Tag: Jennifer Granholm

History fun factoids:

Michigan Gov. Rick Synder, who appointed Orr as emergency manager Thursday, was acquainted with Orr while at U-M. Snyder, who graduated with a law degree and MBA in 1982, reportedly met Orr during a snowball fight on campus.

Branch President Rev. Wendell Anthony said there is no way an emergency financial manager can come in over the next 18 months and fix problems that have taken 50 to 100 years to develop.

"It is important for Governor Rick Snyder to recognize that once you come into Detroit with the hammer of an emergency manager, you, too, own it,"

Who in the Hell in their right mind would want that?  Their coveted Obamessiah isn't sending them any bacon.  It's time for Lansing to stop scratching Ilitch's, Penske's, and Gilbert's back with the rest of the states tax dollars, too.

Who is this paleface Irish turd trying to fool?  Try remembering July 27, 2004

If approved by U.S. District Judge Paul Borman, McCann, of Livonia, faces six to 12 months in prison and up to a $20,000 fine.

McCann was indicted in November on charges of improperly using a federal grant to pay two interns to secretly build a database of Democratic Party donors. They performed an estimated 758 hours of political work while on the county's payroll in 2001, the county contended.

In November 2002, the FBI and Michigan State Police seized thousands of documents from McNamara's county office and the campaign office of McCann's former boss, then-Wayne County Prosecutor Michael Duggan, in a raid. Duggan is now head of the Detroit Medical Center.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette today announced that a federal judge has issued a ruling blocking the implementation of a controversial U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate that would force religious employers to violate their religious and faith-based beliefs by providing insurance plans that cover services, including abortion-inducing drugs, that conflict with those beliefs.

The ruling comes in a lawsuit filed by Michigan-based Weingartz Supply Company and Legatus, an organization of Catholic business owners, to defend religious liberty and challenge the unconstitutional Obama administration mandate.  Schuette filed an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs on September 27, 2012.

"Religious liberty is America's first freedom," said Schuette.  "Any rule, regulation or law that forces American employers to violate their free exercise of religion is a flat-out violation of the First Amendment and federal law, including the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

"This victory is an important step in defeating an unconstitutional mandate that will force private sector job-providers across America to violate their conscience.  The First Amendment applies to everyone, and we must defend religious liberty for all, not just the chosen few dictated by the federal government."

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Finley: Obama using Granholm's playbook

In both races, there was a charismatic but incompetent democrat incumbent running against a Republican rich businessman challenger.  In both cases, the democrats blamed the preceding Republican for the poor state of the economy and claimed that it would otherwise be worse.  They attacked the Republican challengers for being rich and falsely claimed they outsourced jobs.

Of course, there are some differences as well.  Romney has actually won an election before, and he has a much broader fundraising base.  2006 was an anti-republican wave, which 2012 shows no signs of being.

A state fund intended to create 390 Michigan jobs has loaned $7.7 million to 35 companies and created 79 jobs - only 20 percent of the number initially promised.

Ann Arbor SPARK received an $8 million grant in 2006 to create the Michigan Pre-Seed Capital Fund, which used $7.7 million of that amount. The grant was awarded as part of the Competitive Edge Technology Grants and Loans program, which exists "to encourage the development of competitive edge technologies to create jobs in the state."

Skip Simms, manager of the Michigan Pre-Seed Capital Fund, said in an email, "We saw a need for early stage capital for start-up technology based companies, which the private sector wasn't providing at the time."

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A123 in April received a two-year extension on its deadline to spend a $249.1 million grant from the federal government, originally received in 2009. The money was to be used for the construction of new lithium-ion battery manufacturing facilities in Michigan. A123's Livonia plant opened in 2010, and its Romulus plant opened last year. The company had $120 million left of the $249.1 million grant.

The hiring announcement comes after the company has hit financial problems. In March, A123 said it would spend about $55 million to replace defective battery packs in five battery packages that were assembled at its plant in Livonia.

In addition, financial losses have accelerated. In its 2011 earnings, A123's loss grew 69 percent to $257.7 million from the year earlier. And in April the company reported a first-quarter loss of $125 million -- a 133 percent increase from the  $53.6 million loss during the same quarter in 2011.

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But dammit, when it's a taxpayer funded hole you just put 400 new hands on the shovel to keep on digging.