Michigan Republicans STILL care not for this whole "voting" thing.

**brizee** · May-12-14, 07:28 AM

http://www.freep.com/article/2014051...y-Richardville

"If it wasn’t a situation I felt was critical, I’d let the [[ballot initiative) process go along as it is,” the Monroe Republican added. “This is just too important.”

**Danny** · May-12-14, 01:16 PM

The People of the Great State of 'Mich-ississippi' will not be silent of the minimum wage hike to $10.10 a hr. They will be heard. It's time for struggling Americans to get the piece of the pie.

**Jimaz** · May-12-14, 02:35 PM

So instead of amending the state’s current minimum-wage statute [[as Jones’ bill would do), Richardville’s proposal would repeal that statute and replace it with a new, essentially similar one. His strategy — which he readily copped to in a phone conversation Friday afternoon — is to make sure that, even if Raise Michigan succeeds in its bid to amend the current minimum-wage statute, it won’t count, because the statute they want to amend will have ceased to exist....

More disturbingly, this is the third time Republicans have used this sort of subterfuge to subvert the initiative process since they won control of all three branches of state government in 2010. Previous casualties include a voter initiative to repeal an unpopular emergency manager law and a measure to permit wolf hunting.

The pattern is clear: If the electorate is threatening to turn on you, change the rules....

So if they can't win fairly and squarely, their prescription is to betray the very voters who elected them.

Lovely ethics. Just lovely.

**rb336** · May-12-14, 06:23 PM

Originally Posted by Jimaz

So if they can't win fairly and squarely, their prescription is to betray the very voters who elected them.

Lovely ethics. Just lovely.

Since their conversion to the conservative party after Theodoric of New Yoric, they have been all about restricting the right to vote, with various movements including restricting the vote to property owners [[my dad supported that) to all the various schemes of today.

**Jimaz** · May-14-14, 07:48 PM

War of words rages in Lansing as minimum-wage bills multiply

But one of the bills — which would raise the state’s minimum wage from $7.40 to only $8.15 an hour — introduced last week by Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, would render the petition drive moot because the bill repeals the law the coalition is trying to change.

The coalition came to Lansing Tuesday to protest Richardville’s counter-bill. And by day’s end, yet another minimum wage bill was introduced in the House of Representatives by state Rep. Margaret O’Brien, R-Portage, hiking the hourly rate to $8.15 but not repealing the existing law....

“This [[Richardville) bill would render the ballot drive meaningless. But this sort of trickery is nothing new. Republicans in Lansing have changed the rules all along in the middle of the game,” he said.

It’s something that’s already happened twice in the recent past. When Michigan voters repealed the state’s emergency manager law in November 2012, the Legislature just passed a replacement law a month later, and emergency managers remain in several financially struggling cities and school districts, including Detroit.

And when opponents of a wolf hunt in the Upper Peninsula turned in enough signatures to put the issue on this November’s ballot, the Legislature passed another law to circumvent the petition. The “Keep Michigan Wolves Protected,” rallied and got enough signatures to get on the ballot — again — to repeal the second law passed by the Legislature. So there will be two anti-wolf hunt proposals on the November ballot and possibly a third, by a group of people supporting the hunt....

Come on now. Stop competing to be the biggest GOP deadbeat. Stop trying to weasel out of what you know you owe. Just pay your bills like the rest of us and STFU.

**brizee** · May-27-14, 05:50 PM

These motherfuckers really just do what they want when they want.

The Taliban. Sick of being held hostage by these people.

**Jimaz** · May-27-14, 10:17 PM

The Raise Michigan coalitions, which spearheaded the petition drive, still plans to turn more than 300,000 signatures into the Secretary of State on Wednesday. But the petitions become moot because the law the initiative is trying to change was repealed by the Legislature today.

Trickery. Shame.

**guito13** · May-29-14, 12:11 PM

Originally Posted by Danny

The People of the Great State of 'Mich-ississippi' will not be silent of the minimum wage hike to $10.10 a hr. They will be heard. It's time for struggling Americans to get the piece of the pie.

You know, not that long ago, getting a piece of the pie meant working hard, getting an education, starting a business, working your way up.....now it seems like everyone feels they just have to breathe and put in their 8 hours to get ahead....

**bailey** · May-30-14, 09:27 AM

Originally Posted by guito13

You know, not that long ago, getting a piece of the pie meant working hard, getting an education, starting a business, working your way up.....now it seems like everyone feels they just have to breathe and put in their 8 hours to get ahead....

No. that is not the reason for the increase. If we have a minimum wage, it should keep pace with inflation. Why? because I'm tired of subsidizing Wal Mart and McDs labor costs through welfare programs. I want a minimum wage that, if one is full time on minimum wage, they make enough to disqualify them from the vast majority of those programs.

whether or not we SHOULD have a minimum wage is another debate. One the right is too cowardly to have because they know what that would do to their base.

**guito13** · May-30-14, 10:38 AM

Originally Posted by bailey

No. that is not the reason for the increase. If we have a minimum wage, it should keep pace with inflation. Why? because I'm tired of subsidizing Wal Mart and McDs labor costs through welfare programs. I want a minimum wage that, if one is full time on minimum wage, they make enough to disqualify them from the vast majority of those programs.

whether or not we SHOULD have a minimum wage is another debate. One the right is too cowardly to have because they know what that would do to their base.

Subsidize via. welfare/taxes or via. higher food/service/etc. cost....maybe we have more control choosing if we WANT to subsidize them if we go the latter route...

Either way, my comment was simply stating that people should not think they DESERVE anything [[in terms of wealth), they should WORK for it.

**Jimaz** · May-30-14, 11:12 AM

Originally Posted by guito13

... people should not think they DESERVE anything [[in terms of wealth), they should WORK for it.

Somebody better tell that to the 1%. It seems they didn't receive that memo.

DetroitYES Home » Non Detroit Issues » Thom Hartmann » CEO Pay Sets New Record!

**guito13** · June-01-14, 08:40 PM

Originally Posted by Jimaz

Somebody better tell that to the 1%. It seems they didn't receive that memo.

DetroitYES Home » Non Detroit Issues » Thom Hartmann » CEO Pay Sets New Record!

While I agree that CEO pay is out of hand, you nor I dont know how those people got in those positons...I would have to assume some, hopefully most, worked their way there.

**Jimaz** · June-01-14, 09:35 PM

Originally Posted by guito13

While I agree that CEO pay is out of hand, you nor I dont know how those people got in those positons...I would have to assume some, hopefully most, worked their way there.

Your assumptions and hopes are subjective judgements.

Yes they worked, but they worked less to get there. Obscenely less. That's the whole point of The top 1 percent don't work harder for their money — they work less.

What we can say objectively, though, is that less of the top 1 percent's income comes from work. That's because the top 1 percent — and even more so for the top 0.1 percent — make a heck of a lot of money from capital gains. Thirty-eight percent of the top 1 percent's income consists of gains from capital, meaning stock dividends, bond interest payments, rents on land and property, etc. For the top 0.1 percent, that's 51.9 percent of their income. The top 1 percent take home above 75 percent of all capital gains. Meanwhile, for the bottom 80 percent, just 0.7 percent of their income comes from capital gains. So for the top 1 percent, getting money is often a function of receiving a return on capital instead of working.

Wealth ≠ work.
Capital ≠ labor.

Originally Posted by guito13

...now it seems like everyone feels they just have to breathe and put in their 8 hours to get ahead....

More likely that the lazy, layabout 1% wanted to just have to put in their 8 seconds to stay ahead while everyone else carried the 8-hour workload of the 1%. The 1% are the parasitic saboteurs in power.

Stop apologizing for those 1% deadbeats.

**rb336** · June-02-14, 06:58 AM

Originally Posted by guito13

While I agree that CEO pay is out of hand, you nor I dont know how those people got in those positons...I would have to assume some, hopefully most, worked their way there.

When you see things like the CEO of Home Depot cutting wages to save $40 million, then giving himself and other execs bonuses totaling $40 million...