Michigan Democratic Party: Our statement on Snyder choosing to side with Dick DeVos and the Koch

[Recall369]

25. I agree but...

I am sorry this post is so late but I have just joined the group and wanted to reply to this thread.
The Michigan right-to-work movement actually started a lot earlier than most people think. Toward the end of the Engler administration a then high ranking member of the Republican party met with a group in west Michigan that later became the nucleus of the Michigan Tea Party and told them that the ground work for Michigan's right-to-work plan was already in place. He maid references about such groups as the Koch brothers, epically David Koch, working through ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Committee) an organization basically founded and supported by the Koch brothers and other large corporation's, and backed by Dick DeVoss (Amway) The speaker than said "All we have to do is waite for the right governor to take office to put the plan into effect." I do not have the link right now to the video of this that appeared on YouTube but with a little bit of digging I believe it can be found. It is also documented that right after Snyder's election the Koch brothers through one of their many corporation's made a rather large donation to the Michigan Republican Governor's Fund which Rick Snyder has access to as was confirmed by an investigative report by WJR in Detroit right after the right-to-work bill passed the legislature and was sent to Gov. Snyder's desk. There is also a link going around the net comparing the Alec right-to-work bill and the Michigan right-to-work bill side by side and guess what the wording of each bill is almost identical paragraph by paragraph. Right after the Michigan legislature passed the right-to-work bill Mr. Bob King, president of the UAW stated that Republican legislators including Gov. Snyder had been threatened indirectly by the Koch brothers and Dick DeVoss that if they didn't vote for the bill that they would fund a recall of then and have them replaced by good Tea Party Members. This was also mentioned in many articles to follow in the Detroit Free Press.
I also agree that the Republicans may have shot themselves in the foot so to speak with this. But I think that what the Republican Party in Michigan is counting on is right before the election getting a large infusion of money into the state by people like the Koch brothers and DeVoss thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United verse the Federal Election Commission in which the Supreme Court basically ruled in a 5 to 4 decision that corporations were consider people and that money was considered as free speech. The Republicans believe that they can use the money to fund a large propaganda and misinformation campaign through shell groups like American's For Prosperity, which was also organized by the Koch b bothers and supported locally hear in Michigan by DeVoss, to persuade and outright scare the uninformed voters of the need to voters Republican. This tactic was first used in the recall election of Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin and again in the last election this past November to defeat Prop. 2 the Save Our Jobs/Protect Michigan's Working Families. Remember the commercials about how if collective bargaining rights were put into the Michigan Contusion teachers would come to school drunk or high and your children would be molested in school ? As a matter of fact that is the major reason that Michigan Rising stopped the second Recall Snyder campaign. What's the use of going through all the money and work to get the recall of Gov. Snyder on the ballot to be outspent 20 to one by the opposition as they were in Wisconsin.
I believe that what we need to do right now until the election 2014 is to keep the issue of the Republicans and right-to-work fresh in the minds of the voters. We also need to back and support groups such as Citizens Against Citizens United and Move to Amend just to name a couple of groups fighting against all this undocumented money being pored into Local, State and Federal elections. If we can do that or at least shine the brightest light we can on these outside groups I believe that we will have a fighting chance in 2014.
I am sorry that this note is so long but when I get fired up I really get fired up. Like I said earlier all the information stated in this letter can be verified with a little digging on the internet. Thanks for listening to me rant. Recall369