire is being monitored from the air, and will likely be completely contained once rain and winter snow help put out the fire.

Poverty island is located in northern Lake Michigan, on the southern tip of Garden Peninsula.

This Just In …

Friday , 12, August 2016 Up North Progressive Sad! Leave a comment

ICYMI: What the @realDonaldTrump Campaign Has Been Up To for the Past 20 Hours

Wednesday , 10, August 2016 Up North Progressive Candidates, Sad! Leave a comment

What could possibly happen today?

135 Twitter Followers and One Tedx Talk: @Evan_McMullin Already Better Qualified For President Than @realDonaldTrump

Monday , 8, August 2016 Up North Progressive Candidates, Elections, Presidential Primary 2016 Leave a comment

There are mornings Up North Progressive kicks themselves in the butt for sleeping in.

In the wee hours of the morning, while the dream fog of Clinton leading Trump by 10 points in the polls faded with the morning light, there stirred a disturbance in the political aether that no one saw coming.

Wait, is this for real?

Anti-Trump Republican Launching Independent Presidential Bid

Evan McMullin would make for an unlikely presidential candidate. He has never held elective office before and has spent most of his career as a CIA officer … McMullin has virtually no public profile. He doesn’t appear regularly on television, and has just 135 followers on Twitter. His most high-profile recent appearance seems to have been a TEDx talk about genocide he gave at London Business School in April.

It is real. He even has a campaign logo and he’s jumped from 135 twitter followers to 5,806.

Here is McMullin’s Tedx talk. Make sure if you decide to watch this there are no hard surfaces with sharp points to hit your head on when you pass out from boredom.

Nobody knows who he is, but he knows who Donald Trump is. His twitter account is full of searing criticism.

So far all of McMullin’s commentary on the presidential election are critical of Donald Trump, which would be typical in a primary election, but general elections are about convincing voters to vote for you, not the other party’s candidate.

Evan McMullin has this to say on his late start in the presidential race:

Standing up to run for president because it’s never too late to do the right thing.

What Evan McMullin should know however is in 27 states it is too late to be on the ballot to run for president, and this coming Friday that number will jump to 35. Will he last the week before realizing no one is taking him seriously? For now he’s trending on twitter, and the media is digging into his past to find out all they can about him.

And you thought the highlight for today was going to be Trump’s economic policy speech in Detroit.

Could the Tea Bagging of Kansas Finally Be Over?

Thursday , 4, August 2016 Up North Progressive Candidates, Elections, Flint Water, Nerd Problems, Tea Party, Tealiban 3 Comments

John Boehner seems to think so. The former Speaker who had an epiphany when the Pope visited and resigned from the House was photographed enjoying a glass of wine with a twist of Cercei Lannister smirk as he watched the whole thing burn.

The crowning moment of the August 2nd primary election in Kansas came at 8:52 PM CDT, when Tim Huelscamp staffers herded the press out of campaign headquarters promising a statement soon. Huelscamp lost his primary bid to Roger Marshall in a landslide after spending six years in Washington DC proving no one could out-tea bag him. His behavior was so repugnant he lost his seat on the House Committee on Agriculture in 2012, a seat held by a Kansas House member for 100 years.

Huelscamp had plenty of company Tuesday night, as Kansas voters fed up with conservative Republican tax cuts for the rich shenanigans removed 11 incumbent legislators from state government. The Kansas Primary was a vote of no-confidence on Governor Brownback’s supply side economic policies, which after six years has turned the state into a third world black hole in the center of U.S. flyover territory.

Since 2011 when several states found themselves strapped with fiscally conservative Republican governors, it felt like a race to the bottom to see which governor could destroy the economy of their state the fastest. Brownback has yet to poison a city of 100,000 people with lead just to save a buck, but his experiment to create the Utopia the Witchita-based Koch Brothers always dreamed of succeeded in doing exactly what Reaganomics could only do – make a state realize Reaganomics only works if everyone is already a billionaire, and likely not even then.

The people of Kansas have come to appreciate having things like roads and schools and politicians who support farmers in a state where farming is the backbone of the economy, and that maybe making rich people help pay for those things wouldn’t be a bad idea. The wave of moderate Republicans running for office in Kansas could be what’s needed to banish Brownbackistan from America for good. Hopefully, Kansas is a wake up call for the rest of us to realize tea party-fueled radical conservative terrorism needs to be eradicated from local, state and national government as soon as possible.

Good job, Kansas voters. On to November.

The Michigan Primary Election Is Today

Tuesday , 2, August 2016 Up North Progressive Elections Leave a comment

Polls are open from 7:00 AM to 8:00 PM today. You can find a copy of your ballot at the Michigan Voter Information Center.

Trump Supporters Vandalize Northern Michigan Democratic Party Signs

Monday , 1, August 2016 Up North Progressive Elections 2 Comments

Listening to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump insult a gold star family, call Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton the devil and allege she will rig the election in November (And it’s only August 1st!), has emboldened Trump supporters in Northern Michigan to vandalize Democratic Party signs in Lake and Emmet Counties.

In Emmet County, an Adopt-A-Highway sign was vandalized with a Trump campaign bumper sticker. The two-mile segment of highway on US 31 in Oden is maintained by the Emmet County Democratic Committee. In Lake County on Old M 63 the Lake County Democratic Party billboard east of Luther was also vandalized by Trump Supporters. A campaign sign for one of the Lake County Sheriff primary candidates was also spray painted with TRUMP in black spray paint.

People who do this don’t have their candidates’ best interests in mind. It never convinces anyone to change parties or the candidates they will vote for, and often convinces on the fence independent voters to support candidates for the party that suffered the vandalism. Usually people from both parties see something like this and consider the people responsible to have poor judgment and questionable intelligence. The only people who think it’s funny are the ignorant people who committed the criminal act.

The Lake County Democratic Party billboard is hand-painted. The Adopt-A-Highway sign in Oden is owned by the state of Michigan.

It is one thing to support a candidate running for election, but defacing the sign of an opposing party is not. It’s also illegal.

Meet the Candidates Michigan State House District 100: Sandy Clarke

Thursday , 28, July 2016 Up North Progressive Candidates, Elections, Meet the Candidates 2016 2 Comments

In November a candidate with real vision to make lives better for all residents living in the 100th state house district will be elected to Michigan’s State Legislature. That candidate is Sandy Clarke.

Sandy Clarke of Webber Township in Lake County is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at West Shore Community College. Clarke earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and History from Wilberforce University in Ohio, and her post-graduate degree at Antioch University. Previously, she served Lake County as a County Commissioner from 2010 to 2014. She is a board member of The Baldwin Promise, and author of the book, Not Working Is Not An Option

Sandy Clarke’s priorities for Lake, Newaygo and Oceana Counties center on education, agribusiness, and economic development. In education, she wants to extend programs like the Baldwin Promise to Public Schools in all of the 100th state house district. Clarke stresses the importance of expanding STEM fields education, and would create an office of student loan ombudsman to provide funding for higher education.

To support economic development in the 100th state house district, Clarke wants to expand public transportation to Newaygo and Oceana Counties, bring broadband internet to the entire district, provide better services, housing and care for the district’s veterans, disabled and elderly. To find out more about Sandy Clarke you can contact her by email at sclarke443@gmail.com

The deadline to register to vote is October 11. Show your support for Sandy Clarke and all of the Democratic Party candidates by voting on November 8, 2016.

Meet the Candidates Michigan House District 97: Robert Corbett and Robert Townsend

Thursday , 21, July 2016 Up North Progressive Uncategorized Leave a comment

Two candidates will run in the August 2, 2016 Democratic primary election for State House District 97: Robert Townsend of Clare, and Robert Corbett of Gladwin. The Counties making up the 97th district include Arenac, Clare, Gladwin, and the eastern townships of Osceola County.

Robert Townsend, or Dr. Bob, graduated from Gobles High School and attended Michigan State University. He interned in South Carolina and Alaska before returning to Michigan. In 2010 he opened his own medical practice, Denali Healthcare, and expanded to ten clinics in Northern Michigan. He is married with six children.

Townsend’s medical practice focuses on pain management and addiction. His primary campaign issue is taking medical care out of the hands of politicians and lobbyists and putting it back into the hands of doctors and patients. Townsend supports alternative medical treatment. He was active with the effort to adopt the Medical Marijuana Law.

I am passionate for my causes. I’ve been very involved in the new Medical Marijuana Law, helping to forge the Bonafide Dr/Pt Relationship bill that defined the standard of care.

Robert Townsend is endorsed by former mayor of Cadillac William Barnett. He received a B- score with the National Rifle Association. Robert Townsend has a campaign website and Facebook page for more information.

Robert Corbett is the other Democratic candidate running for the 97th State House District on August 2nd. Corbett lives in Gladwin with his wife and two daughters. He graduated from the University of Michigan College of Engineering and attended Indiana University School of Law, where he earned his law degree. He has worked as a patent and trademark attorney, and he and his wife, Rebecca Corbett, practice law together in Gladwin.

The issues Corbett feels strongest about are education, jobs, and personal freedoms. Corbett believes better funding for our schools will improve them. He also wants to fight for jobs that pay a living wage. Minimum wage increases don’t help people get out of poverty. Finally, Corbett believes Lansing needs a legislature that responds to the people, so they can better hold it accountable. For more information, you can visit Robert Corbett’s website and Facebook page.

Make sure to get out and vote on August 2nd. Support our Democratic Party candidates.