But You'll Never Take Our Freed...Oh Never Mind

I've talked about Michigan's GOP Gov. Rick Snyder and his dictatorship of Michigan here:

So at this point, Gov. Snyder can appoint an "emergency manager" over a local government who has the power to remove any local or county government he wants to, eliminate all local government contracts, close schools and offices, disband state employee unions, layoff any government workers, and do all this with basically no oversight.

The best part?  Governor Snyder can pro-actively appoint an emergency manager "long before a city gets into trouble".  What's the criteria for appointing this manager and throwing out the elected city or country government?

Well, nobody seems to know, actually.  But Snyder can do it starting now.

Meet the first Michigan town to feel the wrath of Rick Snyder's "Appoint-A-Satrap" program:  Benton Harbor's new head, Joe Harris.

[O]ne of the first things that Joseph Harris did was to fire a number of people on both the Planning Commission and the Brownfield Development Commission in Benton Harbor and replace them with people he hand-picked. These two commissions are the ones most intimately involved in decision-making about real estate development in Benton Harbor. They will decide who gets permits, what developments will look like and who gets to pick the ripe plums present in Benton Harbor. And they are now staffed largely by people chosen by the Czar of Benton Harbor.

This is where the rubber meets the pavement. If you are looking for motivations for Snyder and his Republican friends to take over Benton Harbor, watch who gets development rights of the Lake Michigan shoreline. They are already setting things up to ensure that it is not the local residents of Benton Harbor.

Sure glad Snyder's not abusing his power to rid himself of any local officials he wants to or anything.  Welcome to the Banana Republic of the Wolverine.  Oh, it gets worse.  The real target is Detroit.

As if to prove correct those who argued that the Emergency Manager bill would be used to alter or eliminate union contracts, Detroit Public Schools Emergency Manager Robert Bobb said Thursday that he will use those new powers to do exactly that.

Just poof, all union contracts thrown out, all teachers given potential layoff notices, all opposition to the plan squelched.  And it gets worse.  E.D. Kain explains:

So who is Robert Bobb?

It turns out, he’s a recent graduate of the Broad Foundation’s Superintendent Academy. The Broad Foundation, along with the Kellogg Foundation, pays Bobb $145,000 a year on top of his $280,000 government salary. For those of you not familiar with Broad, it is one of the leading foundations promoting school choice and privatization across the country. One might almost think that paying a public official hundreds of thousands of dollars a year might amount to nothing short of bribery, especially given the very specific agenda of a foundation like the Broad Foundation.

Now, Bobb is proposing to create charter schools for 16,000 students from 41 schools slated for closure. He argues that this will save millions of dollars. I have to wonder, however, at the conflict of interest.

Did I mention it gets even worse?

This is nothing short of a coordinated effort between the billionaire foundations pushing school reform and Tea Party conservatives intent on slashing benefits and ending collective bargaining rights. Public schools are under assault by the forces of privatization, and public school teachers face benefit and salary cuts while the very rich are promised tax cuts. Similar efforts are underway in Florida and Wisconsin.

That's right, Scott Walker and Rick Scott are very, very interested in passing a similar dictatorship law to what Michigan has now.  They are very much intrigued by being able to exterminate any opposition at the local and county level by simply appointing a financial manager to run out whomever they want to.  And with Florida's GOP having a super-majority, I fully expect Rick Scott to absolutely have a law like this in place so he can simply dismiss any local or county elected official he doesn't like in the state.

But keep in mind that's conjecture.  Michigan's Rick Snyder?  He has this power now, and he's already using it to dispose of anyone who gets in his way.

But remember, Democrats are the fascists.  Snyder's a patriot.