Must watch TV?
The first presidential debate is Thursday at 9 PM on CNN. Let me know how it goes.
I couldn’t have said it better.
Per Michael Reitz of the Detroit News.
When running for governor in 2018, Gretchen Whitmer made a remarkable pledge, promising to open the governor’s office to the Freedom of Information Act. “Michiganders should know when and what their governor is working on,” she wrote.
On June 23, we reached day 2,000 of the Whitmer administration.
She has yet to keep her promise.
Every state has a public records law that allows the people to see what their government is doing. Michigan’s law has a huge loophole: It exempts the governor and the state Legislature from having to produce records. This means if you request government records that are held by the governor or lawmakers, you aren’t likely to get them.
Whitmer’s campaign pledge was a big deal. Previous gubernatorial candidates, such as former Gov. Rick Snyder and Virg Bernero had only agreed to sign legislation if it reached their desk. But Whitmer pledged unilateral leadership. She wrote, “If the legislature won’t act, I will use the governor’s authority … to extend FOIA to the Lieutenant Governor and Governor’s Offices.”
Two thousand days is a long time. You can complete a college education in that time. Whitmer’s pledge has gone unfulfilled longer than the United States’ involvement in World War I and World War II combined.
She Should Have Fixed the Damn Roads
Per Bridge Michigan, the cost of fixing a mile of roadway in Michigan has increased 38% for the four-year period of 2019-2022 as compared to 2015-2018. Furthermore, there is only $700 million left of the $3.5 billion bond issue that the state used to fund road construction during Whitmer’s first term. Absent a long-term funding solution, Michigan road and bridge quality is still projected to decline after some recent modest improvements.
“With the dollar amount that it took me to pave a mile of roadway in 2019 … today I’m doing two-thirds of a mile,” Michigan Department of Transportation Director Bradley Wieferich said at the recent Mackinac Policy Conference, calling the agency’s decreased buying power a “big constraint on our program moving forward.”
The Democrats control the governor’s office and both chambers of the legislature, there is no excuse for the Democrats to not come up with a plan that will “fix the damn roads”, which is a basic function of government.
Is Ray the Only One Who Saw this Coming?
The morning after President Biden’s State of the Union speech in March, my friend Ray told me that building a floating pier to deliver aid to Gaza was one of the dumbest ideas he ever heard of. He told me one of two things were going to happen, rough seas were going to make it nearly impossible to operate, or it will become the target for attacks. So, when I read the article in The Guardian this week about how the floating dock has been a $230 million failure I couldn’t forward it to Ray fast enough. Here are excerpts from The Guardians article.
A floating pier built by the US military for seaborne humanitarian deliveries to Gaza has proved itself to be fragile in the face of rougher seas than expected, and the future of the whole $230m project is now in question.
The pier has been usable for just 12 days since it began operations on 17 May. On most of those days the assistance arriving by sea has had to be left on the beach as there have been no trucks to distribute it to warehouses in Gaza, because of lack of security.
The scheme has fallen far short of initial expectations. When he announced it in his state of the union speech on 7 March, Joe Biden said the temporary pier “would enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza every day”.
It took more than two months to put together the two structures required, a floating dock anchored a few miles out to sea and a floating pier to be attached to the Gazan coast. About 1,000 soldiers and sailors and a small flotilla of ships were involved in the construction, including a Royal Navy landing ship, Cardigan Bay, which provided accommodation.
Over the entire course of the pier’s operation so far, however, only about 250 truckloads of food and other humanitarian assistance (4,100 tonnes) have arrived by the planned maritime corridor, less than half of what would cross into Gaza in a single day before the war. Much of the aid that has arrived so far is stuck at the foot of the pier on a marshalling yard established on the beach.
Accountability
The Detroit Tigers were the laughingstock of the internet baseball world on Monday as they hit into 1-3-5 triple play. It was the first time this has happened in the major leagues since 1929, or 95 years. I had tuned to the game on the radio just after the play was completed, and Tiger announcer Dan Dickerson was totally perplexed as he was trying to make sense of the play to his listeners. Here is a description of the play from The Motor City Bengals blog.
The Tigers looked like they had a chance to close the gap a little in the third, with runners on the corners and Matt Vierling, looking to extend a four-game hitting streak, was at the plate.
He hit a sinker straight back to Aaron Nola, who made a clean play and whipped it to first to double off Carson Kelly, who was heading back but had no chance to get there on time. If that had been it, Tigers fans could write it off as an impressive but ultimately forgettable double play.
That wasn’t all, though: Zach McKinstry seemed to have no idea where the ball was, and he hustled home from third. He was already well past the plate when Bryce Harper slung the ball over to third for Alec Bohm to complete one of the saddest, most avoidable triple plays you’ve ever seen.
This was not a hard-hit line drive. It was a soft line drive to the pitcher that had some arc on it. How does this happen when you are playing against arguably the best team in baseball?
Little Leaguers are taught to make sure line drives get through the infield before they take off from their base, so they don’t get doubled off and kill a rally. On this play, two players ignored this fundamental of baserunning. To make matters worse, the runner on third Zach McKinstry kept on running to home even though he saw the pitcher throw to first to double off Carson Kelly.
The Tigers are significantly underperforming, and someone needs to be held accountable when something like this happens. A message needs to be sent through the organization that this type of lackadaisical play will not be tolerated. Whether it is the baserunners or the base coaches, I don’t care, but one of those four should not be on the team.
Zach McKinstry and Carson Kelly get my Onion of the Day.
Postscript.
Prior to the above happening with the Tigers, I had already identified someone else for the Onion of the Day. His story didn’t hold up because Paul DeJung only caused a double play that ended the White Sox chance to rally in the ninth against the Tigers last week. Here is the Onion of the Day I was going to give DeJung.
Almost Onion of the Day: Paul DeJung of the Chicago White Sox for not knowing how many outs there were and for not tagging up and getting doubled off of first base to end the game against the Tigers on Friday. DeJung represented the tying run. There is no excuse for a player not knowing how many outs there are. For a Major League player, it is inexcusable when you consider how many scoreboards are displayed around the stadium.
Pistons’ owner Tom Gores Continues to Not Impress
Pistons’ owner Tom Gores continues to show his lack of respect for others. Gore was over an hour late for the press conference in which he was to officially introduce Trajan Langdon as the President of Basketball Operations for the Pistons.
This might have been excusable if it was the first time this has happened, but it has been a constant with Gores. To make matters worse, Langdon had been talking all week about creating an atmosphere of accountability, which he described as being on time for everything and responding to texts, emails and phone calls in a timely manner. He stressed the importance of holding each other accountable.
It is going to be hard for Langdon to create this atmosphere when the owner thinks nothing of having people wait around for him to arrive.
See my Quote of the Day.
Feel free to share my blog with others. To receive the blog in your email, please use the sign-up button which is located at the bottom of the blog below the Video of the Day.
Quote of the Day: “It was hard to blame anyone frustrated by the wait. Gores, after all, is the one who set the time, then changed it —no biggie — then made dozens of media members, a couple hundred of his own employees and presumably Langdon himself wait. And wait. And then wait some more. It happens. But then, this is a pattern with Gores. Not the traffic excuse, per se, but the tardiness to his own news conferences. He made everyone wait a year ago when he introduced Monty Williams as his new coach. And he did it again Friday. This time by more than an hour — Gores was scheduled to introduce Langdon at 3:30 p.m. He and his new front office boss didn’t take the stage until 4:35 p.m.” Shawn Windsor, Detroit Free Press
Orchid of the Day: The Florida Panthers for winning their first ever Stanley Cup
Onion of the Day: Zach McKinstry and Carson Kelly of the Detroit Tigers. See above story.
Question of the Day: Will tomorrow’s debate influence the undecided voter to choose a candidate?
Video of the Day: Donald Sutherland, may he rest in peace.
A person that decides who to vote for from a performance (good or bad) during a debate is like an old dog that decides what to eat based on how close the food bowl is and not what’s in it. Every election is important. This election is IMPORTANT. Every vote counts. Every non-vote from complacency or act of protest from the choice of candidates counts. Therefore, all Americans will determine the trajectory of the country and should not be fooled in thinking that what is said, planned and promised particularly in the violent rhetoric of revenge will not affect them because “Every tub must sit on its own bottom”.