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.

 

Pokemon Go Puts a Stop to Traverse City U-Pick Raspberry Farm

Saturday , 16, July 2016 Up North Progressive Community 43 Comments

Folks heading out to Potter Road Raspberry Farm in Traverse City this weekend will be in for an unpleasant surprise. The farm is closed all weekend long, and after they reopen on Monday, July 18, u-pick will no longer be available. The change is due to an unpleasant situation that happened on Thursday, July 14, when people arrived not to pick berries, but to play Pokemon Go, the new game that encourages people to get out of the house to find characters. Game players were not using the best judgment while out playing the game, and became a nightmare for owners Brenda and Mike Mahn.

The game was released only a week ago, but already there are stories all over the country about criminal activity and people getting hurt because they were too engrossed in the game to pay attention to their surroundings. A girl in Pennsylvania stepped into traffic while playing the game and was hit by a car. A man in New York hit a tree playing Pokemon Go while driving. There was the man who was stabbed in California, the girls in San Diego who found a dead body, and two grown men went over a bluff and had to be rescued because playing the game was more important than watching where they were going. In Quebec, Canada, two police officers were injured in their vehicle when a person playing Pokemon Go while driving crashed into them. There are reports of people being robbed while playing too.

And now, vandalism forced a raspberry farm to close to the public during the raspberry picking season.

Brenda Mahn, the owner of the Potter Road Raspberry Farm, told Up North Progressive on Friday that she had to close her farm after the damage done by the game players on Thursday. “They ran all over, throwing handfuls of berries at each other. They went through my zucchini patch and threw zucchini at each other. They threw the pails at each other and broke them. In twenty four years, I have never seen anything like this. They had their phones out and said they were playing a game.” Mahn had never heard of the game before, “I’m don’t use the computer, I don’t watch TV. I spend my days outside working.”

And adding insult to injury, people tried to drive away with the berries they picked without paying for them.

Potter Road Raspberry Farm is more than just a local u-pick berry patch. This is a major raspberry grower in the Traverse City area supplying local wineries and Cherry Capital Foods with fruit.

On Monday, when Potter Road Raspberries reopens, picked berries will be available and people can place orders. U-pick however is finished for the season. Brenda said after what happened on July 14, she can’t have more people coming to her farm to destroy property and produce just to play a game. Pokemon Go is becoming the definition of, “this is why we can’t have nice things.”

What Traverse City Area Public Schools Doesn’t Know About Jan Geht May Hurt Them

Monday , 11, July 2016 Up North Progressive Dr. Ingersoll, Section 16 Leave a comment

Jan Geht is an attorney living in Traverse City, Michigan. He practices law for Bowerman, Bowden, Ford, Clulo & Luyt, P.C., and used to work for the Tax Division of the United States Justice Department as a trial attorney. Geht recently announced his candidacy for Traverse City Area Public Schools Board. His campaign website depicts him as a leader of the community and loving, attentive family man.

Sounds so perfect and idyllic, right? This man couldn’t possibly have any skeletons in his closet. On his website, he states his purpose for wanting to be on the board:

We all know that TCAPS faces a number of external pressures (you don’t say!?), the most publicized of which is inadequate funding from the State. Providing high-quality education to all of our students in the face of this funding shortage is a very difficult problem.  We may not be able to change the per-pupil funding, but with strong elected local leadership, our schools can not only survive but thrive.  This will require Board members with a proven track record of working with others to successfully solve complex problems.

The glaring irony of this statement, and the one thing you never see mentioned on Jan Geht’s shiny website is that Geht currently has the pleasure and privilege of representing for the defense in THE for-profit charter school felony fraud scandal in the state of Michigan – United States v. Ingersoll. If you’ve never heard of this case before, that’s not an accident. The Traverse City Record Eagle bends over backwards to avoid wasting a millimeter of space in their pristine print daily about Steve Ingersoll, Grand Traverse Academy, and the millions of dollars in tax payer funds embezzled by the convicted felon Jan Geht has for a client.

Every parent of a child attending TCAPS needs to ask Jan Geht one question: “How will you work to ensure there is no conflict of interest with doing what’s best as a board member for Traverse City Area Public Schools, while you defend a convicted felon responsible for embezzlement and tax fraud of millions of dollars from a charter school that is in direct competition with TCAPS and responsible in part for creating the underfunding problem you claim you want to solve?”

Because it’s a sure bet TCAPS could have put $3.5 million to good use educating Traverse City’s children rather than being embezzled by Steve Ingersoll.

People who run campaigns to be elected to school boards usually do so because they’re motivated to change something with the school district they oversee. That motivation unfortunately isn’t always to the benefit of the school district or the children who attend the schools in that district. Jan Geht has spent the past two years representing Steve Ingersoll in a federal tax fraud case that should be national news, but somehow isn’t. If it were, Geht would probably reconsider running for the school board. He’s only doing his job that he maybe will get paid to do defending Ingersoll, but one has to wonder what is Jan Geht’s agenda for running for TCAPS school board. As Miss Fortune says, Chutzpah indeed.

Earth First! Closes Weekend Gathering in Michigan by Staging Protest at the Home of Attorney General Bill Schuette

Thursday , 7, July 2016 Up North Progressive Bill Schuette, Enbridge Line 5, Environment Leave a comment

Earth First! held a weekend gathering in the Manistee National Forest near Free Soil over the 4th of July Weekend. They concluded that gathering by holding a protest in front of Attorney General Bill Schuette’s Midland home on the afternoon of July 6, 2016; demonstrating against the Embridge Line 5 pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac.

If you have never heard of Earth First!, here is a brief description of what they do:

Earth First! formed in 1979, in response to an increasingly corporate, compromising and ineffective environmental community. It is not an organization, but a movement. There are no “members” of EF!, only Earth First!ers. We believe in using all of the tools in the toolbox, from grassroots and legal organizing to civil disobedience and monkeywrenching. When the law won’t fix the problem, we put our bodies on the line to stop the destruction. Earth First!’s direct-action approach draws attention to the crises facing the natural world, and it saves lives.

According to a story posted today on the Fen Valley Earth First! blog, the demonstration made up of 60 people hung banners between trees in the Schuette’s front lawn and staged a mock funeral. There is no mention of banging on windows and doors of the home, as reported in the Detroit News, and this photo shows some protesters on the sidewalk in front of the house playing drums. The blog promises a video is coming soon.

One protester, called Frida, was quoted in the Earth First blog:

“If public officials continue to threaten our safety, then we will continue to threaten their security.

AG Schuette’s wife was the only one at home at the time, and she says the protesters were banging on doors and windows so hard she thought they were going to break in.

Enbridge Line 5 is 63 years old. Despite Enbridge’s claims the pipeline is monitored constantly, the people of Michigan want it shut down after the rupture of Line 6B in 2010. That disaster dumped nearly a million gallons of crude oil into the Kalamazoo River causing the worst inland oil disaster in the United States. If a similar rupture were to happen to Line 5, it would spill millions of gallons of oil into the Straits of Michigan, affecting Lakes Huron and Michigan, and all of the rivers and tributaries that feed into the lakes. The Sierra Club, World Wildlife Federation, local tribal groups and many other Michiganians demand that Enbridge Line 5 be shut down immediately.

Earth First!’s methods are confrontational and designed to create a physical presence with law enforcement when they believe the environment is threatened. Protesting is acceptable, banging on the doors and windows of a private home and making the people inside feel threatened is not. There will likely be more about this story as information becomes available, and the truth about what happened at the Schuette house in Midland will be known.