Up North Progressive
Politics and commentary for Northern MichiganMichigan’s Free Fishing Weekend Is This Saturday and Sunday
Tuesday , 9, June 2015 DNR Leave a comment
Twice a year the Michigan Department of Natural Resources offers free fishing weekends to anyone interested in fishing Michigan’s Great Lakes or over 11,000 inland lakes. Fishing is also free on rivers and streams, any place in the state where people may want to fish. The summer free fishing weekend for 2015 is this Saturday, June 13, and Sunday, June 14.
Anyone aged 17 and older wanting to fish in Michigan is required to purchase a fishing license. In an effort to encourage more people to go fishing, the DNR offers the chance for people who can’t afford a license, or who have never gone fishing before to give this great sport a try. Research shows that children don’t get the opportunity to fish as they used to in the past. The free fishing weekend is a great family opportunity.
Events are scheduled all over the state for the weekend. Some locations will hold fishing contests, and even have fishing gear available to use if you don’t have your own rod and reel. The weekend weather reports show the rain clearing out and dry weather for both Saturday and Sunday.
Other fishing regulations, such as catch limits will still apply. Take the whole family fishing this weekend, it’s fun for everyone.
Petition Campaign For Vote-By-Mail Begins: Let’s Vote, Michigan!
Friday , 5, June 2015 Community 2 Comments
Back in November of 2014 Up North Progressive published a story about how one state in the US had a significantly high turnout of voters despite it being a midterm election. The reason why they had a successful election while everyone else battled apathy and GOP-fueled disenfranchisement was because every registered voter in that state received their ballot in the mail three weeks before election night. The state is Oregon, where 69.5% of eligible voters casting a ballot is considered low voter turnout. In Michigan, only 41% bothered to show up at the polls in 2014.
Michigan has far too many obstacles that make voting difficult. Precincts open at 7 am and close at 8 pm, but many people are on their way to work at 7 am, and people come home from work at night, eat dinner, and usually have evening activities going on that keeps them from voting. There are also problems with people working 2nd shift or 3rd shift that may find it difficult to vote. Then there are the people working more than one job trying to make ends meet who simply don’t have the time to get to the polls to vote. Absentee ballots are available if you provide a reason why you can’t go to your precinct on election day, and usually the reasons are you’re a student or traveling (Often due to work), or have a health reason that keeps you from going to the polls. While other states have adopted early voting and no-reason absentee ballots, Michigan has not.
Oregon leads the nation in making voting the most accessible for registered voters. Your ballot arrives three weeks before election day, giving you plenty of time to read over the candidates, ballot issues, and being able to make informed choices. Ballots need to be mailed a week before election day, and the state provides drop off boxes for people who wait until the last minute. Oregon saves about $3 million on elections by having people vote this way.
And it works. Elections are fraud proof; the double envelope the voter uses to mail their ballot ensures ballots are not tampered with. Oregon provides a website voters can check the status of their ballot and whether it has arrived at their voting precinct. And this year, the governor of Oregon signed a new law that automatically registers every person who can legally vote in the state. Registering every American citizen when they turn 18 was recently endorsed by Democratic Party presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Washington State and Colorado has also adopted the vote-by-mail system. California is in the process of introducing vote-by-mail in that state. Now a group of people in Michigan want to make Michigan the next vote-by-mail state.
Let’s Vote, Michigan! are currently working on petition language to submit to the State Board of Canvassers in Lansing. They’re collecting donations to print petitions and will need help canvassing for signatures in order for the petition to make it on the 2016 ballot. This ballot initiative will require changing the Michigan State Constitution, and if successful will make Michigan a vote-by-mail state.
And with Michigan’s most recent low voter turnout, petition canvassers will need to collect fewer signatures than petitioners needed for ballot initiatives before the 2014 election.
No one can argue that registering more eligible voters in Michigan and having them cast a ballot is a bad thing. This is the most bipartisan issue Michiganians can get behind and support. Let’s Vote, Michigan! is ready to take the lead. Please join them and help them make vote-by-mail a reality in our state.
If You Weren’t Disgusted With The Duggars Yet The Fox News Interview Should Have Done It
Thursday , 4, June 2015 Religious Fundamentalism Leave a comment
Watching the Duggar interview last night was infuriating and painful. For sixty minutes two grown adults acting like irresponsible brats blamed everyone else for losing their TV show. No one should be surprised, These are people who belong to a cult so ridiculous it teaches them they can be as irresponsible and commit any crime they want, as long as they ask God’s forgiveness before they die it’s fine. Making excuses for everything and blaming everyone but themselves illustrates why these are people who have no business having a single child.
That’s not the part of the interview that was the most bothersome.
Listening to 48 year old Michelle Duggar talk in that sing-song little girl voice that’s normal when you’re 5 reminded me of interviews done with women from the fundamentalist Mormon cult in Texas. In 2008, 400 children were taken into custody after allegations of child abuse, including underage girls being raped by older men were brought against the Warren Jeffs cult. There were interviews with the mothers of the children and every. single. one. spoke with that same little girl baby voice. The same situation for the women living there exists in the Duggar household. The man is the authority, and everyone else must submit to him and never question any decision he makes. Michelle Duggar has given birth to 19 kids because she had no say in how many she has. If Jim Bob says we’re going to have more, then Michelle will do everything she can to get pregnant. There’s a term for someone suffering in a living situation like Michelle Duggar – Stockholm Syndrome.
TLC needs to keep this show off the air.
With Potato You Get Fresh Protein: Aramark Strikes Again
Wednesday , 3, June 2015 Nerd Problems 2 Comments
Prison inmates found maggots living in potatoes they were cutting on June 2nd at G. Robert Cotter Prison in Jackson, Michigan. The kitchen was closed and inmates were sent back to their units while the prison shut down the food line and cleaned it. All potatoes in the prison were thrown away.
This is the latest episode in a long-running series of disasters for Michigan’s new for-profit food service company, Aramark. While it’s possible, some of the maggot-infested potatoes were served to prisoners before the discovery, no one can be certain. Rick Snyder replaced the union employees that worked for Michigan’s state prison system with the for-profit company in 2013. Since then, there has been numerous problems with maggots on the serving line, not enough food, improper substitutions for food, spoiled food, and feeding inmates actual garbage.
Food problems are not the only issue plaguing Aramark. There have been problems with the staff they hired to run the prison food service. Employees have been caught bringing drugs and contraband to inmates, having sex with inmates, and even offering to murder people outside the prison for inmates. Despite the growing list of violations with the company, the state has quietly set aside fines levied on the company and Rick Snyder insists Aramark is doing a good enough job to keep their contract with the state.
For-profit companies like Aramark are supposed to save the state money by hiring scab non-union workers at lower wages. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for. Just cut open a potato to see the quality Michigan gets for its savings.
The Only Amicus Brief The Supreme Court Needs For Any Abortion Case
Tuesday , 2, June 2015 Michigan Women, Religious Fundamentalism Leave a comment
Once upon a time in America no true conservative would dream of telling another person what they were allowed to do or not do. The only concern was no other breathing, living person be harmed with what an individual did. Pretty simple, right? These days, too many people are confused on what being a real conservative means. They think it means they have to tell people what they can do with their bodies or who they share they bodies with.
The Supreme Court may be hearing a case that would allow states to further undermine a woman’s right to choose her own reproductive health care. The state of Mississippi has one licensed women’s health clinic left that provides abortions, and the state legislature wants to force it to close. Making women to go to another state for health care is barbaric, but anti-choice supporters prefer to tell other people what to do with their bodies, rather than be real conservatives and leave them alone. Federal courts have struck down Mississippi’s law, stating that even though Texas passed a similar law, there were forty open clinics in that state, and the law there reduced it to five.
So why are anti choice people so adamant about controlling women’s bodies? Barry Goldwater, a man no one would suggest wasn’t a conservative, even said abortion is not a conservative issue. There is obviously more going on here than trying to protect fetuses. If the Supreme Court wants to be truly conservative in making a decision about any upcoming abortion case, here is the correct, conservative position to have:
Anything other than this is not conservative. What the states legislatures and anti-choicers want to do to women’s choice is expand the role of government. Expanding is the opposite of conserve, therefore anti choice people are anti conservative.
People who believe their imaginary sky alien gives them authority over other people are not conservatives, they are authoritarians. Being anti-choice is being an authoritarian. Anti-choices are not at all interested in preserving life, they want to control and shame women into living the way they believe women should live – subservient to authority. If the court hears this case, the anti-choice authoritarians may get their way on controlling women’s lives and health care decisions.
Dan Benishek Hates Clean Water Because He Cares About Northern Michigan Farmers
Sunday , 31, May 2015 Environment, Upper Peninsula 1 Comment
Dan Benishek is keeping busy these days. Between breaking promises not to run for a fourth term because he has to help the veterans and attending dedication ceremonies for post offices, he also wants to be known as the congressman who’s looking out for farmers. Like other Republicans, he’s mad at the Environmental Protection Agency for trying to do a better job protecting American water. Why? Because according to Benishek, if the EPA gets their way, farmers in Michigan won’t be able to farm anymore:
“Under the guise of protecting our waterways, today’s announcement by the EPA is nothing more than a power grab that will add more bureaucracy without any real benefit. Among the most impacted will be farmers, and agriculture is a major part of our economy in Northern Michigan. From talking to farmers around our district, they feel like the EPA has railroaded them with this new rule without justification and without understanding the impact it will have on jobs. This is exactly the type of bureaucratic red tape that we do not need. I will continue to fight against this rule so that farms and businesses in our community do not suffer needless regulatory burden.”
It seems odd that Dan Benishek would talk to farmers about the new Waters of the United States rule, as it’s stated that this new rule makes no changes to agricultural use of water at all, and in fact expands agricultural exemptions in some cases. Why are farmers concerned about a rule that will not affect their ability to farm?
The Waters of the United States rule is a clarification of the 1972 Clean Water Act. The purpose of this act is to keep major bodies of water in the United States clean of pollution, and this means regulating the waterways that feed those large bodies of water. The Supreme Court ruled that the act wasn’t clear enough in 2001 and 2006, and the Waters of the United States rule is an attempt by the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to better explain what the act is supposed to do. So why is this controversial?
Because President Obama. He’s using his constitutionally legal executive authority to make it happen. Anything President Obama wants, whether it’s clean water or the Heritage Foundation’s plan to make everyone buy health insurance, Congress instantly has to hate it and do everything they can to stop him. This is where the Regulatory Integrity Protection Act comes in.
This act voted by the House and now in committee in the Senate would stop the EPA from using the Waters of the United States rule because despite it not affecting water used for agriculture in any way, Republicans like Dan Benishek insist it will. Even though it won’t.
What could be the real reason for Republicans wanting to stop the EPA’s attempt at clarifying the Clean Water Act? Perhaps it has to do with the EPA’s report on fracking that will be released in 2016. It was supposed to be released in 2014, but had to be delayed. The fracking industry is exempt from following regulations set by the Safe Drinking Water Act through the Energy Policy Act passed by Congress in 2005 under the direction of former Vice President Dick Cheney.
The Energy Policy Act, which Congress passed in 2005, exempted fracking from the Safe Drinking Water Act, which seeks to protect the public water supply from contamination from toxic materials. The oil and gas industry could lose this loophole if the EPA study finds that fracking has negative consequences for public water supply.
By deflecting American attention away from the real purpose, Republicans want us to think President Obama is destroying jobs for clean water. Making sure corporations aren’t poisoning us with toxic chemicals in our water and air is why the EPA exists. Republicans are determined to hamstring the EPA, and we don’t need to waste time wondering why.
Dan says he’s doing it for the farmers. Just like he consistently votes to cut veteran’s benefits because he cares about veterans. Sure Dan, Northern Michigan can trust you to keep your word.
Fund Raising GOP Style: Only One Answer Matters On Our Multi-page Questionnaire
Saturday , 30, May 2015 Presidential Primary 2016 Leave a comment
Not that political party fund raising ever stops (just ask any member of the Democratic Party to show you their email inbox some time), but it’s interesting to see the level of creativity the GOP conjures when asking for funds. Since most Republican-leaning people still get the bulk of their correspondence via a metal box on a post in front of their house, daily email alerts are probably not as effective as slick snail mail asking for money. Or in the case of this example, outright extortion.
A fund raiser cleverly disguised as a very official looking census questionnaire would make any FOX News-fueled person convinced Obama’s America is a fascistcommunistgaynazimuslimdeathpanel police state willing to fill it out and let the GOP know just how mad as hell they are about the fact they’re living in a fascistcommunistgaynazimuslimdeathpanel police state. It comes with a four page letter and very official looking census envelope.
The letter is what you would expect from a GOP fund raiser pretending to look like an official government census document. It contains a long litany of all of the evil Obama has done to our country and without your help, it will continue unless the Republican Party wins the White House in 2016. The questions are what you would expect to see on FOX News, sans the typical y-axis impaired graph.
Anyone who is still first, a member of the Republican Party and second, capable of critical thinking must know this is in no way an official census. There is only one section of questions anyone at the RNC cares about, and it’s this:
More specifically, this:
The RNC knows they’re duping people scared to death after six years of propaganda that Obama is the Antichrist into sending fifteen dollars to “process” their completed census. What these people don’t know is the census they took time out of their day to fill out will never be read. No political party conducts research in this way. It’s all done by telephone. The only answer the GOP is interested on this questionnaire is whether you’re going to send them fifteen dollars, or perhaps more. Probably not the answer they want, but certainly the answer the Republican Party deserves:
The only question left – is it worth a stamp to send it in?
The Up North Progressive has been busy for the past week, not much time to write witty banter about Northern Michigan and politics.
My father passed away on May 20.
I was offered a full time job on May 20.
Things should be as back to normal as can be expected next week. Maybe. Thank you for your patience.
Quiverfull, Homeschooling, and Religious Fundamentalism: The Rot From Within That Threatens America
Tuesday , 26, May 2015 Religious Fundamentalism 3 Comments
Last week, Quiverfull cult member Josh Duggar admitted he had raped his sisters and girls in another family when he was a teen living in the home of the Christian patriarchy family brought into American homes via television. TLC has since canceled the show and several people within the religious fundamentalism movement, like Mike Huckabee, have come out in support of Josh Duggar and the Duggar family. The public so far has seen transcripts of confessions made by Josh Duggar, and we know now that the police officer who never sought charges against Duggar currently serves a prison term because he too is a child sex offender.
Most people know the Duggars are fundamentalist Christians and the family homeschools their children. What many people don’t know about the Duggars and other families like them is they are part of a strict religious cult that teaches the husband and father is the leader of the household, and his wife and children must submit to him in all things; including how to deal with a sexual predator son. This cult also demands they must have as many children as God gives them because God wants them to have them for the spiritual war that is coming to America.
Quiverfull is a main driving force in the homeschooling movement in the United States. It is through the Christian patriarchy movement that Quiverfull wives fulfill their role of raising children to be warriors for God. Boys are taught they will eventually be the unquestioned leaders of their families, representing the will of God in their home. Girls are taught to submit to the men in their lives in every way as women are beneath men according to the Bible. When Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar both enthusiastically say they want to have more children, that is Jim Bob talking for both of them. Michelle isn’t permitted to have an opinion on how many times she gets pregnant. In fact, if Jim Bob believes she is not being accommodating and pleasing enough in bed, he can go to their church and ask the church elders to discipline her for disobedience.
The main homeschooling organization for the Quiverfull cult was Vision Forum. The Duggars were very closely related to this homeschooling organization before the founder of the group confessed to having an extramarital affair. The therapy center where the Duggars took Josh, The Institute in Basic Life Principles, was founded by Bill Gothard. Gothard has since left the organization he founded after over 30 women accused him of sexual assault. Other members of this ministry have also been forced to resign for sexually abusing women and girls. It’s also worthy to note that one of the main funders for Gothard’s ministry is the Green family, owners of Hobby Lobby.
Many people have asked why the media hasn’t said more about Josh Duggar’s victims. Girls in two families were sexually assaulted by Duggar, and a look into the therapy he received from Bill Gothard explains why. Fundamentalist Christians teach girls within the cult movement that if a man has lustful thoughts of them, they are to blame for it. This is why they must always dress modestly in public, and never do anything that would send inappropriate signals to a boy or man. Josh Duggar was taught by IBLP that it was the victim’s fault he sexually abused them.
The boy sinned because the girls were not obedient and submissive enough.
Quiverfull and other fundamentalist religious cults that teach Christian patriarchy and submission of women all organize in the same way – homeschooling. Homeschooling organizations are where these people come together and this is how the religious right has infiltrated and turned the homeschooling movement into a training ground for more cult members. Vision Forum was a Christian homeschooling organization. Bill Gothard’s Advanced Training Institute also provides homeschooling curriculum. Accelerated Christian Education is another curriculum provider for homeschooling that also provides a model for churches to run a school. The emphasis on all of these programs is teaching children complete obedience to the father and church, and training to be warriors for God. Pasquale Battaglia’s attempts to open charter schools through Hillsdale College comes from the same fundamentalist Christian background, and it’s rotten to the core.
Not every religious fundamentalist is part of Quiverfull, but the same homeschooling background that requires complete obedience to God and a very strict, structured religious life is prevalent in a number of politicians currently serving in the state legislature in Lansing. They believe many of the same things the Duggars do, and very possibly practice a similar home life they believe all American families should live. Religious fundamentalism is as un-American as it gets, and the Duggars are showing us why. Keep this in mind as we get closer to the Supreme Court making same-sex marriage legal in the United States. They want all Americans to live the way they do, but consenting adults of the same sex wanting to marry are the immoral ones.
