Michigan Unions Targeted Obama Enemy: Koch Brothers

[Geee]

Investors Business Daily:

Politics: The union mob that tore down that tent outside the Michigan state capitol was aiming at a free-market advocacy group on the president's enemies list promoting right-to-work and other pro-growth measures.

In an editorial headlined "Drinking the Kochs' Kool-Aid," the Detroit Free Press, a newspaper in a decaying city with 18.9% unemployment, opined it was pressure from the Koch brothers, David H. and Charles G., who head a Kansas-based conglomerate with 50,000 U.S.-based employees, that moved Michigan Republicans to make the state adopt right-to-work legislation.

Randy Richardville, majority leader of the state Senate, and Gov. Rick Snyder may have been pressured, the newspaper said, by Americans for Prosperity, whose tent full of seniors and women was torn down by union thugs Tuesday, and pressed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), both financially backed by the Koch brothers. ALEC's model right-to-work bill, it said, "mirrors the Michigan law word-for-word."

[Casino67]

Like Obama, unions blame someone else for their misfortunes.

[Valin]

@Geee @Casino67

 

Insight: How Republicans engineered a blow to Michigan's powerful unions

Nick Carey and Bernie Woodall

Dec 13, 2012

 

(Reuters) - As a trained aerospace engineer, Patrick Colbeck applied his penchant for data analysis and "systematic approach" to his new job in early 2011: a Michigan state senator, recently elected and keen to create jobs in the faded industrial powerhouse.

 

(Snip)

 

From outside Michigan Republican circles, it appeared that the Republican drive to weaken unions came out of the blue - proposed, passed and signed in a mere six days.

 

But the transformation had been in the making since March 2011 when Colbeck and a fellow freshman, state Representative Mike Shirkey, first seriously considered legislation to ban mandatory collection of union dues as a condition of employment in Michigan. Such was their zeal, they even went to union halls to make their pitch and were treated "respectfully," Colbeck said.

 

(Snip)

 

 

 

H/T LI: A conservative star rises in … Michigan?

William A. Jacobson

December 13, 2012

[Valin]

Michigan Now Center of Blue Model Battle

12/14/12

 

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has momentum on his side after last week’s big victory on right-to-work legislation, and now he has his sights set on another priority: Detroit. Earlier the city council repeatedly failed to pass a measure necessary to put the city’s ailing finances back on track. The bill finally passed Tuesday after weeks of negotiations, but Snyder has had it with the endless dithering and is now pushing for a measure that would allow the state to appoint an emergency manager to run the city until it gets its house in order. The Wall Street Journal *reports:

 

(Snip)

 

Two years ago, Wisconsin was the epicenter of the battle against big blue. That battle has now shifted to Michigan, where Republicans in Lansing are pushing an agenda that in many ways goes further than anything Scott Walker proposed. Not only has the Michigan GOP attacked both public and private sector unions; the long-running battle over the urban implosion that is Detroit is now heating up again as well. Considering the magnitude of the city’s woes, this promises to be a drawn-out conflict that will dominate the headlines for years to come.

 

Michigan politics is going to be one of the hottest and most important stories in America, and what happens or doesn’t happen here will help shape the next decade.

 

 

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