Up North Progressive
Politics and commentary for Northern MichiganCommit To Vote Blue In 2016 No Matter Who Wins The Primary
Thursday , 24, December 2015 Candidates, Elections, Presidential Primary 2016 2 CommentsComments to the most recent Up North Progressive article was expected. One commenter suggested the article be removed. Another commenter informed me I would have to change the name of the blog if I don’t support Bernie Sanders for president. Then someone did some cheer leading for Bernie Sanders on Up North Progressive’s Facebook page and so on.
Bernie Sanders does not hold any copyright or patent for the word, “progressive.” This blog has always been and will continue to be a voice for progressive issues. My criticism of Bernie Sanders supporters is still spot on, and still the reason why this very progressive blog will not be supporting him in any way. Bernie Sanders is 99.9% right on labor, economic, and civil rights issues. On foreign policy, defense and other issues the next president will have to address he is very weak. I’m glad he’s running for president in the primary. I’m still going to vote for the candidate who has a real chance of winning the White House in 2016. That candidate is Hillary Clinton.
Keep in mind the next president will likely be appointing at least 3 new Supreme Court Justices. Do you really want a Republican doing that? Here in Michigan, we face losing another congressional seat due to declining population caused by slow economic growth – because we’re drowning in Republicans who can’t do anything other than figure out more ways to rig the election to their advantage and poison entire cities with lead.
After the primary is over and you still insist you’re not voting Democratic party because your candidate didn’t win, you will be part of the problem right along with every other person who votes Republican party. We have to work together and put an end to the real problems created by Republicans in Michigan and the nation. Commit to voting blue in 2016.
What Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders Have In Common
Tuesday , 22, December 2015 Candidates, Elections, Presidential Primary 2016 Leave a comment
Neither one of them will ever be nominated by any party to run for president. Now that we have that out of the way, let’s discuss why.
After 7 years of racism coming from the extreme and not so extreme fringe of the right, it’s no longer necessary to even put up a facade of decency on the campaign trail. On the GOP side, pure Republican Id Donald Trump says so many bigoted things one has to wonder why Jeb Bush even bothered hiding his racism with a Charles Murray dog whistle. Monday night in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Donald Trump once again jumped on the misogyny bandwagon by saying Hillary Clinton was “schlonged” by Barack Obama in 2008.
Bernie Sanders, like Donald Trump has an established history with misogyny. He also had the help of the NRA in getting elected to the House of Representatives. Sanders voting record on war in the Middle East leaves a lot to be desired too, but his fans don’t seem to care about any of that. They’re convinced Bernie has to be the next nominee, or else. Why are Sanders supporters so militantly demanding that everyone ‘feel the Bern’?
That’s the biggest problem with Bernie Sanders supporters and what they have in common with Donald Trump. It’s the creepy, Ron Paul worship vibe that comes off of the people who insist if The Donald/Bernie’s not the nominee they won’t vote at all. The echo chamber these people live in as they talk about their beloved candidate shields them from the reality of how their candidate is seen by the public. They honestly think their candidate is more popular because they refuse to notice anything else. Any protester who shows up at a Trump rally faces being physically assaulted by the crowd of knuckle-dragging mouth breathers assembled to hear their anointed one bark at them. Bernie Sanders also draws large crowds of people who are likewise fanatical about their candidate.
When the polls don’t validate what they believe to be true because polls have to rely on real data, then it’s the media/political party leader’s fault, and the conspiracy theories fly. Conspiracy theories about how the party chairperson is sabotaging the campaign so the preferred candidate wins is much easier to swallow than their candidate just isn’t as popular as they want to believe. It’s also easier to hate on Hillary Clinton because she’s a woman. The misogyny is just as bad with the Sanders hive mind as it is with Trump.
These are the kind of people who support Bernie Sanders. Just as hateful, bigoted and foul-mouthed as Donald Trump supporters. Trump is a carnival show. Sanders is the progressive Ron Paul. Both supported by the extreme radical edge of their party. The good news about these two is if the general election were today, Hillary Clinton would still win easily.
Until a couple of days ago, the links to both the Sanders and Clinton campaigns were on this blog, after encountering the misogynist Sanders hive mind, that link was removed. This is Up North Progressive, and progressive values will be preserved.
Michigan Department of Natural Resources Announces January Public Land Sale in Eastern Upper and Northern Lower Peninsula
Tuesday , 15, December 2015 DNR, Environment, Upper Peninsula Leave a comment
Today the Michigan DNR announced “surplus” public land for sale by sealed-bid auction beginning January 12 to February 10, 2016. Available land includes parcels in the Eastern Upper Peninsula and the Northern Lower Peninsula.
Due to these parcels being isolated from other land managed by the DNR, they’re considered of little use for public recreation and inconvenient to maintain. Some parcels are as large as 240 acres; some have river or lake frontage. Counties where the land is located include Alpena, Arenac, Cheboygan, Chippewa, Crawford, Gladwin, Mackinac, and St. Clair. Six parcels of land in Adams Township of Arenac County being offered make up over 680 acres.
Information about the land for sale, the procedure for making a bid, conditions of sale, and the minimum bid can be found here. Property listings won’t be available until January 12, 2016. Printable bid forms will also become available at that time. Bids must be submitted by Midnight, February 10, 2016. The bids will be opened on February 22, 2016.
For more information, contact Patricia Harlow at 517-284-5940, or by email at harlowp@michigan.gov
So Far “Classical” Education Not Strong In History or English: Tea Party Charter School
Saturday , 12, December 2015 Section 16, Tea Party Charter School Leave a commentSo if I read this correctly, Islam won’t be a totalitarian theocracy if they have better breathing.
It’s funny when a guy promoting for-profit schools that will teach Americans are better off living in a religious totalitarian theocracy condemns a religious totalitarian theocracy.
Bill Schuette Job Security: Aramark Edition
Thursday , 3, December 2015 Aramark, Bill Schuette, Nerd Problems 6 Comments
Aramark may be long gone, but thanks to the Nerd’s failure at privatizing the state prison food service, the Michigan taxpayers are stuck with the bill of cleaning up Snyder’s mess. Today Bill “I wanna be the next governor” Schuette announced a conviction on one of the former employees of Aramark who tried to pay an inmate in cigarettes to assault another inmate at Kinross Correctional Facility in the Upper Peninsula.
27 year old Michael Robert Young was a supervisor for Aramark when he approached the inmate and offered him tobacco products in exchange for arranging the attack on another inmate housed in a different prison, serving time for murdering a relative of Young’s. The inmate instead reported Young and he was arrested following an investigation by the Michigan State Police and Michigan Department of Corrections.
While Schuette pats himself on the back for Young’s conviction, the real crime is that Aramark received the contract to provide food for Michigan Department of Corrections inmates at all. Since their short time serving up maggots, spoiled food, garbage, sex, drugs and plenty of other specialty items – like contract hits – Aramark built up their reputation as a basement bargain service provider that Snyder touted would save the state millions of dollars, but instead cost taxpayers more as the company violated state regulations and prison policies repeatedly. It took less than two years for the Nerd to kick Aramark to the curb, but instead of being a decent human and admitting he made a mistake, he hired another contractor than have the MDC take control of the food services for Michigan’s prisons again.
Micheal Robert Young faces up to five years in prison, but the person who really needs to answer for his crimes against the taxpayers of Michigan is Rick Snyder. He is the reason the Aramark fiasco happened, he needs to answer for it, as well as an ever growing list of failures since Michigan had the misfortune of electing him governor – twice.
For-Profit Charter School Bad News For Baldwin
Thursday , 3, December 2015 Dr. Ingersoll, Section 16 2 Comments
This comment was submitted to the Lake County Star in response to their story about for-profit charter school Gateway To Success Academy’s presentation to the Baldwin Community Schools board. The Lake County Star did not publish the comment.
Last week, the Lake County Star reported Jamie Bandstra presented the new for-profit charter school, Gateway To Success Academy, to the Baldwin Community Schools Board. This is the last thing Superintendent Stiles Simmons and the community need to welcome to Lake County.
Jamie Bandstra was the principal of Journey Junior Senior High School in Scottville, an alternative education program providing 125 at-risk students with a pathway to high school graduation. He took that opportunity away from those young people when he pursued his plan to create direct competition with real public schools in the region. This profit first business could potentially take students away from Baldwin Community Schools, and with them funding Baldwin schools need.
Journey Junior Senior High School closed at the end of the 2015 school year. The former students are not guaranteed admission into Gateway To Success Academy, they have to apply along with other students. None of the former Journey staff were offered jobs either. For-profit charter schools routinely pay their staff less money than public schools, with fewer benefits and without the job security public school teachers have.
Gateway To Success is modeled after High Tech High, a chain of for-profit charter schools in San Diego, California. Parent and student reviews about these schools are very mixed. Many cite having to take remedial classes in college because High Tech High didn’t provide enough core subject instruction needed to do well in higher education. Their claim that 100% of their graduates were accepted into college is accomplished by requiring all of their students to apply to community colleges. This is not the model of “school choice” we need in Lake County.
For-profit charter schools have received well-deserved negative press recently. In 2014, the Detroit Free Press published a week-long expose on the billions spent on for-profit charter schools with very little to show for the money the state of Michigan gives them. Last month, the Center for Media and Democracy published a study that showed the Michigan Department of Education handed out nearly $2 million to “ghost” charter schools that never opened. Charter school scandals in Muskegon Heights and Pontiac are both centered on missing taxpayer money. Steve Ingersoll, founder of Grand Traverse Academy and Bay City Academy will be sentenced on December 8 for federal felony fraud after depositing nearly half of a $2 million line of credit into his personal bank account in an attempt to cover up $3.5 million he embezzled from Grand Traverse Academy.
With so much evidence showing for-profit charter schools only cause more problems for Michigan communities, I hope Superintendent Simmons and Baldwin Community Schools carefully consider the problems a for-profit charter school competing with our public schools for funds will cause for the community. Lake County can’t afford for-profit education like Gateway To Success Academy.
Religious Fanaticism Has No Denomination: Stand With Planned Parenthood
Sunday , 29, November 2015 Community, Michigan Women, Religious Fundamentalism, Tea Party, Tealiban Leave a comment
… belief is the death of intelligence” – Robert Anton Wilson
On social media anti-choicers applauded Robert L. Dear for stopping the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood from murdering more babies while most of the GOP presidential candidates remain mute over the attack on the health care clinic. So far, Mike Huckabee exercised his lack of cognitive ability to parrot what he read on Twitter. It’s not like he has a chance of winning the GOP nomination, so we’ll give him a pass for opening his mouth.
We don’t know what procedures or services the health clinic were busy with on Friday, November 27, as Dear walked into the Planned Parenthood parking lot with his rifle and started shooting at people in cars and on the street. We do know he was never at any bank. The target was always Planned Parenthood. Once he was inside the building, he shot more people, wounding 9 and killing 3 before surrendering to the police. Dear shut the clinic down, but did he stop any abortions that day?
It’s more likely he stopped people from receiving STD testing and treatment, cancer screenings, prenatal care, or engaged couples having premarital tests. He likely stopped people from picking up their birth control, such as women needing hormone therapy, or married couples responsibly managing their family size. Most importantly, people needing health care services who can’t afford them elsewhere were there that day.
It’s obvious the hate speech directed at Planned Parenthood over the fake videos about selling baby parts – something Planned Parenthood has never done, but anti-choicers vehemently believe – is what led Robert Dear to shoot up the clinic. Hate speech repeated by politicians and the media to the point that even while people were being shot and killed, brainwashed anti-choicers continued to parrot that hate speech on the internet and still do it now.
The unfortunate truth about this tragedy is that no matter how much we share facts, belief will prevail. It does no good to tell anti-choicers the Operation Rescue-backed videos are fake, that Obamacare doesn’t pay for abortions, or that women seeking reproductive health care are not sluts. Anti-choicers are beyond understanding the facts and just don’t care. They believe they’re right, and that’s good enough for them.
Forget about anti-choicers. Those of us who know the truth need to support Planned Parenthood now more than ever. The work they do keeping Americans healthy must be protected so they can continue. The more work done to educate people about the truth, the sooner we can put an end to radical religious-fueled violence.
In Which Gary Glenn Makes Up North Progressive’s Point With A Single Comment
Tuesday , 24, November 2015 LGBT Rights, Nerd Problems, Religious Fundamentalism, Same Sex Marriage, Tea Party, Tealiban Leave a comment
Like a narcissistic moth to a media flame, Michigan State Representative for the 98th District Gary Glenn found this humble blog with a post about how much he craves attention, especially when it pairs his name with someone who is more famous or powerful than he is. If he does it enough, some of that power might just rub off on him and make him famous and powerful too. Gary Glenn is the kind of opportunistic politician who floats from place to place, seizing opportunity whenever possible until he’s burned all of his bridges with his attack dog methods and has to slink off to a place where people don’t know him by reputation, yet. What’s interesting about his comments about this blog however: He didn’t object to being called a homophobe, or that he hates people who don’t worship the same invisible sky alien that he does in the exact same way (Muslims and Christians worship the same deity, although some Christians refuse to acknowledge that). Nor did he get upset about his history of making it harder for working people to work for a decent living wage. What was his objection to the article? The use of an altered photo.
There are lots of pictures of Gary Glenn standing next to famous people, like this picture from 1987 with “from my cold dead hands” Charlton Heston. Remember a couple of years ago when Gary decided to practice the black art of necromancy and bring Charlton Heston back from the dead to stump for him during his campaign for the Michigan state house? Apparently the only famous person willing to campaign for him was a dead man.
And what about this just as homophobic person, James Dobson of Focus on the Family? Gary Glenn objects to photos being cropped whenever he’s in them, because it takes away the whole purpose of being photographed with a well-known person when you’re an opportunist wanting as much attention as possible.
What Gary Glenn doesn’t understand is all of the people he likes to be photographed standing next to are just as horrible as he is. We’re not impressed by all of these images of people who hate Americans so much they would rather destroy America rather than let people they don’t like live here, much less enjoy all of the same rights.
We need more people to see that opportunistict grifters like Gary Glenn are not working for the people they represent, but for their own personal agenda to marginalize and discriminate against a large majority of Americans, because they’re not just like Gary Glenn.
What about the cropped image Gary Glenn keeps whinging about in the comments? The woman he’s standing next to in the image has a famous last name, and everyone knows how much right wingers love to use minorities to try and convince people they’re not bigots. The fact that she’s black had nothing to do with why the image was cropped. The picture was cropped because it fit better on the page that way. As consolation, there are lots of other uncropped pictures of Gary standing next to more powerful people than he will ever be, because that is the only reason he wants those pictures seen.
Let’s end this with a quote from an Idaho Republican who got to know Gary Glenn very well:
OK Gary. You have always been a loud squawker even when you were on the Ada County Commission. So, in the spirit of total disclosure, I have to say you are the only Republican incumbent I ever voted against. You made such a disaster of your one term in office that you became an embarrassment even in the heart of heavily Republican Ada County, Idaho. That colors my opinion of you. In my prejudiced mind, you started off with two strikes against you. You pretty well burned your bridges here in Idaho with a lot of the Republican party save for a few, You left Idaho because of your reputation. Say whatever you want, but your value in Idaho politics was severely limited by your approach.
As for the image? Do a google image search if you really need to see who he’s standing next to.
Gary Glenn Continues to Hate People Who Are Not Gary Glenn: My Name’s in the News Edition
Sunday , 22, November 2015 LGBT Rights, Nerd Problems, Religious Fundamentalism, Same Sex Marriage, Tea Party, Tealiban 10 Comments
Gary Glenn documented every instance of his name on his Facebook page this week in relation to Rick Snyder being the first state governor to ban, then put on hold relocating Syrian refugees to Michigan. Glenn shared his press release and quotes from online news, broadcast, and print sources such as Midland Daily News, Mlive, Detroit Free Press, Salon, various right wing news sources, and even international news, the London Daily Heil Mail.
Glenn probably loves the fact he has a new group of people to publicly hate now that the Supreme Court of the United States took away his ability to discriminate against gay people who want to get married. Glenn was instrumental in drafting the laws that made same sex marriage illegal in Michigan, even in case Michigan residents went to Canada to get married once it became legal there to do so.
The North Carolina native also hates working people. He helped get Right to Work passed in Idaho and Michigan. He likes to move around to different states, run for political office until the poll numbers don’t work out before moving on to the next state, bringing with him his burning hatred for anyone who isn’t male, white, fundamentalist Christian, and flaming heterosexual just like him.
It was not so long ago Gary Glenn was part of the tea bagger trifecta with Todd Courser and Cindy Gamrat. All three publicly supported the new speaker of the state house to adopt the Hasturt Rule when the new session began in January of 2015. They also promised to push their tea party agenda on the rest of the state. By June of 2015, Gary Glenn very prominently made it clear he didn’t consider himself a member of the Contract on Liberty Friends anymore. It’s known by the rest of the world now what people in the Lansing capital were aware of back then: Gamrat was firmly in Courser’s grip.
But thanks to his well-timed press release, Gary Glenn’s name got lots of media exposure as the guy who suggested the Nerd do exactly what Snyder inanely decided to do a week ago. Michigan’s one tough idiot created an avalanche of stupid around the country, as other governors went full lemming at the idea of scary Muslims moving into their state. None of the governors have any control over whether Syrian refugees come to their states or not however, the federal government has jurisdiction.
Hatred comes from fear and cowardice. Gary Glenn is the biggest coward of them all.