This is a brief stroll through this year’s annual Tax Day Rally called “Keep 'Em Honest” in Lansing April 14, 2011, organized and sponsored by Scott Hagerstrom, the Michigan Director of the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity (AFP). Hagerstrom got his 1.25 minutes of fame from a CPAC video that went politically viral on YouTube in which he stated that the goal of AFP and the Koch brothers was to “take the unions out at the knees” in Wisconsin and across the country.
At the “Tea Party” event there is very little day light between any of these organizations, pushing a national GOP strategy and prefabricated government state to state, and the mythical “citizen” engine behind it is starting to lose steam.
Progressives and the People on the March in Michigan
On April 13, 2011 (above), the day before this great dairy (by GypsyT) tells the story of thousands of protesters supporting Michigan labor and working families turning out, and providing a 10-to-1 contrast (by Eclectblog) to Scott’s right-wing friends the next day at their annual Tax Day on April 14, 2011 (below and throughout).
Tea Party losing Ground in Michigan?
In 2009, the turnout of the Michigan Tea Party masses was in the thousands, but not this year.
Yesterday, April 14, 2011 the ‘mad mob’ was just a ‘few hundred’ 400-500 according to reports, but still a force with (or without?) most of their teeth….
The same day in Marquette, MI the citizens and workers out protesting Snyder and GOP policies were double that of the Tea Party in Lansing.
Who did we see there…
… and what can this stroll through the opposition rally show teach us Progressives about the workings and relationships that demonstrate that the Michigan Tea Party membership is being duped, and has become just another arm of the same old cast of characters from the Mackinac Center, the Michigan GOP and the billionaire organizations pretending to be one of them like AFP. Just because a long-time Republican operative loses his/her tie and dons a pair of jeans, doesn’t seem to fool anyone, anymore.
More pictures, quick hits on the event, and comments below...
Cross-posted from Blogging for Michigan.
Thanks to a friend who took the time to send us these shots, and a few notes.
Go directly to SLIDE-SHOW.
Putting new paint on the same old pig…
Anti-Tax rallies have been around Lansing for a long time, here we see the “government pork spending pig” with a fresh paint job and new slogans ("shared sacrifice" this time) in the same parking space it has occupied for many years.
The statue Austin Blair, Civil War Governor, now that was a real crisis...
The crowds this year however, were more like those of the early days of the giant pig, than those of as recent as 2009. Scott claims to be coordinating with over 50 different Tea Party organizations in Michigan, but as seem by the turnout, perhaps some of the current issues, chiefly raising taxes on the retired, to fund an 86% business tax cut is not a popular story.
I, Bill Schuette, pledge allegiance to...
First to the podium under the “Americans for Prosperity” banner and the “I am AFP” sign, was the Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, who looked a little nervous before his talk promising to do what the Tea Party, or rather its sources of funding and coordination, Hagerstrom's chain-of-command, are demanding of all Republicans across the spectrum and state.
Hope these home folks are buying this...
Schuette, ignoring his functional role as AG, other serious problems affecting thousands of citizens, instead has been cracking down on the poor, seems to be the new Sheriff of Nottingham in reverse, with his investigations of food stamps, unemployment and welfare fraud. Far more troubling is that over 30,000 people for a number of consecutive months were coming into those programs and the number of Michigan citizens on one or more of those programs are running into the millions.
Bill and Scott manage the media onslaught... not.
Pray for an End to Greed
On the same day as the billionaire-funded Americans for Prosperity event on the Capitol steps, with most of the GOP leadership and VIPs in either attendance or invited, a group more in the tradition of the empathetic Friar Tuck, from the “Michigan Catholic Conference” in their Letter to Gov. Rick Snyder and legislative leaders on both sides of the isle, calling on Michigan leaders to have “greater attention to the needs of the poor, the unemployed and other vulnerable persons.”
The Mackinac Center’s Ken Braun, in the Capitol Confidential portion of their website that also brandishes the “Don’t Tread On Me” moniker, has been out saying that the Tea Party is “not a bunch of billionaires” since the Astroturf organizations were funded and formed in Michigan.
Note: AG Schuette appointed to be his direct report (or is that the other way around) as a general counsel, founder of the Mackinac Center, that Richard D. McLellan, who unilaterally declared the AG’s office a fourth branch of government, even before Rick Snyder was sworn in, that the AG’s office “equal” to the governor office on policy and such. McLellan should know, he also is the President of the Michigan State Law Council since 1986, and in that role must have giving the go ahead for the new EFM law as well.
SOS-SOS (Save Our State from the Secretary of State)
Pictured here under the AFP banner is Ruth Johnson, Republican Secretary of State, reading her statement to the rally stating that “there will be no more fake Tea Parties”, just the official AFP/GOP/ALEC/Mackinac controlled Tea Party, is probably what she meant.
From carefully prepared remarks...
She also promised to ‘crack down” on all that voter fraud going on in the state, but she’ll have to wait until the ALEC model legislation is passed.
As Secretary of State, Johnson has a lot of public sectors employees under her control and seeing her mingling with those after their promised pensions and pay; can’t be good for office morale.
Just keeping an eye on things...
To the left of SOS Ruth Johnson is Barb Vander Veen, Deputy Chair of the Michigan Republican party, and member of the West Michigan Tea Party and who introduced “ALEC's Cancer Drug Donation Program Act” HB 5672 a couple years back. She was there to make sure nothing bad happened.
Have I got a bridge for you...
The National headliner for the event was Fox News conservative commentator Dick Morris, who started out with “Michigan is the only state that has been destroyed by organized labor”.
From the Detroit Free Press we get more on an issue that, unlike the Michigan GOP legislators during Snyder’s first State of the State address didn’t know what to do, the Tea Party folks did:
Morris also denounced plans backed by Gov. Rick Snyder to build a second Detroit-Windsor bridge, calling it a government boondoggle and asking this question of Snyder: “Instead of building your bridge, why don’t you not tax pensions instead?”
Morris has been hired by Ambassador Bridge owner Manuel “Matty” Moroun as a consultant for a campaign to kill the state bridge project, renamed the New International Trade Crossing, saying it would cut deeply into the current bridge’s traffic.
Both the “don’t build the bridge” and “don’s tax our pensions” lines got great applause from the older “Don’t Tread On Me” flag-wavers.
Another CEO Speaks...
The State headliner of the event was Herman Cain, the former CEO of Godfather’s pizza, shown here under a flag that says “Stop Obama el al”. Cain presented from a standard deck of cards that he always uses and are posted on his website “I am Citizen Cain” and a new 2012 presidential exploratory site.
Just a little history, see Cain jousting Bill Clinton on employer-based healthcare, or this one-time presidential candidate and a self proclaimed A-B-C (American-Black-Conservative) talking about his experiences with segregation as a kid.
Got any advice on solving the Budget, Mike?
Over on the sidelines we see former Republican State Senator Majority ‘just say NO to everything’ Mike (what’s his name again?... Deacon, Pope… oh yeah, Bishop) chatting with ‘don’t-suit-me-for-asbestos’ ALEC member State Senator Wayne Kuipers in his best-go-to-budget-fight suit, but in the background texting like Pete Hoekstra (a now show, he’s busy lobbying in DC probably), who’s that?
Conservative from birth...
That’s Kyle Olson of the Education Action Group, one of the many privatize education groups in the state. Kyle’s brother, Ryan Olson, former Director of Education Affairs at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, both brothers are into privatization of public school assets and use Dick and Betsy DeVos’ money to push vouchers again, which is a new national priority according to US House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), and union bashing which the state conservative organizational sport of choice. Wonder if Kyle will be Mitt Romney’s state campaign chair again in 2012?
Just a job...
Here is a Mackinac center staffer with a box, what’s in there?
Copies of the last couple Capitol Confidential newspapers newsletters, with cover stories attacking Ann Arbor public schools teachers, whose spokesman refused to take to Cap-con saying to their editor Tom Gantert “you’re not a reporter” and his publication “isn’t a newspaper”.
Nationally Syndicated Propaganda posing as a "Paper'...
And along with the teachers, this week issue attacks over paid bus drivers, the same drivers that showed up in force to protest the day before. Oh, and some Tea Party cards, of course, from the non-partisan ‘educational’ Midland-based Heritage state-level think tank, most recently infamous for issuing intimidating FOIAs to professors across the state.
The Man of the Day, but Tomorrow?
And pitching clean-up to the Tea Party is tax relief citizen organizer, Scott Hagerstrom, Director of the Michigan American for Prosperity, who admits just about everyone in his family was in a union, lobbed a couple softballs, one calling for the “complete secession of funding of Michigan public universities” until all their finances and budgets, including all salary details are on-line for example. Overall Scott’s pitch of the day was a slider that Snyder budget cuts are not enough, we need to eliminate the income taxes like other states, and cut deeper still, no where near where the state “needs to be”.
Tax cut, Tax cut, Tax cut...
The bottomline is that ever since the events in Wisconsin the role of the Koch-funded organizations in that whole story was the “spark” that is making its way here to Michigan where they have been for a long time, getting out in the spotlight just may not work out according to plan.
A Real Michigander born in Berlin, survived WWII and a visit by Hitler to his school class, former UAW, not sure what to think...
Many in the Tea Party movement are figuring out that it’s the mega-wealthy, like the Koch brothers in Wisconsin behind the leadership figures in their movement, and the myth of “I can be a millionaire too” is becoming overshadowed by the fact the probability that Americans can to strike it rich has been on a decline since 1980. These Michiganders are just as hard hit as everyone else, take the time and go talk with them, some of them might just see the light, or have already through their absence.
NEXT TIME: Back to the role of the Mackinac Center, AFP and ALEC in Michigan, the EFM, the ACLU FOIA on the EFM legislative process, how business is seeking to take our State from citizen democracy and who’s fighting back.