"Great article.  The substance is that we need to be an open tent, and support diverse Republicans.  Opening roads and helping support good, diverse Republicans and not treating them as tokens will lead to more success as a party.

To me, this means is that we need to stop the infighting.  We need to stop calling decent Republicans "RINOs" because we disagree with a couple of points.  Olympia Snow?  Lincoln Chaffey?  Fine.  Joe Knollenberg?  Not so much, even though I ADAMANTLY disagree on the bailouts.

LBJ had a quote - "I'd rather have people inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in."  Quit pissing in the tent, and start pissing out - onto the liberals and the ideologies that are not going to bring a strong America for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

This also means that we have to let the poisonous people go.  I don't care that you feel the Republican party "left you".  I don't care if you think I'm not a conservative.  I'm not going to let my party be hogtied by ultimatums - don't threaten to vote Libertarian, just go.  Go and do it.

I suppose lastly, we have to realize that the Republican party, like our government, is a committee of many people.  We appoint representatives for us to handle party business.  Committees operate on majorities and consensus.  Complain about it all you want, but you have to play the game to get what you want.  If you're not going to play the game, go start your own.

Blog of Bodnar: Someone Get the Dems a Thesaurus

MSU Conservative: The City of Detroit Waste Money?  Nah!

Five Ws: Hey, Big 3, Reality is 90% Perception

Jack McHugh: When There Used to Be Air Travel, and Cars...

And since I don't want anyone to ever accuse me of being overly aggressive I'll go ahead and confine this picture to economic news from the last twenty-four hours.  If we really wanted to reach back a ways... you know, like, three days, we could be here discussing these things until the New Year.  Besides, we know the broader issues...

This is Michigan, home of a Democratic governor, a Democratic Lieutenant Governor, a House of Representatives overwhelmingly controlled by the Democrats, local governments inundated with Democrats, two Democratic members of the United States Senate and an incoming Congressional class featuring a Democratic majority with two new members.  

This is Michigan, home of John Dingell, the recently (yesterday) deposed chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, a figure whose very presence outside that powerful chair indicates the free-falling cloud of the Motor City in the nation's capitol.  

This is Michigan, home of what we all anticipate to be a nation's worst 9.3% unemployment rate and $1.5 billion in new taxes as of last year.

According to the Associated Press Michigan is also soon to be home to a nearly $1 billion budget deficit.  

Read on...

While we were away...

Auto state Senators claim they've got a compromise on a massive bail out of the Big 3.  Only problem... no one bothered to tell the rest of the Democrats.

The Majority Party continues to stall and to obfuscate and to avoid even a vote on a Michigan specific bail out (not that I'm complaining, necessarily, though it'd be nice to see how they each vote).

Meanwhile, those same majority Dems just stripped Michigan Congressman John Dingell of his chairmanship on the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee.

Nevermind that Dingell is the longest tenured member of the House.  Nevermind that he's from Michigan, the state whose lifeblood is tied to energy and commerce legislation like no other... wait, yes, we probably should mind that.  It's why they kicked the man out of his seat.  More Democratic hostility to the Great Lakes State... lovely.

Not that Detroit's captains of industry did themselves any favors yesterday when they each arrived to testify before Congress, tin cup in hand, begging for taxpayer money... then flew home the same way they'd come, on three seperate private jets at an estimated expense of $60,000 round trip total.

I just arrived in DC myself and my roundtrip ticket in coach cost me about $500.  Think they'd be any more sympathetic to me if I went to testify?

Life With Mr. O: Prop 1 Creates a Doobious Neighbor

The Stoeker Factor: Efforts to Take Your 401K

Reform Watch: MEA Southfield Propaganda Would Make Castro Proud

Wade's Conservative World: Big 3 Big News Day in Michigan

I ran across this paper from my 2005 Writing class, titled "The times, they are a-changin'"in which I wrote about GM's financial woes. Since then I have retired and the question I asked then " "Will it be too little too late to save GM?" is still being answered.

Whatever that meant.

Apparently their plan was to kill a lot of Michigan jobs.  Suppose today's news makes them awfully proud.  The Associated Press reports that Michigan's unemployment rate skyrocketed from 8.7 percent in September to a staggering, decades worst 9.3% in October.

All told, Michigan has lost 74,000 jobs in the last year alone.

How's that plan coming, you two?