Free Republic

(WXYZ) - Ford Motor is stepping up to help the victims of the recent wave of tornadoes. The Ford Motor Company Fund is donating $75,000 to the American Red Cross and the Dare to Care food bank in Louisville. Ford employees are expecting to raise another $25,000 through donations to help their neighbors. The money will be used to help victims of the tornadoes in southern Indiana and Kentucky. Other employees are volunteering their time to help victims rebuild in southern Ohio.

March is an important month in the ongoing saga of President Obama’s abject policy failures. First, Chevrolet announced that it would temporarily cease production of the president’s much-touted car for the green economy, the Chevy Volt. Second, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the state-led challenge to the president’s health care legislation. And while “ObamaCar” and ObamaCare may seem like unrelated topics, in this case they have at least three elements in common. Both were sold as a key to creating jobs and economic growth. Only last year the president predicted that there would be 1 million electric cars on...

Electric cars, which wouldn’t even be an option if taxpayers’ money wasn’t propping them up, don’t ultimately save money or cut down pollution. They aren’t reliable to get from here to there. But they can look nice, like the Fisker Karma. Speaking of which, we have this shall we say not entirely unexpected news, courtesy Reuters:...

It was billed as proposal to prevent Michigan from becoming a right-to-work state. Instead, it would put mandatory collective bargaining into the state constitution and usurp power away from elected officials. On March 2, United Auto Workers President Bob King announced that a coalition of unions would push for an amendment to the Michigan Constitution that would prohibit right-to-work legislation. Right-to-work prohibits labor contracts that require non-union employees to pay union dues. Currently, employees in Michigan who work under union-negotiated contracts have to pay union dues even if they don't belong to the union. King said the unions promoting the...

Worried relatives of the missing Medsker family of Michigan, who disappeared without a trace in February, were contacted today by the family and assured that they are safe, police in Petoskey announced today. -excerpt- But today, after widespread media attention about the case, Timothy Medsker contacted a family member in Petoskey, Mich., to assure relatives and the public that the Medskers were safe.

U.S. Sen. Carl Levin has scheduled a March 20 hearing of his Senate Armed Services Committee to scrutinize Air Force plans to cut Air National Guard troops across the nation, including a one-third reduction of military personnel at Selfridge Air National Guard Base. An Air Force report concludes that eliminating Selfridge’s 24 A-10 Thunderbolt aircraft while adding four KC135 air refueling tankers would cost the Harrison Township base 720 jobs. But the Michigan National Guard said errors in the Air Force count puts the true number at 561, compared to an overall troop force at Selfridge of 1,586. In a...

Everybody is outraged by the fact that she has a lot of money now – $700,000 after taxes, apparently – but will stay on the government dole. What struck me was the fact that she was spending money on lottery tickets while on food stamps. If you have money to gamble, why does the government have to feed you? (VIDEO AT LINK) Really, this is just a “sign of the times” for where our society is at right now. We have an entire political party on the left that, as part of their 2012 campaign platform, is claiming that Republicans...

Authorities and family members are searching for clues in the disappearance of a Michigan couple and their child. Timothy Medsker, 33, and Sabrina Medsker, 34, vanished with their 4-month-old son Joshua without any warning. They were last seen at a birthday party for their niece and their last phone call was placed on Feb. 16. The young couple has a successful cleaning business with strong ties to the small Michigan town of Petoskey. Despite attempts to track them down the family and police haven't heard from them at all. "This is 100 percent out of character and very concerning," said...

FOX News says Romney & GOP kept Gingrich off of Virginia ballot

Source is link only. STORY

JACKSON --Consumers Energy wants to recover $32.6 million from electric customers. The Jackson-based utility filed an application last week with the Michigan Public Service Commission to recover revenue for the period of December 2010 through November 2011 to level out variations in sales. Consumers filed two options to recover this money. The first would refund about $5.2 million to residential customers, charge $6.2 million to those who use lower voltages of power, and charge $31.6 million to higher-voltage customers. The second option would be to charge all customers $28.2 million, charge $4.8 million to lower-voltage customers and refund $396,000 to...

The highest paid city official in Dearborn in 2011 wasn’t Mayor John B. O’Reilly. It was a police lieutenant who had a gross salary of $151,856 in 2011, or $17,233 more than what the mayor’s gross salary was, and $32,758 more than what the police chief earned. Six-figured gross salaries are not unusual for police departments throughout Michigan. A Dearborn police sergeant made $134,505 in gross salary in 2011, which was a $39,747 increase over the sergeant’s 2010 gross pay. Five police department employees had gross pay of more than $120,000 in 2011. In all, 29 of the 185 police...

GRAND RAPIDS — Nicholas Looman said he was not surprised the Kent County Prosecutor’s Office found he complied with state law while carrying a gun into an elementary school voting precinct this week. He’s disheartened with what he sees as a lack of understanding with open-carry gun laws and has hired an attorney to “explore the possibility” of a lawsuit against local law enforcement authorities. Looman questions whether being “detained” in an office at Aberdeen Elementary School on voting day violated his personal rights. He is upset with how the whole situation was handled. "The prosecutor went out of his...

GRAND RAPIDS (WZZM) -- Michigan State Police say a man who walked into a Grand Rapids school with a gun was protected by state law. Around noon Tuesday, the man walked into the polling place at Aberdeen Elementary School with a gun clearly visible in his holster. The man told administrators he had a concealed carry permit, and was trying to stand up for his legal right to carry a gun on election day. Previous Coverage - GRPS: Voter may be charged for bringing gun to school School leaders expect the man to face a misdemeanor charge, but that may...

President Barack Obama says higher auto mileage standards set under his administration and better cars built by a resurgent U.S. auto industry will save money at the gas pump over the long term, a counterpoint to Republican criticism of his energy policy. In his weekly radio and online address Saturday, Obama said Detroit automakers are on track to build cars that average nearly 55 miles per gallon by 2025, doubling current mileage standards. "That means folks will be able to fill up every two weeks instead of every week, saving the typical family more than $8,000 at the pump over...

The Oakland County Election Commission unanimously approves the language in one of two recall petitions Thursday afternoon, allowing the effort to recall the controversial mayor to proceed. Recall Janice Daniels, a political action committee comprised of "concerned citizens" leading the effort to recall Troy Mayor Janice Daniels, will soon begin collecting signatures after one of its petitions was approved Thursday afternoon. Daniels first came under fire in December for her anti-gay Facebook comment and has remained the center of controversy after voting against the Troy Transit Center (a scaled-down version was later approved), telling the Troy High School Gay-Straight Alliance...

General Motors has temporarily suspended production of its Volt electric car, the company announced Friday.  GM, which is based in Detroit, announced to employees at one of its facilities that it was halting production of the beleaguered electric car for five weeks and temporarily laying off 1,300 employees. A GM spokesman told The Hill on Friday that production of the Volt would resume April 23. "We needed to maintain proper inventory and make sure that we continued to meet market demand," GM spokesman Chris Lee said in a telephone interview. Lee noted that sales of the Volt were higher in...

Rick Santorum's campaign is asking for an investigation of what it called the "backroom deal" that resulted in a narrow delegate victory for Mitt Romney in Michigan's Republican primary on Tuesday. In a letter to the Republican National Committee's legal counsel, the Santorum campaign's chief lawyer claims the Michigan Republican Party improperly awarded both of the at-large delegates to Romney, instead of splitting them between the two candidates. "It is our understanding that several public supporters and Michigan surrogates of an opposing campaign voted in favor of the delegate allocation change which assisted their chosen candidate," Santorum's general counsel Cleta...

This is a side comment about something Rush said the other day: Santorum won 57 out of 83 counties. That's an incredible percentage, and it reminds me of the map of the United States, red and blue by county, when you look at that after a presidential race. The whole country is red (signifying Republican) except LA, San Francisco, Seattle, Miami, Washington, New York, Boston, Chicago and Detroit. The Republicans win 80% of America's counties and lose the White House. Santorum won 57 out of 83 counties. And, as of now, Santorum, while losing the popular vote, has won seven...