This'n'That; February Twenty-Nineth #1; Any Wonder....?!?

Michigan Replicating owe-bama Failures
    My workday ended early, I decided to 'weed-out' my Yahoo Favorites.  I was working on getting rid of the crap I either don't look at or look at very rarely.  I came across the 'Michigan Capitol Confidential' website:
http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/pubs/mcc/
    After reading several articles therein published, I decided to keep the site.  The articles are a clear indication that the State of Michigan is following in "Clown Prince ZERO-bama, the Narcissist's" ever-failing 'footsteps!'  Check out some of these articles:
GOP-Dominated Senate To SEIU: 'Here's $4 Million'
By Jack Spencer

Feb. 24, 2012
Michigan's Republican-controlled Senate is reaching a milestone.
As of Feb. 24, the Senate — by its inaction to pass a bill that would end the “Home Health Care Dues Skim” — will have enriched union coffers by $4 million.  This “skim” resulted from a union scheme perpetrated while Jennifer Granholm was governor. The plan used a dummy employer and a stealth election to railroad 43,000 so-called home health care workers into the Service Employees International Union. That 43,000 has now swollen to 56,442.  Once this forced unionization was achieved, money started being extracted from the taxpayer-provided checks received by the so-called home health care workers. This money continues [....]
http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/16506

Subsidized Green Energy Company Struggles, Lays Off Workers —
Rewards Top Executives
by Tom Gantert,
February 23, 2012
Analyst: 'It looks like they are trying to pad their top people’s wallets in case something really bad happens'   
    In the nine months since David Prystash was named Chief Financial Officer of A123 Systems — the battery manufacturer that received $390.1 million in federal and state subsidies — the company has laid off 125 employees and had a net loss of $172 million through the first three quarters of 2011.  A123 Systems also learned earlier this month that the company that was to be the main purchaser of its batteries — Fisker Automotive — had its federal funding cut off for missing milestones and had to lay off its own employees. A123 Systems had invested $23 million into Fisker.  Yet, this month A123’s Compensation Committee approved a $30,000 raise for Prystash just days after Fisker Automotive announced the U.S. Energy Department had cut off what was left of its $528.7 million loan it had previously received.
    Prystash wasn’t the only executive to see a big raise this month. Robert Johnson, vice president of the energy solutions group, got a 20.7 percent pay increase going from $331,250 to $400,000, while Jason Forcier, vice president of the automotive solutions group, saw his pay increase from $331,250 to $350,000. Prystash’s raise was 8.5 percent, going from $350,000 to $380,000.
The raises were reported by the company in its filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.  “It looks highly suspicious,” said Paul Chesser, associate fellow for the National Legal & Policy Center. “It looks like they are trying to pad their top people’s wallets in case something really bad happens.”
When A123 Systems announced [....]
http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/16500

How the Forced Unionization of Day Care and Home Health Care Providers Took Place
Anatomy of a Scam: Dues continue to flow
by Jack Spencer

February 23, 2012
    Child care providers Sherry Loar, Paulette Silverson and Michelle Berry fought the forced unionization every step of the way.Editor's note: This story originally ran in January and is being republished because of repeated requests from readers wanting to know how the "dues skim" was created and put into action. Since 2007, more than $28 million has been take from Michigan home health care workers, many without their knowledge or consent. Almost $4 million has been skimmed since a bill that would end the deductions arrived in the Michigan Senate in June 2011. (The story has been updated.)
    As 2012 begins, the forced unionization of 56,442 so-called home health care workers in Michigan continues.  Approximately 80 percent of those impacted by an unpublicized election six years ago probably did not know what was occurring. As a result, they were railroaded into the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).  Union dues have been extracted from the taxpayer-funded checks they've received ever since. This represents a transfer of more than $28 million from taxpayers to the coffers of the SEIU.  House Bill 4003 was designed [....]
http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/16241

Further Down the Rabbit Hole: Forced Unionization 'Dues Skim' Linked To West Coast Scandal
SEIU officials who led charge to unionize unsuspecting workers are now long gone
by Jack Spencer
February 22, 2012
    Rickman Jackson came to Michigan directly from Los Angeles. The Service Employees International Union Local 6434 official was the protégé of an influential union boss and the guy who signed the collective bargaining agreement that made the "Home Health Care Dues Skim" in Michigan possible.  More than $28 million has been taken from home health care workers' checks since that happened, but Jackson wasn't around long to see how the union he represented continues to profit from the “skim.” 
    Michigan's “Home Health Care Dues Skim” has its roots in Los Angeles at Local 6434 of the SEIU.  With a membership of 155,000 home health care workers, SEIU Local 6434 was the largest union local in California in the middle of the last decade. It also appears to have been the pilot project for questionable unionizations that later took place in other states — including Michigan.  Jackson learned at the side of Andy Stern, who headed the national SEIU until 2010 and in the early months of the Barack Obama administration Stern became known as the “man who had Obama's ear.”
    Stern got Jackson a post at Los Angeles Local 6434. After his apprenticeship there, Jackson was reassigned to Michigan. He became the first president of SEIU Healthcare Michigan, but resigned not long after getting that post.  Nonetheless, dues from the “skim” are still flowing to the union's coffers. House Bill 4003 would end the flow of that cash and was passed by the House last June, but Michigan's GOP-controlled Senate continues to sit on the bill.  While that happens, the SEIU is free to use the dues it collects [....]
http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/16495

Unemployment Rate Not as Rosy as It Appears
Fewer workers could be lowering state's rate
by Tom Gantert
February 21, 2012
    The days of Michigan leading the nation in the unemployment rate appear to be in the rear view mirror.  Michigan’s unemployment rate of 9.3 percent in December ranks it 11th highest in the nation. The state's unemployment rate was 11.2 percent just four months earlier.  But a big reason for the state’s rosier outlook is a large drop in the state’s labor force, something University of Michigan economist Don Grimes calls “one of the least understood results” of the economic recovery.
    Michigan’s workforce has dropped from 5.1 million in January 2006 to 4.6 million in December 2011. Michigan added 13,000 jobs in December of 2011, but the labor force decreased by 11,705 jobs.  “The labor force and employment are moving in opposite directions and that’s strange,” said James Hohman, a fiscal policy analyst with the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. 
Hohman estimates that if Michigan had maintained the same number of people in the workforce as December 2007, and if all of the labor force drop-outs were instead classified as unemployed, Michigan’s unemployment rate would be at 16 percent.  Most experts are [....]
http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/16493

    Gawd, can't the State of Michigan learn from anyone other than an owe-bamacRATic socio-fascist?!?  Next, they'll elect George Soros "Governor-For-Life!!"
Til Nex'Time....