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How does an underfunded candidate defend himself against a big onslaught of negative attack ads? Newt Gingrich tried leveraging the media attention received from going nasty and personal in response and ended up flaming out in Florida and a string of caucuses in the last three weeks. Rick Santorum has decided to use humor to just attack the attack in a new ad running called "Rombo": CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO In its morning e-mail blast, Politico reports on the strategy, which purposefully avoids what it sees as the mistakes made by Gingrich in January: Campaign leaders feel that...

As Santorum has become the frontrunner for the GOP nomination, we can expect to see a wave of negative ad hominem attacks against him not only from competing Republicans, but also from the media, academia, Hollywood, and every other liberal in America. It will probably get very ugly.

The latest polls show former Senator Rick Santorum up by 9 points in Michigan, a state whose February 28 primary may provide much more than the 30 delegates riding on the contest. Mathematically it's not a 'must win' for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, but losing there (or even not winning by a large margin) may do irreparable damage to what was once considered his inevitable nomination. Unlike former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich who expected his South Carolina victory to scare off his opponents and propel him to success in Florida (it didn't), Mr. Santorum is not relying...

Mitt Romney's campaign in Michigan predicts a "strong finish" in the state's Feb. 28 presidential primary, but it stopped short of calling it a win for Romney in the state-by-state nominating contests. "We're going to have a very strong showing 13 days from now," said Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette in a conference call Wednesday morning. Schuette is Romney's Michigan campaign chairman. "I'm very pleased with our position," Schuette said. Asked to define what a "strong showing" is, Schuette said, "I'll let you know that Tuesday night." Romney's campaign moves to Michigan in advance of the Feb. 28 primary and...

Via BuzzFeed. As expected, they’re going hard after his fiscal heresies. I’m giving you Santorum’s new ad here too, which is noteworthy first because he touts his tea-party cred (ironic) and second because he’s now making electability a core component of his pitch. No other Not Romney has been in that position before — but the numbers do back him up, for now: One thing that has remained constant in the ever changing GOP Presidential race is that Mitt Romney is the strongest candidate against Barack Obama…at least until now. PPP’s newest national poll finds Romney trailing Obama by 7...

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is scheduled to make a campaign appearance in Macomb County this week, the first GOP candidate to visit the county in 2012. Santorum will attend a rally at the Palazzo Grande in Shelby Township on Friday, Feb. 17. The banquet center is located at 54660 Van Dyke Avenue south of 25 Mile Road. There is no charge to attend and the event is open to the public.

1-year-old Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. a pioneer in materials science and renewable energy technologies, today voluntarily filed a petition for relief under Chapter 11 in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. As part of its bankruptcy plan, ECD intends to sell through separate sales its wholly owned operating subsidiary United Solar Ovonic LLC (USO) and other assets, including its minority stake in Ovonyx, Inc. On 13 February ECD sold its majority owned subsidiary, Ovonic Battery Company, Inc. (OBC), to BASF Corporation for the gross purchase price of $58 million in cash before transaction fees, minority participations,...

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, following his wins last week in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri, has now jumped ahead of Mitt Romney in Michigan's Republican Primary race. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Republican Primary Voters in Michigan shows Santorum with 35% of the vote to Romney’s 32%. Well behind are Texas Congressman Ron Paul with 13% and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich with 11%. Only one percent (1%) prefers some other candidate in the race, while eight percent (8%) are undecided.

...a pair of polls...ought to be scaring the pants off of Romney’s camp. A PPP Michigan poll shows Santorum leading...by a 39-24 percent margin. The ARG poll also has him ahead, though by a smaller 33-27 percent differential. ...if any in his campaign were inclined to dismiss Santorum’s surge...this poll is proof they are dead wrong...a loss in Michigan would be fatal to [Romney's] presidential hopes...the air would go out of his inevitability balloon and Santorum would, despite his threadbare national campaign, assume the unlikely role of frontrunner. ...a defeat [in Michigan] would be considered a personal repudiation of [Romney's]...

“Constitution 101: The Meaning and History of the Constitution” is a 10-week online course presented by Hillsdale College. Featuring an expanded format from the “Introduction to the Constitution” lecture series with Hillsdale College President Dr. Larry Arnn, Constitution 101 follows closely the one-semester course required of all Hillsdale College undergraduate students. In this course, you can: • watch lectures from the same Hillsdale faculty who teach on campus; • study the same readings taught in the College course; • submit questions for weekly Q&A sessions with the faculty; • access a course study guide; • test your knowledge through weekly...

“Constitution 101: The Meaning and History of the Constitution” is a 10-week online course presented by Hillsdale College. Featuring an expanded format from the “Introduction to the Constitution” lecture series with Hillsdale College President Dr. Larry Arnn, Constitution 101 follows closely the one-semester course required of all Hillsdale College undergraduate students. In this course, you can: watch lectures from the same Hillsdale faculty who teach on campus; study the same readings taught in the College course; submit questions for weekly Q&A sessions with the faculty; access a course study guide; test your knowledge through weekly quizzes; and upon completion of...

n his New York Times bestselling book, Throw Them All Out, Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer revealed how members of Congress enrich themselves and their relatives using earmarks and insider information. Now, the Washington Post, following in Schweizer’s footsteps, has conducted a study that found 16 members of Congress have used their power of the purse to benefit companies, colleges, and community groups tied to their relatives. *snip* Among those cited in the Washington Post report were the following (below):

Of all the polling that takes place over the next three weeks, Michigan might get the highest profile. Mitt Romney has strong ties to Michigan; his father was a popular governor in the state, and most people assumed Romney would not have to expend much energy there to win a Republican primary. The first hint of trouble came two weeks ago in a Rasmussen poll that showed Romney only 15 points up over Newt Gingrich but only at 38%, roughly what he got in 2008 against two strong challengers. I wrote at the time that Michigan could provide an opening...

Rick Santorum's taken a large lead in Michigan's upcoming Republican primary. He's at 39% to 24% for Mitt Romney, 12% for Ron Paul, and 11% for Newt Gingrich. Santorum's rise is attributable to two major factors: his own personal popularity (a stellar 67/23 favorability) and GOP voters increasingly souring on Gingrich. Santorum's becoming something closer and closer to a consensus conservative candidate as Gingrich bleeds support. Santorum's winning an outright majority of the Tea Party vote with 53% to 22% for Romney and 10% for Gingrich. He comes close to one with Evangelicals as well at 48% to 20% for...

Santorum Now Leads Romney in Michigan February 11th, 2012 | Author: Ben Hart Rick Santorum now leads Mitt Romney in Michigan — the state where Mitt’s dad was governor, according to a tweet by Public Policy Polling. The PPP tweet says: “Santorum topping Romney on the first night of our Michigan poll. This may be the biggest surge yet.”

DETROIT— Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is bringing his campaign message to the Detroit Economic Club. The former Pennsylvania senator is scheduled to speak at the club's luncheon meeting next Thursday at Cobo Center in Detroit. He'll speak that evening at the Oakland County Republican Party's 2012 Lincoln Day dinner at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi.

Thursday was just the second time Rick Santorum's campaign has ever raised more than a million dollars in a single day. The first was Wednesday, right after Santorum swept GOP contests in Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri. That's what winning will do. Santorum is now enjoying the bounce he never got after his belated victory in Iowa. The question is, what is he going to do with it? The next primaries are more than two weeks away, on Feb. 28 in Arizona and Michigan. They're both big, they're both important, and they're both states in which Mitt Romney will have some...

The story of Benton Harbor's financial troubles has been well known since the town made national news when Gov. Jennifer Granholm appointed former state Auditor General Joseph Harris as the emergency manager in April of 2010. Benton Harbor was in the midst of a six-year cycle where it had overspent its budget by $8 million. What may not be as well known are the details of a union contract that played a part in the city’s financial crisis. The city had worked under the contract for eight years, an unusually long life for a union deal. Under that contract, the...

Unlike the man who claimed a pricey Dallas home for $16, squatters in Detroit houses that failed to sell at a tax auction may be able to keep their new digs -- for a mere 500 bucks. The Detroit News reports: In a stark sign that paying property taxes is optional for some in Detroit, Wayne County Treasury officials decided last week its workers will go door-to-door to some of the 6,500 city properties unsold at last fall's tax auctions and offer to make a deal with whoever is living inside. That could include renters, squatters or the owners who...

In the wake of Rick Santorum’s big night yesterday, Mitt Romney might be inclined to tell himself that the Pennsylvanian can’t duplicate those victories elsewhere and that his advantage in money and organization will ultimately enable him to prevail in most states in a race that now looks to be long and hard but still in his pocket. But he should put all such consoling thoughts out of his head. Though Santorum is still weak where Romney is strong, all that could change later this month if he wins in another state where everyone is assuming Romney can’t lose. Romney needs...

Visitors to the Pacific island of Peleliu can't claim they weren't warned. The sign at the harbour says "Welcome to Peleliu -- Land of Enchantment," but as the boat approaches the quay, a second sign becomes visible. "Remember that WWII ordnance is still dangerous and can injure or kill!"The water glistens in varying shades of turquoise, the sand on the beaches is as fine as dust and a balmy breeze eases the tropical heat. But the beauty is deceptive. The "Land of Enchantment," which belongs to the island nation of Palau, was the scene of one of the bloodiest battles...

Michigan Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Roger Khan, R-Saginaw, received $5,000 from the Service Employees International Union on June, 9, 2011. That was the day House Bill 4003 was sent to the Senate, one day after its passage in the House. HB 4003 was drafted to end the Home Healthcare Dues Skim, under which the SEIU has received more than $28 million. These taxpayer dollars were, and continue to be, taken from home health care worker checks and given to the SEIU as union dues. According to multiple sources, Sen. Kahn was put in charge of HB 4003 after it was...

A Saginaw News article posted this afternoon asks in its story headline, “Is Fabiano Bros. a Monopoly?” The story covers a verifiable assertion I laid out in a commentary titled “Eight Ideas for Reforming Alcohol Control in Michigan.” Unfortunately, the article is comprised largely of a collection of redirections on the part of the Michigan Beer and Wine Wholesalers Association, the Lansing-based trade group that represents state wholesalers. Fabiano Bros. is a beer and wine wholesaler headquartered in mid-Michigan. First, and with respect to the reporter, she omits useful explanatory language. The full paragraph from my commentary reads: Eliminate the...

The Michigan Democrats’ plan to pay college tuition for Michigan students claims that “governmental belt-tightening has come only via state employees, who have given back over $500 million in concessions.” But James Hohman, fiscal policy analyst at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, questions where the concessions show up in the state workers’ compensation data. In 2001, the state paid $3.9 billion to 62,057 full-time employees, an average of $63,474 in total compensation for each employee. In 2011, the state paid $4.7 billion to 47,818 full-time employees, meaning total compensation per worker jumped to $97,883. The Mackinac Center received the...

Reid’s floor maneuvers leave some Senate Democrats frustratedBy Alexander Bolton - 02/07/12 05:15 AM ET Some Democrats are grumbling over how Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has run the floor this year. The frustration is felt mostly among junior lawmakers, who want more of a role in decision-making and have yet to resign themselves to the traditional pace of the Senate, where seniority rules and lawmakers often have to wait years to have significant influence. They say Reid’s style leaves them feeling out of the loop. Colleagues have second-guessed Reid’s decision to greenlight a deal with Republicans on the...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development announced today that Chevrolet Volt purchasers are now eligible for the state’s $2,500 electric vehicle (EV) rebate. The rebate requires that consumers qualify for and participate in The EV Project, a national study on EV use and charging infrastructure deployment. The EV Project will provide participants with a free Blink® 240V networked charge station and a credit of up to $1,200 towards its installation. To be eligible, Tennessee residents must sign an EV Project participant agreement, purchase the Volt, take delivery of the car, and have SPX Corporation install...

Has this ever been mentioned on Cable News? Did Obama actually hand GM 50 Billion Dollars to build the Volt? And if so? How many have been sold and how many had to be recalled? The last update so far was that we have spent 250 Thousand on every Volt Sold, and didn't they all get recalled? Kinda like what happened with the Ford Pinto Blowabout? If the math is wrong,please recalculate. But it looks like another 50 Billion went down the tubes,along with Solyndra. You could of fed millions of starving Americans with 50 Billion !!!

You just have to love it when government uses taxpayer resources to convince taxpayers to cough up more. It takes an unusually large set of brass ones to do such a thing. But that’s apparently how they roll in the Western School District, near Battle Creek, Michigan. Apparently unaware for the past dozen years that technology can play a role in improving education, school officials want to raise taxes (about $180 annually for a $100,000 home) to pay for technology upgrades. The school district has blurred ethical lines in order to accomplish its mission. The “Vote Yes!” campaign posted a...

A new proposal announced by state Senate Democrats would use savings generated by eliminating “ineffective tax loopholes” to pay for the college tuition of Michigan students. However, these same “ineffective tax loopholes” for particular businesses include ones that the Michigan Senate Democrats have overwhelmingly voted for over the past several years. Robert McCann, spokesman for Sen. Gretchen Whitmer, D-East Lansing, said the plan was to shave off just 5 percent of the $35 billion in tax credits the state gives out. McCann said under the plan any new tax credit would be limited to four years and there would also...

Legislation been introduced that reportedly would extract more than $1 billion from motorists through a new state fuel tax and a huge increase in the vehicle registration tax. The latter, paid each year on a car owner’s birthday, would increase 67 percent on average according to The Detroit News. Happy Birthday taxpayer! Now, give your state government $60 more. The plan also moves the current gas tax from the pump to the wholesale part of the transaction, raising the per-gallon levy from 19 cents per gallon to around 28 cents per gallon. The money would be spent on road and...

Train Detrailment in Jackson county Michigan.

According to The Detroit News, former Gov. Jennifer Granholm made a deal with a group of wealthy and politically connected individuals in Oakland County to use state pension funds to guarantee $18 million they borrowed to set up a film studio in Pontiac, essentially making the pension fund the “co-signer” on the loan. The “business model” for this studio was completely dependent on another of Gov. Granholm’s corporate welfare schemes, a subsidy program that paid up to 42 percent of film producers’ Michigan expenses. No reputable economist has ever defended these subsidies, which are pure “political development” programs, not economic...

PRESS RELEASE 01-31-2012 Allegan Police Chief Rick Hoyer Shut Down of “Defending Our Constitution from Enemies Foreign and Domestic” Event: The Rest of the Story, On Tuesday the 24th of January, CAIR (Center of American Islamic Relations) had in fact sent a letter to Allegan High School Administration office, the Allegan County news and others. CAIR is the unindicted co conspirator in a $12,000,000 dollar laundering scheme to finance terrorist groups - Google ref: (the Holy land Foundation Trial 2008) more information about terrorist groups can also be found at www.theoakinitiative.org resources tab: terrorist. The purpose of this letter from...

Those opposing the unionization of University of Michigan graduate student research assistants will be left out in the cold. That's the gist of a Michigan Court of Appeals ruling. Attorney General Bill Schuette and the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation had separately requested to be party to a hearing on the potential unionization issue. Without their side of the argument being represented, the hearing in the question will only involve entities that favor the unionization. MCLF had filed an intervention request on behalf of a group of some 370-plus graduate student research assistants who opposed unionization. Now, however, those students will...

Rep. Mike Shirkey, R-Clark Lake, is expected to introduce right-to-work legislation in the Michigan House. Under such a law, employers and unions would be prohibited from negotiating contracts that require non-union employees to pay union dues. With Indiana moving toward right-to-work status, the issue appears to be heating up in Michigan. Capitol Confidential interviewed Shirkey via telephone Tuesday evening. The following are excerpts from that interview. Have you introduced the right-to-work legislation? “No, it hasn't been introduced. I'm not going to speculate on the timing because sometimes that just sets you up for disappointment. Our plan is to go across...

Mitt Romney, once seen as a sure bet to win the Michigan Republican presidential primary, now appears locked in a surprisingly tight race with challenger Newt Gingrich. Michigan is home turf for the former Massachusetts governor. His late father, George Romney, was a popular governor of Michigan from 1963 to 1969, and the younger Romney grew up in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills. But with the state’s primary approaching on Feb. 28, Mr. Romney’s lead remains small, given his home-court advantage. A poll released last week by the Detroit Free Press/WXYZ-TV found that 31% of likely voters supported Mr....

Indiana may soon become America's 23rd right-to-work state: Legislation is under consideration in both chambers of the Indiana Legislature, and Gov. Mitch Daniels said he will sign such a bill. Michigan may need to adopt such a law to better compete for jobs and talent. Perhaps the best information on the influence of right-to-work laws comes from a 1998 study authored by economist Thomas Holmes of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Holmes examined manufacturing employment in border counties of neighboring states where one state had right-to-work protections and the other did not. He found manufacturing employment as a percentage...

What is it? Orbital,non-reciprocating internal combustion engine. Piston/Cylinder structured Adaptable to all liquid or gaseous fuels Ultra efficient Patent # 7721687B1; & Patents Pending

For 3 years, American gun owners have been told that the best thing to happen for the profitability of firearm manufacturers was the election of Barack Hussein Obama. And in spite of the sentiments of liberals like Detroit News columnist Bill Johnson, the best thing to happen in the City of Detroit might be the awakening of its law abiding residents to the fact that they are for all intents and purposes on their own in the battle against crime in the murder capital of the United States. For nearly 40 years, Detroit has led the nation in murder rate....

DEARBORN HEIGHTS — A figurative beat down turned literal beating has led to the felony arrests of a group of local high school football players. Police arrested four Star International Academy seniors Wednesday on aggravated assault charges stemming from an altercation in the team’s last game of the season. The players -- Mohamed Ahmed, Fanar Al-Alsady, Hadee Attia and Ali Bajjey, all age 17 -- are accused of gang-beating Lutheran Westland’s quarterback as time expired in Lutheran’s 47-6 drubbing of Star on Oct. 21. According to numerous witness statements gathered by police, Lutheran’s quarterback was set to take a knee...

I'm not sure what motivated these Muslim players to rip off a quarterback's helmet and beat him senseless, but if their lawyer is claiming that their arrests were racially motivated (Islamophobia, of course), then I will say that the attacks themselves were racially motivated (Christianophobia). Could you imagine the media uproar if four Christian players had given a Muslim quarterback a concussion?

According to news reports, some individuals associated with the Tea Party movement have publicly called for a recall campaign against State Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, R-Monroe. One of the issues cited is Richardville's stated opposition to right-to-work legislation. Sen. Richardville's position on that issue appears to be at odds with most of the Senate Republicans who chose him for the leadership position. As earlier reported by CapCon, 17 of the 26 Republicans who now hold the majority in the 38-member state Senate have already voted for a right-to-work measure while serving previous terms in the state House. Five current...

One of my senses failed 10 days ago as I sat in the plush comfort of Jackson Community College’s Potter Center. It was my sense of outrage. U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow stood onstage citing a statistic when she exposed the impairment of my outrage functions. The 400 richest people in the United States, Stabenow said, have more wealth than 150 million Americans, combined. Head-shaking and murmurs of disgust swept through the audience. “So what?” I thought. It was a total failure to generate outrage. Stabenow's statistic was evidently discovered months ago by filmmaker Michael Moore. Even if true — the...

Salem Township employees don’t contribute anything to their health care costs. And they won’t have to contribute up to 20 percent of their health care costs as a new state law mandates after the Salem Township board voted 7-0 to exempt itself from the law. Municipalities need a two-thirds vote from the governing body to be exempt from the law. The Publicly Funded Health Insurance Contribution Act (Public Act 152) states that as of Jan. 1, 2012, “a public employer shall pay not more than 80% of the total annual costs of all of the medical benefit plans it offers...

GRAND RAPIDS, MI—Scott Allan Herrick, 40, of Twin Lakes, Michigan, was sentenced to serve 95 years in prison, U.S. Attorney Donald A. Davis announced today. Herrick surreptitiously videotaped boys as they were dressing in the boys’ locker room in the YMCA in Muskegon and kept a massive collection of 100,000 images of child pornography with him at the Gerber Boy Scout Camp in Twin Lakes, Michigan. He was convicted at trial of three counts of attempting to produce child pornography. On the first day of trial, Herrick pleaded guilty to two counts of distributing child pornography and one count of...

Schlockumentary filmmaker Michael Moore said recently that America was "founded on genocide and built on the backs of slaves." This disgusting statement was made at the same January 12 Symposium on Poverty at which he claimed older whites who didn't vote for Barack Obama in 2008 were racist. MICHAEL MOORE: "It’s not envy, it’s war, and it is a class war, and it’s a war that has been perpetrated by the rich on to everybody else. I mean, the class war is one they started. The mistake they've made, just to deal with the racial part of this, is their...

A Department of Education report that said 48 school districts posted deficits in 2010-2011 is being used to blame Gov. Rick Snyder and the Legislature for cuts that are part of the state's 2011-2012 budget. Michael Van Beek, director of education policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, said Gov. Snyder’s cuts weren't in place at the time the districts were in the red, and that these districts were spending more than they were taking in before Gov. Snyder took office. The article states: “The move comes after school districts absorbed cuts in state aid, with the minimum per-student...

Link only - GM Breaks 9 Million Taking Global Sales Crown From Toyota: Cars

Michigan has been at the forefront of reforming its retirement system for state employees. It is time to do the same for the state-run school employee pension plan. In 1996, Michigan was one of the first government pension systems to convert to a defined-contribution 401(k) plan — but it only applied to those who work for the state itself, not school employees. All new state employees hired since then are offered up-front contributions to individual retirement accounts. Those hired previously are covered by a conventional defined-benefit system, with pension fund contributions calculated by actuaries using assumptions imposed by politicians. State...

DETROIT (CNNMoney) -- Detroit automakers are back on their feet, showing their best profits in years. But the city of Detroit's finances are worse than ever. The city won't have enough money to pay its bills by April, unless Mayor Dave Bing can get the council and municipal unions to agree to steep spending cuts he's announced. By the end of its fiscal year in June, that shortfall will hit $45 million. There is also the possibility that the state may take over the city, which would open the door for Detroit to file for bankruptcy. That would make it...