2 More Years

On the upside, we have only two more years of Gov. Whitmer to suffer through.

On the downside that's two more years of lost time and opportunities for her to do more damage to the state of our state.

On the upside, Gov. Whitmer now appears far less interested in governing than she is in travel out of our state and shopping for her next Democrat political post.

The Detroit News:  Where's Whitmer?

Whitmer was on her A-game when she thought there was a chance she could be the vice-presidential pick for a second Biden administration. She couldn’t stay offline or off the campaign trail, buttering up to be in Kamala Harris’ cabinet, once the winds turned that way.

But throughout the past year, she has shown little interest in Michigan’s real needs, favoring her book tour and out-of-state travel over more homegrown issues, many of which beg for her involvement.

.  .  .

Instead, she spent about 25% of her time in the first nine months of 2024 outside the state promoting her book on Martha’s Vineyard, San Francisco, and elsewhere, an amount of travel that exceeded her own past totals. Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist was paid as acting governor for much of that time.

Another significant chunk of time was spent on content creation for her social media presence, which revolved around abortion, her book and Democratic campaigning — not governing. 

Whitmer then left Democrats in the Legislature on their own in lame duck, abdicating any leadership or role in negotiations. She gave lip service to legislative priorities, such as transparency, disclosure and economic development, that she did not see through.

At least she wasn't partying in Ghana on the taxpayer's dime as her city burned, so there's that. 

I suppose we can be thankful as the more she stays away from the state, the less damage she can do. After all this state suffered a lost decade under Gov. Granholm, who has ended up in Berkeley, California and served as Biden's Secretary of Energy, thus doing unto the country what she did unto our state.  

Looks like we will have a lost eight years under Whitmer, and if the Democrats regain power nationally in four years she'll be on her way to Washington to again give the country a taste of the failure (but progressive media star) that she has been at the state level.

Getting The Kid Back To School

 

With all the weather on Friday night/Saturday getting the kid back to U Florida from Michigan was quite a challenge.  

The original plan was DTW-ATL-GNV leaving at an ungodly early 4:45 am from DTW, so needing to be at the airport ugly early.

 

Fun was driving to the airport in the snow. 

Snow that not a plow had touched at all.  In fact while, driving I saw all of one plow on the entire route.

 

The roads leading to the highway were absolutely snow covered. 

The highways themselves had no lane markings visible under the snow.

 

Thankfully the snow was not slippery icy stuff but more of a packing-snow type, so while slow going, it was reasonably safe going. 

Oakland County seems to be busy spending money on DEI rather than basic competencies like snow removal.

 

DEI and other progressive gee-gaws are luxury spending that, while a waste of money, should only even be considered after you have your core competencies down pat. Sadly they're sexier to Democrats than things like safe and clean roads.

Get to the airport at 2:00 am, the flight was soon announced as cancelled due to the mess in Atlanta.  Weather will do that.

Got her rescheduled to Jacksonville (would have to have had her Uber all the way to Gainesville but it was something) and got her through security at 6am for an 8 am departure.  Should be good as a direct flight bypassing Atlanta, right?

 

Wrong.

That flight was then cancelled due to lack of crew availability due to the weather messing up the system.

 

Then, I got her rescheduled back onto a later DTW-ATL-GNV flight at 10 am, which then was pushed back to 11 am and then was announced for boarding which was a good sign.

 

The flight boarded. But there was then a 1 hour delay sitting at the gate due to Atlanta being stacked for receiving aircraft.

 

They then got clearance to go, and they were off without incident around 1pm and landed in Atlanta. The ATL-GNV flight, then got rescheduled quite a few times but they got clearance to go around 6pm and she finally got back to Gainesville.

 

Upon landing, the pilot wished them all a happy semester and “Go Gators!” which was a very nice touch.  She met friends on te plane as it was mainly students heading back and shared an Uber getting to the dorm.

Through all the delays and weather trouble, the Delta  customer service reps were super helpful in rescheduling her flights and working to get her there.  

 

Thanks to Delta, the flight crews, and all the customer service representatives for all their hard work yesterday under some very trying circumstances. 

 

Having around 2 hours of sleep and hanging around the airport for hours trying to get her home did not make me a happy camper.  But she got there safely and that's what matters.   We could not get here there earlier to beat the weather as the dorms weren't open for students to return until Saturday, which is stupid. 

 

But she's now safe and sound in happy warm Florida.  I'm done shoveling out from the latest snowfall and back at work. 

Well....Bye

The Detroit News: Canada's Trudeau announces resignation after nearly a decade as prime minister

After a decade of insipid, woke, and corrupt leadership, Trudeau is finally leaving before he can be defeated in an election.

This is why you don't elect a substitute teacher whose only qualifications were his looks and family name as the leader of your country folks.

A Neat Hanukkah Discovery

The Times of Israel: ‘Miracle’ hoard of Hasmonean coins discovered during Hanukkah in Jordan Valley dig

 The Hasmoneans were the descendants of the Maccabees, so finding a hoard of coins belonging to Alexander Jannaeus during Hanukkah is rather cool, and timely.

These coins, made of bronze,  are known as prutahs or lepta (plural: leptons).

 For my Christian readers, these prutahs of Jannaeus are agreed upon by scholars to be the coins referred to as the "Widow's Mite" in the Christian bible  (Mark 12:41-44 and Luke 21:1-4).  These coins are rather inexpensive at $35-$75 or so, and are a nice addition to any coin collection or just to have as a very neat historic item with significance for both Jews and Christians.

Release Criminals, Let Them Kill, Call For Gun Control, Repeat

Note well the article subheading puts this under "What to know about the growing threat of gun violence".

The Detroit Free Press:  Suspects charged with murder, child kidnapping in Northfield Township tragedy

So Shuvonne Vinson along with her criminal associates breaks into a house, kills two of the three adults living there, wounds a third adult, and kidnaps 2 kids.

Clearly a gun violence problem, right?

Not so fast.

The buried lede of her criminal record and how she has been let off by a soft-on-crime criminal justice system gets let slip, a mere 21 paragraphs below the headline:

Vinson's previous criminal history includes a 2017 drug possession charge, which she pleaded guilty to, and a February 2024 case when she racked up 13 charges, the majority of them involving weapons. She ultimately pleaded guilty in June that year to carrying a concealed weapon. All other charges were dismissed, court records show.

So, in 2024 instead of a nice long time in jail, after getting hit with 13 charges all are dismissed in July, except for a felony concealed weapons charge.  She doesn't get much jail time for that, if she got any at all - she's then released and free to go out and about and participates in killing and kidnapping less than six months later.

This isn't a gun violence problem, this is a progressive judicial system releasing felons with mere slaps on the wrist until they go out and kill someone problem.

From Not A Terrorist Attack To "He Was Totes On His Own" In No Time Flat

So the FBI is now assuring us that not only was the New Orleans Islamic terrorist indeed committing an act of terrorism, but he completely acted on his own.

The Detroit News: FBI says driver in New Orleans rampage acted alone, was '100%' inspired by Islamic State group

Awfully quick and convenient to come to that conclusion, especially as the mosque he attended is telling its members not to talk to the FBI or other investigators.   Especially as up until the narrative needed to be changed they stated he had worked with others.

The mosque officials their post called it a terrible event (much along the lines of some people did something) and put in quotes  that the FBI is now calling it an "act of terror". 

The mosque and imams there are rather interesting, but likely not atypical.

Perhaps the FBI should investigate a bit more before jumping to conclusions, especially as their initial conclusion that it was not a terrorist event was, shall we say, rather missed the plot and was contrary to all evidence.

Of Lame Ducks, Chicken Eggs, and Chicken Sh*T

The Lame Duck session in Michigan is rapidly going from tragedy to farce as the Democrats who control the legislature and executive are trying to ram through as much of their progressive wish-list as they can.

Already their progressive agenda is causing both an egg shortage, and an increase in the price of eggs in Michigan from a law that had already passed and now goes into effect:

The Detroit Free Press:  Michigan to require cage-free eggs Jan. 1: What it means for you

Because with egg prices already up due to Bidenflation, it is the perfect time to ram through a massive and expensive change to practically all of Michigan's egg farmers in order to satisfy a progressive agenda.

Now for the Chicken Sh*t. 

Of course the Michgian Dems had to push through a lot of anti-gun bills:

 NRA-ILA:  Michigan: Anti-Gun Legislation Passed in the Middle of the Night Heads To Governor’s Desk

The Dems even introduced a bill to ban "deceptively colored firearms".

Why are Democrats so obsessed about color, whether in people or things?

The bill would ban not just possessing a firearm if it was not black, brown, dark gray, dark green, silver, steel or nickel - put also possessing any "deceptive coloring product" that could change the color of a firearm to something other than black, brown, dark gray, dark green, silver, steel or nickel.

Got some spray paint in your possession in anything other than the above approved colors?   

Under the bill, you have a "deceptive coloring product" and are now committing a misdemeanor punishable by a year in jail and/or a $500 fine.   Unsurprisingly, state and federal agencies are exempt from this law.

Thankfully this has stalled out.

But its amazing the stupid things that anti-gun right Democrats can do with control of the legislative and executive branches. (Thank you so much Tudor Dixon, Kristina Karamo, and Matthew Deperno for running the worst and most tone-deaf campaigns in 2020 when the race was yours to lose, and lose it you did, giving us this mess.)

Quite a lot more got pushed through.

- A tax break for data centers, including exempting their equipment from sales tax, because there's no capitalism like Democrat Crony Capitalism.  Note well the Democrats absolutely fought tooth and nail against lowering the sales tax for all the people of Michigan, but have no problems giving their buddies a complete exemption.

- increasing unemployment insurance benefits which will increase the costs to business that have to pay the premiums, and qualifying domestic violence victims to be able to get unemployment payments if they quit their job.

- and much more to the detriment of the people of this state.

And of course, it wouldn't be Dems running things without a farce, as even controlling the House, Senate and Governor's office they still couldn't get their act together.

The Detroit Free Press:  Michigan's Democratic trifecta hits logjam amid lame-duck chaos

As lawmakers entered the final stretch of the lame-duck session in Lansing on Wednesday, they seemed to turn finger-pointing into a competitive sport.

The absence of one House Democrat — state Rep. Karen Whitsett, D-Detroit — denied Democrats a quorum Wednesday with all House Republicans absent as they continued to prolong their protest to force votes on legislation to preserve Michigan's tipped minimum wage and preempt forthcoming changes to paid sick leave. Whitsett did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

 Yep, even controlling it all, they couldn't force all their agenda past the finish line.