Michigan Liberal: - Front Page

One last on the Komen fiasco

Eric B. — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 06:35:47 PST

Maxine Berman, writing in Dome Magazine.

But here’s the thing. A woman chooses to terminate a pregnancy. Nobody chooses to have breast cancer, and it strikes women of every income level and race.

Breast cancer doesn’t care who’s got it. Neither should the Susan G. Komen people care who’s providing quality exams to catch it early, even if those facilities provide other, still-legal medical services.

This is the point, really. The so-called pro-Life set could have both. They could have life-saving breast cancer screenings for poor women, and they could seek to exert pressure on Planned Parenthood to stop performing abortions. But, this isn't about being pro-Life. This is about destroying the stuff of the "other side." I've seen this firsthand since writing a column last week suggesting that we've hit a new low, where the war on cancer is now fought according to the red-blue prism rather than the sense of unity that helped drastically reduce mortality rates in some of the worst cancers since the Nixon administration made it a national priority. The response has largely been, "Screw those poor women looking for a handout, we need to save the fetuses." If that's the sort of thing that passes for pro-Life these days, that movement richly deserves its place in the dustbin of truly awful ideas.

Fortunately, it appears that the people at Komen are at least something better than the people they've made to feel empowered.

Screamin' Pete's furious damage control

Eric B. — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 06:15:23 PST

Yes, it's always the media's fault.

In the new ad released Thursday, Hoekstra does nothing to directly address the racial overtones that have earned him rebukes from Asian-American groups and fellow lawmakers, but blames the media for blowing the issue out of proportion.
"In spite of what the media says, this race is a chance to tell Washington to spend it not," Hoekstra says in the ad.

The media, members of his own party, Asian-American groups ... they're all colluding against Pete Hoekstra. Does anyone spot the pattern emerging here? Like that when he lost the gubernatorial primary, it was all the fault of Right to Life?

To get an idea of what I'm talking about, here is some important context.

Well-known blogger and Internet freedom campaigner Michael Anti weighed in on his Twitter account @mranti, saying, “I think the problem with the ad is that it’s racist, not anti-Chinese. As a Chinese I should be amused by this ad, because it seems more like Southeast Asia. But Chinese in America are easily enraged by that sort of prejudicial defamation of the image of a Chinese woman. Also, her English is not the Chinglish of a Mainland Chinese.”

On Sina Weibo, the most popular of China’s microblogging sites, one poster said, “The video makes me so angry.”

But as Anti noted, much of the curiosity was over the scene — a supposedly Chinese woman peddling a bicycle with what looks like a Vietnamese cone-shaped hat, in a lush green rice field that more resembled Vietnam’s Mekong Delta paddies than anything in modern China.

In other words, his ad didn't even get their racist stereotypes accurate. They blurred the line between China and Southeast Asia in general, sending the compounded message that they all look alike, those slanty-eyed buggers. And, now, it's the fault of the media that you might have found this offensive.

Oh yes, and he called himself a superhero, which is just as pathetic as that one kid in high school who insisted on giving himself a nickname.

Meanwhile, this is as much an indictment of the newspaper industry as a whole as it is of the original ad.

We don’t believe the Hoekstra ad is racist. It’s clearly a satire designed to needle Stabenow; the young woman in the ad is pictured as a resident of China, whom we wouldn’t expect to speak perfect English. However, the spot does demonstrate a serious lack of sensitivity and understanding. The Chinese stereotypes — the smash of the gong, the peasant straw hat, the imperfect English — echo images used for decades in popular culture to mock, belittle and typecast Chinese and Chinese-Americans. The cultural associations of such symbols were bound to offend many people, regardless of the producer’s intent. It’s not just Democratic activists — who would probably oppose the rising of the sun if Hoekstra came out in favor of it — or Asian-Americans who are upset. It raised the “ick” factor, as one Sentinel reader called it, for people of many backgrounds who are mindful of the malicious use of those symbols in the past.

Got that? The ad isn't racist. It just plays off tin-eared stereotypes that for years were used to belittle Asian people, specifically people of Chinese descent. That's like saying that it's not racist to donning blackface and asking passers-by if you can shine their shoes, just not ethnically sensitive.

But, if you think otherwise, you only have the media to blame. Pete Hoekstra says so.

Rallies today at Congressional offices

Eric B. — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 05:43:44 PST

Remember that last post about a press release in Ye Olde Inbox? Right, well, I've been getting them all week regarding something else ... rallies planned for today at Congressional offices around Michigan over an extension to unemployment benefits set to expire. Here is a comprehensive list of who, with links to where and when. You already have the what and why.

Endorsement round up in the 5th

Eric B. — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 05:35:37 PST

Probably most of you are aware that the other day, Dan Kildee picked up the endorsement of SEIU in his race to replace his uncle in the 5th Congressional seat. This morning, via press release in Ye Olde Inbox, I note that Kildee has also picked up the endorsements of the United Food and Commercial Workers.

That is all.

The business model you choose speaks volumes

Eric B. — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:49:00 PST

Teh Demas has a very good column -- a must-read even -- about cyber schools. This quote is making the Facebook rounds.

Yes, cyberschools are a win-win: a dumping ground for undesirable students and a moneymaker for private education management companies.

indeed.

This is worth amplifying.

... I've yet to be convinced why education should be an enterprise to make money. I'm not sure that's the case with many of those looking to make monumental changes to our system.

I haven't seen anyone else raise this fundamental problem. We have a few different ways of operating an organization. You can start an organization that is for-profit, not-for-profit, or non-profit. This is the first and most fundamental question you ask, in fact, when you create an organization in our system of doing stuff.

If you create something that you intend mostly to create profits for investors, you operate it as a for-profit business. When you do this, your primary goal is to make profits for its backers. In fact, if you have management of a for-profit operation that is not maximizing profits, that person is subject to civil action by investors. Why? Because investors gave you money expecting to see as much return on their investment as possible.

If you are concerned primarily with something else, say educating children, you create a non-profit or a not-for-profit business. I sit on the board of directors of a local business, in fact, that is a not-for-profit. That's what allows us to operate a grocery store and also a small network of community gardens that offer competition for the store (the grocery sells produce that some of the garden participants -- me, specifically, and this year's Brussels sprouts -- grow on their own and don't need to purchase).

Wherein we acknowledge benevolent overlord Rick Michigan's budget

Eric B. — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:23:53 PST

The news of benevolent overlord Rick Michigan's second budget has been lurking all week behind the scenes. I'd hoped to get a better chance to look at the thing today, but it's been a horrendously busy day 'round these parts. But, it did include stuff that I think everyone mostly expected, with is a little more money for education that comes with strings attached.

In normal times, with a normal political environment, the idea of state government dictating to local school districts and the universities how they are expected to spend the money given them would incite conservatives to riot. That is, after all, the very definition of Big Government planning. But, we don't really have real conservatives anymore. It's the Tea Party playing as dress-up conservatives and not really interested in government that works but in siphoning off public resources to make already-wealthy people more rich. What today is passed off as fiscal conservatism is a thoroughly bankrupt ideology. It's practitioners aren't really following a political philosophy into which they bought into after great thought. They're just doing stuff and calling it conservative because that's what they had to call it to get elected.

Gay-bashing ex-campaign chairman to spread Santorum across the state

Eric B. — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:37:41 PST

MIRS:

Glenn CLARK, the former 9th District GOP Chair, told MIRS today that he would be the statewide grassroots coordinator for Republican presidential candidate Rick SANTORUM, making him the point person for the Michigan campaign.

Santorum -- fresh off wins in Colorado, Missouri and Minnesota on Tuesday -- said on MSNBC this morning, "We think Michigan's a great place for us to plant our flag." Michigan's Feb. 28 presidential primary is next up in the schedule with Arizona, which also has a Feb. 28 primary.

That would be Glenn Clark, the man most closely fingered as the source for the campaign literature accusing Leon Drolet of supporting legislation that would make it legal to use public bathrooms for sex. The implication was that Leon Drolet wanted to turn public parks into gay bath houses. I'll let you, dear reader, come up with your own wise cracks involving this and the man he now works for, Rick Santorum, whose name has its own "associations."

Hump Day links

Eric B. — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:01:32 PST

Rumor on the street is that a certain white-haired legislator from West Michigan who hates homosexuals, when asked a question or two by a reporter, responded by inviting said reporter into the bathroom where he could get answers over a nice friendly pee. It would be irresponsible to speculate whether this House member -- and let's protect his identity and just refer to him as D. Agema ... no, better yet, Dave A. -- had something untoward on his mind in doing so. On the other hand, perhaps Peggy Noonan is a better authority on the properness of that.

Onward!

*--This morning, I got a press release from Progress Michigan tagging the Teabaggin' Surgeon for attending a $1,000 cigar and whiskey fund raiser in Washington. This afternoon, Angela Wittrock says Benishek has no plans to attend. Political has-been before the age of 30 Dennis Lennox says Benishek confirmed. My theory of what happened? Benishek planned to attend until his staff learned that Lennox was mixed up in it, or he planned to attend until his staff learned that the public might learn that Benishek would be seen at a fund raiser with Lennox. Then, they pulled the plug. The only lingering question is why anyone is pallin' around with Dennis Lennox.

*--Benevolent overlord Rick Michigan explains why he doesn't want to see Right-to-Work legislation. This sentence, "If you look at what’s gone on in the states, you have to ask the question, now what’s going to get done in Indiana for the next year or two?" is eminently reasonable, and mirrors stuff said last year by Democratic governors over Scott Walker's nonsense. James Hoffa mirrors our benevolent overlord's sentiments. Know why I continue to think recalling benevolent overlord Rick Michigan is not the thing to do? Because if you do, the odds are much better that you'll get someone who actually wants that fight than someone who doesn't.

*--The circus is coming to town ... or, rather, the clown car full of sad clowns that frighten rather than delight. Michigan's primary will be relevant only until three days after it takes place. As for the nominating race ... sorry, boys, when your last best hope to keep the nomination out of Willard Mitt "Mittens" Romney's hands is Rick Santorum, you may as well throw in the towel. By the way, I noted a week or so ago the Michigan Punditocracy started pretending like Rick Santorum was this year's Mike Huckabee, all moderate on the issue of economic justice. Anyone bother to take a look at his important work during the Terry Schiavo disgrace?

*--How on God's name did American exceptionalism become something Republicans hate?

*--The L. Brooks Patterson-promoted law intended to apply only once, to Oakland County this year, draws a judge skeptical that it was written only to apply to Oakland County this year.

*--Privatization of prisons held up by a law prohibiting paying people slave wages. Perhaps the problem here isn't the law. Perhaps the problem here is a business model that relies on slavery.

*--My state representative Kevin Cotter, who voted to continue a 40-year trend of reducing state support for its university system by voting in favor of last year's 15 percent cut in university appropriations, is concerned that MSU charging incoming students for health insurance might make higher education prohibitively expensive. Don't blame him for his cognitive dissonance. He's a young man, and no doubt means well.

*--Could we see the end of road commissions?

*--Jack Lessenberry on how Matty Maroun has done purchased his-own-self his very own state Senate. After all, no one will let him buy himself another bridge, what's he going to use all that money on? By the way, the Marouns finally got around to saying they'd comply with the court order for which the evil billionaire was jailed last month.

Today in Ad-Gate

Eric B. — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:22:07 PST

Pete Hoekstra's ad continues to generate coverage, although by now the racist angle has sort of died down and given way to the "Why on Earth does he continue to defend such a dumb ad" angle. That, and the usual angles like whether it really was as stupid as it seemed to be (an answer in a second) and that Democrats did it first (an answer to this in two seconds).

The answer is to the first is that, yes, it was as stupid as everyone thought it was on first blush. Sometimes, first impressions aren't wrong. The ad's message might have broad appeal. The ad itself has appeal only for the racist fringe that calls itself the Tea Party, which largely made up its mind a while back to back Clark Durant. And, those people don't change their minds. So, the ad isn't going to build him support among the people he directed it at. At the same time, it created ill feelings towards him among the non-fringe racist set, where Hoekstra is drawing his support. Please note the letter from the Washtenaw Republican who is of Asian descent who wrote the angry letter about this. Hoekstra's ad didn't build support, it helped kill it. It's like he ran a negative ad against himself, which is the opposite of what you're supposed to do.

But, did Democrats do it first? We go to Nolan Finley.

I’m not sure whether Pete Hoekstra’s Super Bowl ad can be labeled racist, offensive or insensitive — those are moving targets in an election year, when sensibilities shift on the winds of opportunity.
Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer, for example, pioneered the tactic of China-bashing in Michigan politics, and yet here is is crying foul when Hoekstra mimics him.

Mark Brewer screws up a lot of stuff, but suggesting that his ads decrying Amway Guy's outsourcing of work to China is to actual racism what grape jelly is to wine. And, the idea that Nolan Finley can't define an ad that relies on bad stereotypes about broken English usage by people with bamboo hats on their backs as racism says a good deal about him.

Meanwhile, when I first saw the ad Sunday night, my initial reaction was, "Wow, what's the governor think about this and how it might undermine his work in building relations with China." After all, they're in the same political party and Hoekstra insults people who the governor thinks we ought to be working with to build trade. Someone in the biz had the same reaction. In other words, what's good red meat to throw to the Tea Party is bad for business.

Links for the commute home

Eric B. — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:00:48 PST

First off, we nod to acknowledge the 9th Court of Appeals decision today tossing out Proposition 9, the homophobic California ballot initiative that forbade the state from endorsing same-sex marriages. This is a Michigan blog about Michigan news and politics, so what's this mean? The Michigan homophobes who pushed and got Proposal 2, which ultimately was used as a rationale to take away the right of local governments to extend domestic partner benefits, shrink increasingly into a boil on humanity's ass. Yet, somehow they're still making the rules. I leave that to you, dear reader, to do with what you will.

Onward!

*--Peter Hoekstra invoked every bad Chinese stereotype to pander to the far right of his party, something that didn't work since they endorsed the other guy. Laura Berman points out that the China we're supposed to be afraid of is not the China of the Hoekstra ad, which is the China that evokes images of the Vietnam War.

*--Republicans like Peter Hoekstra's ad, but hate Clint Eastwood's pep talk to America. I remember when Dirty Harry was the Republican mayor of Carmel ... when did he go liberal squish? The answer: He didn't. You have to ask yourself about a political party that embraces race-baiting political advertising but hates ads that suggest that America's best days are yet before her. Again, this is a party to which Reagan wouldn't be welcome.

*--The Lansing State Journal is the latest paper to advise state Republicans to avoid Right to Work, and instead embrace benevolent overlord Rick Michigan's business-oriented collaborative approach. Those guys haven't shown any inclination to collaboration, instead favoring division and faction. Meanwhile, the News orders labor to accept the shit sandwich being put together in the kitchen of the Legislature and be happy that it's not worse.

*--Senior citizens surprised to find out that not only do they have to pay more in taxes, but that tax payments are being deducted automatically from their checks. This was necessary so that most LLCs don't have to pay taxes ... even if they continue to consume government services just to operate.

*--Tim Walberg avoids questions of why House Republicans are huddling with business lobbyists to set the annual GOP agenda. The reason? Tim Walberg is one of Club for Growth's paid-for boys in Congress.

*--A broken clock strikes the right time.

*--An editorial that shouldn't have ever needed to be written: America's Shoutiest Mayor should avoid using racially charged language to promote the Lansing casino.

*--It's nearly unanimous: The state's universities deserve better funding, and voters don't like the idea of creating a single university board to oversee things (and allowing the Legislature to meddle in how they operate).

Hoekstra ad costs him support from within his own party

Eric B. — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 07:11:24 PST

The man who blamed Right to Life for his gubernatorial primary loss.

Washtenaw County, Michigan Commissioner Alicia Ping (R) says she was leaning toward endorsing former Rep. Pete Hoekstra in the Republican primary for Senate. But that’s all over now. On Monday, Ping donated money to Clark Durant, Hoekstra’s longshot rival in the primary. She told me she’d publicly endorse him if Durant asks her to.

Why the change of heart? Hoekstra’s controversial Super Bowl ad, which the Chinese-American Ping called “demeaning”, is a part of it. But it was more Hokestra’s refusal to acknowledge that he’d made a mistake running the ad that really lost him Ping’s support.

“If he didn’t know it was racist on some level, then shame on him,” Ping told me in a phone interview Monday night. “He didn’t apologize or say ‘maybe it was over the top’ or anything. He said, ‘I stand by what I believe in’ and, ‘the liberals are just making a bigger thing out of it.’ Well that’s not the case at all. It’s offensive and it’s racist. It’s demeaning to the Asian-American population.”

Hoekstra's latest blunder has, as of this morning, netted him nationwide press. It's a remarkable feat considering he isn't actually the Republican candidate, yet. Naturally, Hoekstra has his own thoughts about the ad, which in an act of cluelessness not seen since the Freep ran a story puzzled at how an unmoderated, open comment thread about politics turned into a flame war are that it is great because it focuses attention on Debbie Stabenow's voting record.

Here's a little nugget, and a sign of things. The people who produced the ad are the same people who produced Christine O'Donnell's "I'm not a witch" ad. At some point, when this campaign was vetting companies to create this ad, they had to have seen that and Carly Fiorina's "Demon Sheep" ad, and said, "Those are fantastic ... go with it!"

Update! ... By the way, most of you have no doubt seen this already, but this was the reaction to Republican operative Mike Murphy:

Mike Murphy, the well-known national Republican political consultant, said of the ad in a Twitter post: "Pete Hoekstra Superbowl TV ad in MI Senate race really, really dumb. I mean really."

Or, as someone said down in comments ... Hoekstra is working very hard to make the War of the Roses as competitive as possible (well, I added the War of the Roses metaphor, but whatevs).

Update 2! ... More? Why not. This is currently the political story everyone's talking about, so we may as well be boring. Over at the New Yorker, they point out that Hoekstra's ad isn't just racially charged but downright factually inaccurate.

For all the xenophobia and mistakes, the thing that might really worry a voter is that a man can get this far in the U.S. political system without a basic grip on the mechanics of his government. “You borrow more and more,” the N.P.S.A. says. But that is false, says the U.S. Treasury. Chinese holdings of U.S. treasury bonds, in fact, declined from November of 2010 to November 2011. “China has not been a major buyer of U.S. treasury notes on the margin for a couple of years now,” Victor Shih, an expert on Chinese economics and politics at Northwestern University, told me.

Hoekstra's history of gaffes and blunders are pretty well documented, from Tweeting about secret visits to Iraq while on House intelligence committee to the above-mentioned bit where he blamed his gubernatorial primary loss to benevolent overlord Rick Michigan on Right to Life's endorsement of Mike Cox, something that prompted a fake Tea Party Right to Life to spring to life (don't these people always manage to find new and interesting ways to split people into divisions?). Why at this late stage should anyone expect that Hoekstra's second shot at the big stage be any different? That means you, Stephen Henderson. A political campaign reflects the leadership at the top, and if the campaign is making poor choices in advertising, perhaps that's as much an indictment of the leadership at the top as it is of the people who made the ad. Meanwhile, Hoekstra continues to defend the ad as one focusing on the voting record of Debbie Stabenow, except that it has done that in the same way that the Komen Foundation's decision to stop funding breast cancer screenings through Planned Parenthood struck a decisive blow in the rightwing's war on abortion providers.

Pete Hoekstra calls Asian-baiting ad a "home run"

Eric B. — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 07:04:03 PST

This is a mighty puzzling reaction:

Hoekstra defended the ad, calling it a "home run" during an interview Monday with Detroit radio WJR-AM's Paul W. Smith. He said it's only "insensitive" to the spending philosophy of Stabenow and Democratic President Barack Obama.

Let's see, the ad opens to the cheesy strains of music best remembered from film noir dramas incorporating elements from "The Orient" that were made five decades ago, and with a woman wearing a Chinese coolie hat and riding a bicycle next to a rice paddie. Then, she proceeds to talk in halting, broken English that evokes images of the "Me love you long time" whore from Full Metal Jacket. We haven't seen this many bad racial stereotypes since last week, when Virg Bernero referred to a Native American as "Chief Chicken Little" for opposing the Lansing casino. I mean, someone made the conscious decision to have her ride into the scene with the bamboo hat on her back, as a prop that was never worn.

At least Bernero isn't running for anything.

Here's an embed of the ad.

A tale of two ads

ScottyUrb — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 20:13:30 PST

You've probably seen (or at least heard about) these ads by now, but in case you haven't, click the links below (embedding won't seem to work):

Halftime in America

Debbie SpendItNow

One is a hopeful look at the spirit of Detroit and the spirit of America. The other has embroiled the controversy-prone Hoekstra in yet another bitter controversy.

Super Bowl Sunday: Links

Eric B. — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 08:49:52 PST

There's loose talk in sports circles that the people responsible for the NFL entertainment product wish to extend the season by two weeks. That's two more weeks of meaningless storyline hype, nonsensical analysis, football-related advertising so stupid it makes the brain hurt, and overconflation of what should be a fucking game with a symbol of the state of things. It also means two more weeks in which players could suffer career-ending injuries. But, if it means pumping more money into the NFL entertainment product, it's not like we don't have more worthy places to devote those resources (roads, health care, modern electric infrastructure, the arts, etc...).

Onward!

*--The Detroit News launches a broadside against the minimum wage under the guise of concern trolling Willard Mitt "Mittens" Romney. As usual, it's filled with cherry picking facts (unemployment rates among young and minority workers vs. overall employment trends tagged factlessly not to overall changes in the labor force but to select policies the paper wishes to denigrate) and bland assertions not only unsupported by facts but that fly in the face of basic economic theory and 20 years of experience (reducing business costs, not finding ways to increase demand for goods and services, creates jobs).

*--Brian Dickerson bemoans that anyone who didn't see the Komen controversy coming is perhaps naive. It is a very sad thing that a simple thing like fighting to reduce breast cancer mortality rates has become politicized, but let's at least agree who is chiefly responsible for this. Who would I tag for that? A prime example comes by way of reader response to a column I wrote saying much this same thing. One of our local pro-Life people thought the proper thing to do was inform me that a few breast cancer deaths, by way of taking away "free" cancer screenings from poor women, is a small price to pay in the larger war fought on behalf of the unborn. We could have both, but one side of the political spectrum isn't interested in that. What say we not pretend that all sides are equally guilty of that?

*--Local governments and schools (and, no doubt, other educational institutions) have hands out, looking for more cash. How does budget director John Nixon answer? "... We still have to make tough decisions because, if you had four or five times the amount or revenue we had, you still couldn't meet all the requests that are out there, and all the need." If four or five times the amount of revenue coming in couldn't address all the needs, why in hell did they cuts revenue by $1.8 billion last year?

*--Do you know how Peter Hoekstra's gambit to buy Super Bowl ad time works? If the political media pretends, as it did in 2010, that political advertising are legitimate campaign topics, creating a buzz that returns much more on investment. They aren't just hoping to buy Tee Vee time. They're hoping to also buy pixels in the political columns. Note to state's political media ... you got played for fools in 2010. If it happens again, you have only yourselves to blame.

*--Speaking of cuts to funding, a project at MSU that everyone agrees could be transformative and important may not get federal funds. Why? Because of the deficit caused to large extent by financing economically worthless tax cuts during two wars, and by pretending since that the deficit was caused by money spent weatherizing homes for the poor. This is the face of austerity spending. I hope you like it, because it's your date to the prom.

*--America's shoutiest mayor completes his transformation from one-time gubernatorial candidate into cosmic joke. Last week at this time, his office was sending on press releases hailing one of those lists in which Lansing was named one of the greatest places since sliced bread. By the weekend, someone issued a different list, to which Hizzoner responded, "Who takes such lists seriously?"

*--The USDA releases its latest list of Michigan's garden hardiness zones. We're getting warmer, and the story is filled with anecdotal evidence from long-time gardeners about how once-frail plant species are now better able to handle an increasingly toothless Michigan winter (come on, folks, I remember when winter lasted from mid-November until late March). The USDA says, however, that you shouldn't believe your lying eyes and think that winters are becoming increasingly moderate. Me? I just harvested the last of my Brussels sprouts last week.

*--This is nothing new, and not even associated entirely with Michigan, but it is the outgrowth of years of advocacy from places like the Detroit News. Tea Party activists believe that environmental projects and policies are all U.N. plots. Why would they believe something so asinine and crackpot in nature? Because of the likes of Detroit News doodler Henry Payne, who've said as much.

Today in why centrism is an empty value system

Eric B. — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 07:23:03 PST

From the Freep this morning:

Privately, MDOC officials acknowledge that many mentally ill inmates don't belong in prison, where security demands trump treatment needs. Over the last two decades, however, Michigan has slashed spending on in-patient treatment, leaving courts with few options but to send mentally ill offenders to jail or prison.
"We don't control who comes to us," said Russ Marlan, administrator of MDOC's executive bureau.
Between 1987 and 2003, Michigan closed three-quarters of its 16 state psychiatric hospitals. Michigan now provides fewer psychiatric beds per capita than all but five other states, according to the Treatment Advocacy Center. County jails and state prisons have become, in effect, the state's primary mental health institutions.

This is universally true across basically all state agencies, and it is the impact of nearly 20 years of cuts in government spending and cuts in taxes for those most capable of paying them. Last year's massive tax shift from businesses -- which still consume government services (what idiot wants to argue that Chrysler didn't make prodigious use of them when it was managed into its merger with Fiat, and ought to be exempt for paying for them?) -- to individuals only represented the latest broadside in a trend that's been ongoing since the Engler years.

This isn't at all different than what we described last week when noted Very Serious Person Phil Power talked about growing university student debt as a result of decades of disinvestment by state government, but that the real solution was that universities need to make peace with people who believe we can continue to cut our way to prosperity. We've tried it across the board for two decades and in our university system for four, and it not only hasn't worked but has proven to be counterproductive. Yet, our media elite continues to pretend that it's more important to compromise with inflexible lunatics than it is to just do the right thing ... which also usually also happens to be the most cost effective thing possible (i.e. giving the mentally ill necessary medication vs. incarcerating them and giving them medication occasionally, but restraining them when that's not the case).