Up North Progressive
Politics and commentary for Northern MichiganWith Potato You Get Fresh Protein: Aramark Strikes Again
Wednesday , 3, June 2015 Nerd Problems 2 Comments
Prison inmates found maggots living in potatoes they were cutting on June 2nd at G. Robert Cotter Prison in Jackson, Michigan. The kitchen was closed and inmates were sent back to their units while the prison shut down the food line and cleaned it. All potatoes in the prison were thrown away.
This is the latest episode in a long-running series of disasters for Michigan’s new for-profit food service company, Aramark. While it’s possible, some of the maggot-infested potatoes were served to prisoners before the discovery, no one can be certain. Rick Snyder replaced the union employees that worked for Michigan’s state prison system with the for-profit company in 2013. Since then, there has been numerous problems with maggots on the serving line, not enough food, improper substitutions for food, spoiled food, and feeding inmates actual garbage.
Food problems are not the only issue plaguing Aramark. There have been problems with the staff they hired to run the prison food service. Employees have been caught bringing drugs and contraband to inmates, having sex with inmates, and even offering to murder people outside the prison for inmates. Despite the growing list of violations with the company, the state has quietly set aside fines levied on the company and Rick Snyder insists Aramark is doing a good enough job to keep their contract with the state.
For-profit companies like Aramark are supposed to save the state money by hiring scab non-union workers at lower wages. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for. Just cut open a potato to see the quality Michigan gets for its savings.
The Only Amicus Brief The Supreme Court Needs For Any Abortion Case
Tuesday , 2, June 2015 Michigan Women, Religious Fundamentalism Leave a comment
Once upon a time in America no true conservative would dream of telling another person what they were allowed to do or not do. The only concern was no other breathing, living person be harmed with what an individual did. Pretty simple, right? These days, too many people are confused on what being a real conservative means. They think it means they have to tell people what they can do with their bodies or who they share they bodies with.
The Supreme Court may be hearing a case that would allow states to further undermine a woman’s right to choose her own reproductive health care. The state of Mississippi has one licensed women’s health clinic left that provides abortions, and the state legislature wants to force it to close. Making women to go to another state for health care is barbaric, but anti-choice supporters prefer to tell other people what to do with their bodies, rather than be real conservatives and leave them alone. Federal courts have struck down Mississippi’s law, stating that even though Texas passed a similar law, there were forty open clinics in that state, and the law there reduced it to five.
So why are anti choice people so adamant about controlling women’s bodies? Barry Goldwater, a man no one would suggest wasn’t a conservative, even said abortion is not a conservative issue. There is obviously more going on here than trying to protect fetuses. If the Supreme Court wants to be truly conservative in making a decision about any upcoming abortion case, here is the correct, conservative position to have:
Anything other than this is not conservative. What the states legislatures and anti-choicers want to do to women’s choice is expand the role of government. Expanding is the opposite of conserve, therefore anti choice people are anti conservative.
People who believe their imaginary sky alien gives them authority over other people are not conservatives, they are authoritarians. Being anti-choice is being an authoritarian. Anti-choices are not at all interested in preserving life, they want to control and shame women into living the way they believe women should live – subservient to authority. If the court hears this case, the anti-choice authoritarians may get their way on controlling women’s lives and health care decisions.
Dan Benishek Hates Clean Water Because He Cares About Northern Michigan Farmers
Sunday , 31, May 2015 Environment, Upper Peninsula 1 Comment
Dan Benishek is keeping busy these days. Between breaking promises not to run for a fourth term because he has to help the veterans and attending dedication ceremonies for post offices, he also wants to be known as the congressman who’s looking out for farmers. Like other Republicans, he’s mad at the Environmental Protection Agency for trying to do a better job protecting American water. Why? Because according to Benishek, if the EPA gets their way, farmers in Michigan won’t be able to farm anymore:
“Under the guise of protecting our waterways, today’s announcement by the EPA is nothing more than a power grab that will add more bureaucracy without any real benefit. Among the most impacted will be farmers, and agriculture is a major part of our economy in Northern Michigan. From talking to farmers around our district, they feel like the EPA has railroaded them with this new rule without justification and without understanding the impact it will have on jobs. This is exactly the type of bureaucratic red tape that we do not need. I will continue to fight against this rule so that farms and businesses in our community do not suffer needless regulatory burden.”
It seems odd that Dan Benishek would talk to farmers about the new Waters of the United States rule, as it’s stated that this new rule makes no changes to agricultural use of water at all, and in fact expands agricultural exemptions in some cases. Why are farmers concerned about a rule that will not affect their ability to farm?
The Waters of the United States rule is a clarification of the 1972 Clean Water Act. The purpose of this act is to keep major bodies of water in the United States clean of pollution, and this means regulating the waterways that feed those large bodies of water. The Supreme Court ruled that the act wasn’t clear enough in 2001 and 2006, and the Waters of the United States rule is an attempt by the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to better explain what the act is supposed to do. So why is this controversial?
Because President Obama. He’s using his constitutionally legal executive authority to make it happen. Anything President Obama wants, whether it’s clean water or the Heritage Foundation’s plan to make everyone buy health insurance, Congress instantly has to hate it and do everything they can to stop him. This is where the Regulatory Integrity Protection Act comes in.
This act voted by the House and now in committee in the Senate would stop the EPA from using the Waters of the United States rule because despite it not affecting water used for agriculture in any way, Republicans like Dan Benishek insist it will. Even though it won’t.
What could be the real reason for Republicans wanting to stop the EPA’s attempt at clarifying the Clean Water Act? Perhaps it has to do with the EPA’s report on fracking that will be released in 2016. It was supposed to be released in 2014, but had to be delayed. The fracking industry is exempt from following regulations set by the Safe Drinking Water Act through the Energy Policy Act passed by Congress in 2005 under the direction of former Vice President Dick Cheney.
The Energy Policy Act, which Congress passed in 2005, exempted fracking from the Safe Drinking Water Act, which seeks to protect the public water supply from contamination from toxic materials. The oil and gas industry could lose this loophole if the EPA study finds that fracking has negative consequences for public water supply.
By deflecting American attention away from the real purpose, Republicans want us to think President Obama is destroying jobs for clean water. Making sure corporations aren’t poisoning us with toxic chemicals in our water and air is why the EPA exists. Republicans are determined to hamstring the EPA, and we don’t need to waste time wondering why.
Dan says he’s doing it for the farmers. Just like he consistently votes to cut veteran’s benefits because he cares about veterans. Sure Dan, Northern Michigan can trust you to keep your word.
Fund Raising GOP Style: Only One Answer Matters On Our Multi-page Questionnaire
Saturday , 30, May 2015 Presidential Primary 2016 Leave a comment
Not that political party fund raising ever stops (just ask any member of the Democratic Party to show you their email inbox some time), but it’s interesting to see the level of creativity the GOP conjures when asking for funds. Since most Republican-leaning people still get the bulk of their correspondence via a metal box on a post in front of their house, daily email alerts are probably not as effective as slick snail mail asking for money. Or in the case of this example, outright extortion.
A fund raiser cleverly disguised as a very official looking census questionnaire would make any FOX News-fueled person convinced Obama’s America is a fascistcommunistgaynazimuslimdeathpanel police state willing to fill it out and let the GOP know just how mad as hell they are about the fact they’re living in a fascistcommunistgaynazimuslimdeathpanel police state. It comes with a four page letter and very official looking census envelope.
The letter is what you would expect from a GOP fund raiser pretending to look like an official government census document. It contains a long litany of all of the evil Obama has done to our country and without your help, it will continue unless the Republican Party wins the White House in 2016. The questions are what you would expect to see on FOX News, sans the typical y-axis impaired graph.
Anyone who is still first, a member of the Republican Party and second, capable of critical thinking must know this is in no way an official census. There is only one section of questions anyone at the RNC cares about, and it’s this:
More specifically, this:
The RNC knows they’re duping people scared to death after six years of propaganda that Obama is the Antichrist into sending fifteen dollars to “process” their completed census. What these people don’t know is the census they took time out of their day to fill out will never be read. No political party conducts research in this way. It’s all done by telephone. The only answer the GOP is interested on this questionnaire is whether you’re going to send them fifteen dollars, or perhaps more. Probably not the answer they want, but certainly the answer the Republican Party deserves:
The only question left – is it worth a stamp to send it in?
The Up North Progressive has been busy for the past week, not much time to write witty banter about Northern Michigan and politics.
My father passed away on May 20.
I was offered a full time job on May 20.
Things should be as back to normal as can be expected next week. Maybe. Thank you for your patience.
Quiverfull, Homeschooling, and Religious Fundamentalism: The Rot From Within That Threatens America
Tuesday , 26, May 2015 Religious Fundamentalism 3 Comments
Last week, Quiverfull cult member Josh Duggar admitted he had raped his sisters and girls in another family when he was a teen living in the home of the Christian patriarchy family brought into American homes via television. TLC has since canceled the show and several people within the religious fundamentalism movement, like Mike Huckabee, have come out in support of Josh Duggar and the Duggar family. The public so far has seen transcripts of confessions made by Josh Duggar, and we know now that the police officer who never sought charges against Duggar currently serves a prison term because he too is a child sex offender.
Most people know the Duggars are fundamentalist Christians and the family homeschools their children. What many people don’t know about the Duggars and other families like them is they are part of a strict religious cult that teaches the husband and father is the leader of the household, and his wife and children must submit to him in all things; including how to deal with a sexual predator son. This cult also demands they must have as many children as God gives them because God wants them to have them for the spiritual war that is coming to America.
Quiverfull is a main driving force in the homeschooling movement in the United States. It is through the Christian patriarchy movement that Quiverfull wives fulfill their role of raising children to be warriors for God. Boys are taught they will eventually be the unquestioned leaders of their families, representing the will of God in their home. Girls are taught to submit to the men in their lives in every way as women are beneath men according to the Bible. When Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar both enthusiastically say they want to have more children, that is Jim Bob talking for both of them. Michelle isn’t permitted to have an opinion on how many times she gets pregnant. In fact, if Jim Bob believes she is not being accommodating and pleasing enough in bed, he can go to their church and ask the church elders to discipline her for disobedience.
The main homeschooling organization for the Quiverfull cult was Vision Forum. The Duggars were very closely related to this homeschooling organization before the founder of the group confessed to having an extramarital affair. The therapy center where the Duggars took Josh, The Institute in Basic Life Principles, was founded by Bill Gothard. Gothard has since left the organization he founded after over 30 women accused him of sexual assault. Other members of this ministry have also been forced to resign for sexually abusing women and girls. It’s also worthy to note that one of the main funders for Gothard’s ministry is the Green family, owners of Hobby Lobby.
Many people have asked why the media hasn’t said more about Josh Duggar’s victims. Girls in two families were sexually assaulted by Duggar, and a look into the therapy he received from Bill Gothard explains why. Fundamentalist Christians teach girls within the cult movement that if a man has lustful thoughts of them, they are to blame for it. This is why they must always dress modestly in public, and never do anything that would send inappropriate signals to a boy or man. Josh Duggar was taught by IBLP that it was the victim’s fault he sexually abused them.
The boy sinned because the girls were not obedient and submissive enough.
Quiverfull and other fundamentalist religious cults that teach Christian patriarchy and submission of women all organize in the same way – homeschooling. Homeschooling organizations are where these people come together and this is how the religious right has infiltrated and turned the homeschooling movement into a training ground for more cult members. Vision Forum was a Christian homeschooling organization. Bill Gothard’s Advanced Training Institute also provides homeschooling curriculum. Accelerated Christian Education is another curriculum provider for homeschooling that also provides a model for churches to run a school. The emphasis on all of these programs is teaching children complete obedience to the father and church, and training to be warriors for God. Pasquale Battaglia’s attempts to open charter schools through Hillsdale College comes from the same fundamentalist Christian background, and it’s rotten to the core.
Not every religious fundamentalist is part of Quiverfull, but the same homeschooling background that requires complete obedience to God and a very strict, structured religious life is prevalent in a number of politicians currently serving in the state legislature in Lansing. They believe many of the same things the Duggars do, and very possibly practice a similar home life they believe all American families should live. Religious fundamentalism is as un-American as it gets, and the Duggars are showing us why. Keep this in mind as we get closer to the Supreme Court making same-sex marriage legal in the United States. They want all Americans to live the way they do, but consenting adults of the same sex wanting to marry are the immoral ones.
Part of the beauty of Morel hunting in northern Michigan is the opportunity to enjoy the woods in spring. Usually this means looking at spring flowers, plants, trees budding and perhaps the glimpse of an animal. Usually humans make enough noise to warn wildlife it’s time to disappear.
Such was the case with this little fawn. Hiding behind a downed tree and laying still. This is an amazing sight every time it happens, and the best thing to do is consider yourself very lucky and move away. Mom’s out of sight and watching.
But as rare as it is to see a newborn fawn in the woods, something even more rare can happen, like as soon as you turn around, a twin sibling appears, and they think you are mom.
This little baby is still wobbling on his legs, so not very old at all.
This is not a good thing, because the fawn is still young enough to think everything bigger that moves close to them in the woods is mom.
Sooooo cute. But standing still because you can’t believe this is really happening seems to encourage the fawn to move even closer. Close enough to sniff your foot and realize you’re not mom.
The fawn knows he has made a mistake, and this automatically triggers the baby deer alarm system.
MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! MAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
You jump in shock from something so small making noise that loud. This also informs the Morel hunting companion 20 yards away that you’re having a close encounter with a newborn fawn.
The fawn has had enough. He goes back to his hiding spot and you get out of there as fast as you can
And find some nice, big white Morels.
The rule in this situation is never touch newborn fawns found in the woods, enjoy the rare sight and move away quickly. Unless you get ambushed by their twin.
Another Public Education Hit Piece Courtesy of Bill Gates and MLive.com: Education Trust Edition
Wednesday , 20, May 2015 Section 16 1 Comment
Kyle Feldscher tells a tale of horror and woe about to befall public education in Michigan if something isn’t done about it right now. According to his article, “Michigan risks falling behind traditionally low-achieving states in public education” a report shows Michigan’s children are achieving so poorly in public schools the state’s ranking could possibly slip to Arkansas levels of bad.
The 48 page report, which offers no real data about anything remotely happening in Michigan’s public schools, instead insists that Michigan is not only failing poor black and Hispanic kids, Michigan’s schools are failing white kids too. Nothing will put the fear into parents faster than the idea that even white kids are at risk of falling behind. Why are Michigan schools failing? According to the report, because we’re not testing enough yet and fully holding teachers accountable.
Kyle Feldscher’s source for his article is a group called Michigan Achieves, who are under the umbrella of Education Trust. If you’re not sure who Education Trust is, they’re the people public schools have to thank for No Child Left Behind; that great plan to make schools go through high stakes testing to show annual progress or get their funding cut, because it makes perfect sense if a school struggles to pass a test, then the thing they will need to improve – funding – should be cut.
One of the main problems according to Education Trust’s report is that Michigan still isn’t punishing teachers enough for not doing better on a test that evaluates nothing. More than once the fact that Michigan hasn’t fallen into line with using VAM, or value added measures, to evaluate teacher’s progress is stated in the report:
While Michigan has taken some steps to improve its teaching quality, it has been slow to establish systems to improve teaching practices and elevate the profession, including a statewide system of educator evaluation and support that would give teachers the targeted feedback and data to know where they are and what they need to do to reach their goals – the kind of system that was instrumental to improving early literacy in states like Tennessee and Florida. This means that four years since the passage of tenure and evaluation reform in Michigan, almost all teachers in the state are told they are “effective” or “highly effective” no matter how much their students are learning – and many of them are not getting what they need to improve. The Michigan Department of Education and the Michigan Legislature have both continued to stall on this issue – by failing to adequately implement and invest in a statewide educator evaluation and support system.
Despite the overwhelming evidence that VAM in no way accurately measures a teacher’s performance in the classroom, here is a seemingly authoritative report scolding Michigan for not implementing it already.
So now Michigan Achieves Education Trust is launching a program to improve Michigan’s schools by encouraging the state to adopt more of their recommended polices – meaning more testing, and more corporate-driven education reform to dismantle public education in the state.
The issue everyone’s forgetting is this is the same group that came up with NCLB, and NCLB failed. Why is any newspaper publishing this bunk story about a group that wants to fix Michigan’s schools, but they’re the source for Michigan’s schools doing so bad, or that their plan to fix Michigan’s public schools are more of the same failed policies?
Bill and Melinda Gates, that’s why.
The usual billionaire funders are behind Education Trust. There is a lot of money in education. Money that was just being used to fund schools and educate kids. This of course is a grievous sin to any proper capitalist. Tax payer money being spent on children, and no one profiting from it? That must stop right away! This is why organizations like Education Trust suddenly appear out of thin air to pay reporters to write horror stories about how Michigan schools are failing.
It appears that the corporate education reformers are ramping up their efforts to continue to degrade Michigan schools until only for-profit testing factories remain. That’s just the way Bill Gates wants it. Scaring parents into demanding the state do something about these failing schools – which if they’re right, are failing because the schools already implemented the program that failed from the same people, is lower than low when it comes to “reforming” anything. But it’s the kind of sleazy thing we’ve come to expect from the likes of Bill and Melinda Gates.
This is the view looking west toward the capital on Michigan Avenue as you pass by Omar’s strip club. The capital dome is getting a shiny coat of paint and repairs to the tune of $6.4 million. The last time expensive renovations happened at the capital was when Republican Governor John Engler was in office. It was some time after all the state hospitals were closed down and our mental patients ended up in prison instead.
Lansing has some hellish roads. Just saying.