First District GOP Web Blog

By dennislennox, Section News
Posted on Mon Aug 04, 2008 at 12:33:45 PM EST

I’ll be casting a vote for Jim Howell, the experienced conservative candidate — who’s been endorsed by retiring Judge Schuette.

Howell served his country in Vietnam as a member of the U.S. Air Force. He walked a beat as a policeman in Saginaw and put himself through law school. As a state representative, Howell was chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

As the Detroit News said when it endorsed him: “He has long experience in private practice, served as a police officer and sheriff’s deputy before becoming an attorney and now is an assistant in the state Attorney General’s Office. A Republican lawmaker, Howell took a generally conservative approach but proposed legislation to revise a Supreme Court decision that he thought was unfair to injury claimants, which shows an admirable streak of independence.”

Others supporting Howell include:

• Court of Appeals Judge Bill Schuette
• Supreme Court Justice Maura Corrigan
• Court of Appeals Judge Patrick Meter
• Former House Speaker Rick Johnson
• Former State Representatives Lauren Hager, Ken Bradstreet and Scott Hummel
• State Representatives Ed Gaffney, John Moolenaar and Tom Casperson
• State Senators Bruce Patterson and Tony Stamas
• Former State Senator Michael Goschka
• Police Officers Association of Michigan
• Michigan Association of Chiropractors
• Michigan Bankers Association
• Michigan Orthopaedic Society

By Nick, Section News
Posted on Fri Jun 06, 2008 at 07:08:22 AM EST

Hey, look mom, renewable energy!  And from trash!  The Grand Rapids Pressreports this morning on a big win-win for Kent County residents and the private sector as a deal has been struck to tap the county landfill for it’s methane gas.  

A county board Thursday approved a $6 million project that will turn methane gas produced by rotting garbage at the South Kent Landfill into renewable energy.

County officials said the landfill is expected to produce 3.2 megawatts of electricity, which is enough to power 2,000 homes.

It also will generate profit for the county: an expected $380,000 a year to begin with and as much as $787,000 annually by the year 2030, Department of Public Works Director Douglas Wood said…

Bonus, the company tapping the gas is going to build a community education center to teach kids on field trips about alternative energy production.  And unlike the city of Lansing, it doesn’t look like there are any immediate plans to tax those field trips here in Kent County.

Of that $6 million up front cost Granger, the private sector waste disposal folks behind the deal, is going to cover two thirds.  That leaves taxpayers with a $2 million investment that by the most conservative estimates will be paid back in the next five years.  (There have been no reports of discussions about imposing any sort of extra tax or fee to up-front that two-mil either.  Neither will it be accompanied by a rate hike at the meter.)

Figure that takes us through 2014… If we’re pulling in only $500,000 a year between then and 2030, a much more conservative estimate than the County’s, that’d pump $8 million into the coffers. 

Oh, and by the way, the more garbage in the dump the more methane is produced the more the taxpayers benefit.  And that’s just on the public side of things. Granger is, last time I checked, a job maker.  That means this deal is going to create jobs.  Now just imagine if the Democrats weren’t so incensed by the idea of importing garbage to open dumps via the free market process.  Suddenly we’d be talking about a whole mess of new jobs and even larger County profits.

Read on…

Full Story

By Nick at RIGHTMICHIGAN, Section News
Posted on Fri Jun 06, 2008 at 12:06:12 PM EST

Traveling with Dick DeVos during the 2006 gubernatorial campaign I heard him sound what became a familiar caution again and again.  At the time the national economy was (and in many ways still is) going gangbusters in it’s post-Clinton recession / 9/11 recovery.  Expansion was good.  Job growth was steady and new jobs numbered in the millions.  Revenues to the US Treasury were at record levels.  But Michigan lagged painfully behind.  Heck, we were headed in the exact opposite direction.  

Many Michiganders had the perception that what was happening in Michigan was happening nationwide.  That everyone was in recession.  DeVos’s caution?  What passed for leadership in Lansing was doing far more harm than good and Michigan was in danger of missing an entire national recovery.  And nothing good could come from that.

That warning shot immediately to mind when I read the headlines in almost every news outlet this morning.  `Jobless rate jumped to 5.5%,’ they screamed.  `Increase biggest rise since ‘86, payrolls cut by 49,000.’

Here in Michigan we look at 5.5% and laugh.  Not a little snicker but a full, hearty, deep-from-the-gut sort of laugh.  Five point five?  Child’s play.

Sadly, we’re not unlike Monty Python’s Black Knight.  So used to being rendered by Lansing the nation’s official economic backwater we’ve become accustomed to lunacy.   Go ahead, sever a leg.  "That’s just a flesh wound!"

But with the left political opportunism trumps reality a thousand times out of a hundred.  I’ll go out on a limb here and make a daring prediction.  Both the regressisphere and the MSM will attempt to use these new national unemployment numbers to hammer the Bush administration and John McCain.  They will simultaneously ignore the Democrat controlled Congress.  And here in Michigan?  They’ll continue to ignore the legacy being built by "leaders" like Jennifer Granholm, John Cherry, Mark Schauer and Andy Dillon.

So how do you respond without pulling out your hair in frustration?  The facts, ma’am.  Just the facts.  Today’s MSM reports cite Bureau of Labor Statistics data based on seasonally adjusted non-farm payroll.  So where do we stand here in the land of long-standing Dem leadership?

National unemployment (May): 5.5%
Michigan Unemployment (April, latest): 6.9%

Jobs lost nationally in May: 49,000
Jobs lost in Michigan (January-April): 30,400

National population: 304,267,395
Michigan population: 10,071,822

That’s 3.3% of the nation’s population.  Three point three percent suffered in four months time more than 3/5ths the number of job losses inflicted on the other 97% of the nation during this sudden, fearsome, ballyhooed economic collapse. 

But things get much scarier when you look at the broader track record during Granholm and Cherry’s time in the Executive Office.  Since taking their oaths on the Capitol steps in early 2003 Michigan has lost 272,000 jobs.

One state.  Pure Dem controlled Michigan.

The broader United States during the same period of time?  From 130,183,000 to 137,754,000 for an overall gain of 7,571,000 jobs. 

Is that giant-sized national recovery over?  We Michiganders had better hope not.  Democratic leadership lost a quarter of a million jobs here at home while things were going so well beyond our borders… I’d rather not imagine what things might look like if the storm clouds gather nationally.  But suddenly, frighteningly Dick DeVos looks that much more like a prophet.

By Nick, Section News Posted on Fri May 16, 2008 at 10:05:02 AM ESTI take it all back.  Or at least I’m willing to consider a full retraction.  See, if they’d just planned these projects out a little bit better and led off with Haylie Duff I might have never criticized them in the first place. We laugh through tears at the Governor’s latest pet-project, cutting checks to Hollywood actors and big-wigs to convince them to visit Michigan for a few weeks at a time and both responses are entirely valid.Anytime you hear that the State government isspending $127 million in a fiscal year to “create jobs” and “generate revenue” only to find out that the expected return on that investment is a meager $10 million tears are justified.  We are, after all, firmly entrenched in the mother of all single-state recessions.  Reading that lawmakers are “surprised” by the cost and the light return on the investment only makes those tears taste that much more bitter.And when the Democrats big coup de grace is the announcement that Dawson from Dawson’s Creek is coming to town, well, it’s either laugh or fuel up the car for a one way trip to Indiana.  With gas prices what they are it’s a good thing I’ve got a good sense of humor.But maybe we can just chalk it all up to unfortunate timing.  MLive has some awfully exciting news:

The Hollywood Reporter just announced that “Tug,” the romantic comedy set to film in West Michigan in June, is in negotiations with Haylie Duff and Sam Huntington to star, according to The Hollywood Reporter. 

 Haylie Duff!That’s Hillary’s older sister, by the way.  You know, Lizzy Maguire?  She was Hannah Montana before Hannah Montana was Hannah Montana?  She was a worldwide pre-teen phenomenon for years.  Like David Cassidy except a girl and thirty years later.See?  This is a big deal!  Plus, hey, seriously, I’m a big fan.  I loved her in 7th Heaven.  Haylie that is.  Not Hillary.  Hillary’s not coming to Michigan.  Besides, Haylie is… well… did you look at that picture?  (Is this how Liberal Lucy felt when she heard James Van Der Beek was on his way?)Bonus, the budget of the project is less than a million dollars.  That means you and I are only going to have to write Lizzy’s sister a check for $420,000, max.  That’s nothing but walking around money for this incarnation of the State Legislature.  Couldn’t buy any new books, raise teacher salaries, fix a few roads or hire six or seven case workers to look after the abused kids in the State’s Foster program or anything like that.This is money muuuuuch better spent. 

By Nick@RIGHTMICHIGAN

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, lads and lasses.  I guess.  Of all the holidays we celebrate this is one that’s always sorta been lost on me.  Back at Brookside Elementary I used to like getting a free green bagel but that’s about it.  Now, admittedly, that could be because I am not a drinker.  I’ve never so much as ingested a drop… it’s just not for me (which, sadly, makes me an anomaly in the Michigan political world where the social component of just about everything includes moderate to large amounts of hard liquor).  Now, my friends in Lansing?  Today’s a special day.  

I’ve actually got one friend (who shall remain nameless) who identifies St. Patrick’s day as the high holy day of the year and spends the entire three or four days surrounding the date on an extended pub crawl in a perpetual drunken stupor.  Every year (s)he goes out and the rest of us wonder, will (s)he survive and when will that liver shut down?  Got to be the luck of the Irish keeping him / her going.  OK, I’m through with the multiple pronouns.  Promise.

But not with talk of luck and miracles.  Because there are folks all across the Great Lakes State who could use a little (or a lot of) leprechaun’s luck today.  Hillary Clinton, for example.

That Michigan re-do election that late last week was starting to look so much like a certainty has suddenly flown straight off the tracks and it might take more than the luck of the Irish to get things moving again.  And, frankly, I’m surprised it took this long for things to come unglued.

Can anyone answer me, in a close delegate race like this where Barack Obama is hoping desperately to run out the clock with his lead in tact, what is his incentive for going into overtime?  Keeping Michigan off the books might disenfranchise a few million voters but it gives him his best chance of winning.  And who cares about Michigan issues if you can become the most powerful man in the world by only caring about 48 or 49 other states, right? 

Here’s the list of issues as they stand now:

Read on…..