Progress Michigan: The Good, the Bad & the Oily

Good news: the taste-makers of political thought in Michigan are starting to notice a pattern between our state’s perpetual election cycles (hey, thanks, term limits!) and the gridlock in Lansing, especially when it comes to the state’s budget crisis (also perpetual, btw). Not a bunch to simply whine, the Free Press editorial staff offers a novel suggestion to Senate Majority Leader Mike “Cut Everything But My Hair” Bishop and Speaker of the House Andy “The D Is Allegedly for Democrat” Dillon: resign.

To wit:

This week’s candidate filing deadline seems an appropriate time for both leaders either to withdraw from their races or hand the ball to others who can focus full-time on the already critically delinquent work of fiscal reform.

Bad news: the same day the Freep editorial hits the streets, Gongwer reports that the Senate Appropriations committee passed a 4% cut to revenue sharing for municipalities. The Senate also rubber-stamped pulling $84 million from various pots of money – including highway maintenance – to pull down federal matching dollars, rather than raise the gas tax, as so many in the transportation sector have advised.

No real surprise that Bishop remains unwilling to do anything but maintain his all cuts (except when it comes to hair) approach, an extremist attitude that’s so far bringing the pain to regular Michiganders, but not yet to him.

Oily news – sorry, not related to any legislative hair. Actually, wait, yes it is! So, remember when people said offshore drilling was PERFECTLY SAFE (like the Titanic was UNSINKABLE), hence the “Drill, baby, drill?” Well, turns out, one of the “failsafes” that allegedly made drilling PERFECTLY SAFE doesn’t work so well. At least, not in the case of the BP oil spill, and certainly not when the cementing job performed by Halliburton also raised “red flags.”

Let’s give retiring Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak the final word on this one:

In Washington, Stupak said the committee investigators had uncovered a document prepared in 2001 by Transocean, the drilling rig operator, that said there were 260 “failure modes” that could require removal of the blowout preventer.

“How can a device that has 260 failure modes be considered fail-safe?” Stupak asked.

Probably the same way a ship once billed as unsinkable could plummet to the bottom of the ocean.

For more from Progress Michigan, please visit www.progressmichigan.org
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Here’s the video from The Bear Party who commented below: