WHY: Government Suppresses Major Public Health Report
A CDC study of environmental and health data in eight Great Lakes states has not been released as scheduled. The story is on Alternet, but still worth a look.
THIS FRIDAY: Robert Pedersen, Equal Parenting Bike Trek Cyclist and Co-Founder of “A Child’s Right,” will be interviewed on the radio show “The Message” with Richar Farr. More info at DaddyBlogger.com.
IN GREAT LAKES FOR ALL: Bush budget shortchanges Great Lakes
President Bush’s recently unveiled 2009 budget shortchanges the Great Lakes, according to an AP report. The Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition analyzed the budget proposal and concluded that the presidents request of about $300 million for Great Lakes programs was a reduction of over $50 million from what was appropriated for 2008. That means less money for sewage upgrades and the ongoing battle against invasive species.
But he also notes that a lot is probably going to change by the time the 2009 budget comes up for a vote.
ALLOCATED, NOT “SEATED”: Michigan Democrats Allocate Delegates
The Michigan Democratic Party said Friday that Clinton will get 73 pledged delegates after winning 55 percent of the statewide vote.
Another 55 delegates will be uncommitted since 40 percent of the Democratic voters chose uncommitted. Because Barack Obama and John Edwards had taken their names off the ballot, many of their supporters voted for uncommitted.
The state also has 28 superdelegates, many of whom remain uncommitted, for a total of 156.
Allocating delegates isn’t the same as seating delegates. Basically, the Michigan situation with the Democratic party is still a mess.
UPDATE: More here.
FEBRUARY 16: Senator Carl Levin Speaking on Iraq in Grand Rapids
Michigan Democratic Party Senator Carl Levin is scheduled to speak in Grand Rapids on February 16 on Iraq. His speech, which is titled “One Year After The Surge: Where Do We Stand? Where Do We Go From Here?,” will provide attendees with Levin’s “latest assessment of the situation in Iraq, the outlook, and the alternatives.”
Levin is speaking to the Progressive Women’s Alliance at Loosemore Auditorium on the Pew Grand Rapids Campus of Grand Valley State University. 1:00-2:00.
I may have to see if I can’t make it to that.
EXIT POLLS: CNN has a good display of its exit polling data from yesterday’s primary.
SARA JANE MOORE FREED:
Sara Jane Moore, who took a shot at President Ford in a 1975 assassination attempt, was released from prison Monday.
Moore, 77, had served about 30 years of a life sentence when she was released from the federal prison in Dublin, east of San Francisco, the Federal Bureau of Prisons said.
She was 40 feet away from Ford outside a hotel in San Francisco when she fired a shot at him on Sept. 22, 1975. As she raised her .38-caliber revolver, Oliver Sipple, a disabled former Marine standing next to her, pushed up her arm as the gun went off, and the bullet flew over Ford’s head by several feet.
Moore basically appeared to be a complete lunatic who was convinced the Conservatives had declared war on the Liberals. At least there aren’t any people like that around today.
UPDATE: I didn’t realize that Sipple, the disable Marine who was credited with saving Ford’s life, had been born in Detroit. He had been wounded in Vietnam in 1968 and suffered from a number of physical and psychological problems for the rest of his life. Shortly after the attempted assassination, Sipple was outed as a homosexual.
UPDATE 2: Much more here, including a public defender’s assessment of Moore’s reasoning:
“…Her conduct was sort of a shopping list: ‘Take my son to school, shoot the president, pick up my son from school.”
UPDATE 3: More at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Strib, including:
In recent interviews, Moore said she regretted her actions, saying she was blinded by her radical political views and convinced that the government had declared war on the left.
“I was functioning, I think, purely on adrenaline and not thinking clearly. I have often said that I had put blinders on and I was only listening to what I wanted to hear,” she said a year ago in an interview with KGO-TV.
And this in the LA Times:
At the St. Francis, where Ford had come close to dying violently, visitors sometimes gaze up at a quarter-sized gouge on an exterior wall near the north entrance.
It’s said to be the spot where Moore’s bullet ricocheted — a notion confirmed by a hotel employee who asked not to be identified.
“There hasn’t been a reason to do anything with it,” the employee said, acknowledging that tourists with a bent for American history sometimes stand on the sidewalk eyeing the spot, six feet or so above what is now a Bank of America automated teller machine.
SEEMS LIKE A NO-BRAINER, DOESN’T IT? Illegal immigrants can no longer get a Michigan driver’s license
Michigan has been one of eight states to allow undocumented immigrants to get driver’s licenses. Attorney general opinions are legally binding on state agencies and officers unless reversed by the courts.
It was not immediately known how soon the opinion may take effect or what it means for illegal immigrants with currently valid licenses.
Michigan law prohibits the secretary of state from issuing a driver’s license to a nonresident. Cox, a Republican, said it would be inconsistent with federal law to regard an illegal immigrant as a permanent resident in Michigan.
This has been utterly ridiculous, and it’s about time they reversed this. Full opinion here.
FINALLY: Michigan’s jobless rate dips in November
All the way down to 7.4%. Down three-tenths and the first month-to-month drop since May.
The national rate held steady for the third straight month at 4.7%.
NOT TO BE BANNED: MI Senate snuffs out smoking ban in bars, restaurants
Efforts to ban smoking in Michigan bars, restaurants and other workplaces were snuffed out in the state Senate Tuesday.
Republicans who control the chamber sent smoking-ban legislation to a committee where bills traditionally go to die. In a rare move, Democrats tried to steer it to the Health Policy Committee instead because the panel’s Republican chairman supports the ban.
“This says we have a do-nothing Senate whose leadership does not want to deal with the smoking issue,” said Sen. Ray Basham, D-Taylor, a longtime smoking ban supporter.
From a philosophical standpoint, I don’t normally agree with government-mandated bans on smoking in private locations, even when it’s a private place open to the public. That being said, I am much more likely to have a positive experience in a place where smoking is not allowed.
I just think it should be up to the business owner.