Neon Vincent Posts

Three stories about advances and milestones in solar-generated electricity in Michigan made the newspapers this past week. The most recent is also the one that I'm featuring first, as The Ann Arbor News via MLive reported Michigan's largest solar panel array now up and running near Ann Arbor.

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Ted Nugent, stochastic terrorist and scary musical clown from Detroit managed to get into the news again Friday by ripping the Pure Michigan ad campaign.

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Caption: The Detroit Free Press issued its endorsements of the six referendums on Michigan's ballot.
Credits: Scott Olson/Getty ImagesExaminer.com: Detroit Free Press referendum endorsements maintain status quo
On Sunday, the Detroit Free Press issued

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State Board of Education member Nancy Danhof (pictured with her husband Bill) lost her bid for re-nomination this Saturday.

Credit: Nancy Danhof's campaign website.

Examiner.com: Republicans reject incumbent State Board of Education member at state convention

One of Will Rogers' best remembered sayings about politics was that he was not a member of any organized political party; he was a Democrat.  Less well remembered was his comparison of the two major parties: "Democrats never agree on anything, that's why they're Democrats. If they agreed with each other, they'd be Republicans."  Rogers might have had a different opinion of the two major parties if he had lived to observe this weekend's state conventions.

The Michigan Republicans just finished a contentious convention in Grand Rapids on Saturday.  They voted not to re-nominate a sitting member of the State Board of Education, instead nominating two more conservative candidates.  The delegates also narrowly picked the establishment candidate for State Supreme Court over a more insurgent choice after a hard-fought campaign to win delegates and decided among multiple candidates for the two nominees each for the governing boards of all three of Michigan's major research universities.

In contrast, the Michigan Democrats held a more orderly meeting in Lansing today. All of their candidates had already been approved at an endorsement convention in Detroit this past spring and all were officially nominated today.  The only uncertainty was which two of their candidates for State Supreme Court would run for the two eight-year terms, and which would face Republican appointee Brian Zahra for the two years remaining for his seat on the bench.

Yeah, I couldn't resist throwing an insult originally meant for Democrats at the Republicans.  I'm in good company, since a lot of Democrats did that in Charlotte last week.  Hey, that's why I keep a blog, so I can express my opinions instead of the facts.  Speaking of facts, if you want them, read the article.  If you want more of my opinions, follow over the jump.
In the article, I described how Nancy Danhof, the incumbent member of the State Board of Education, was not re-nominated because of a combination of Tea Party activists and Republican legislators.  Explaining the Tea Party opposition is easy.  She's a moderate nominated eight years ago, when the Michigan Republican Party had room for people with expertise and pragmatism.  Times have changed, and the corn pone fascists who compose the Tea Party think she's insufficiently conservative.  So, they went RINO hunting.

The legislators are another matter.  Apparently, she told them that their ideas for changing graduation requirements were a bad idea, and defended former Governor Jennifer Granholm's curriculum idea.  The nerve!  Never mind that she was right.  I guess a qualified incumbent was worth sacrificing in their eyes.

On the other hand, the Tea Partiers didn't get their way with two other candidates they targeted.  They wanted Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Jane Markey, who made an anti-Semitic comment and promised not to allow sharia law in Michigan.  No, I'm not kidding about those.  Instead, the more temperate Colleen O'Brian won, based on her ability to do retail politics.  They also wanted to replace incumbent Michigan State University Trustee Melanie Foster with Jeff Sakwa and Anne Norlander.  They failed and now have a slate of Foster and Sakwa.

I plan on writing more about these candidates at Examiner.com in the future.  Stay tuned.

Originally posted to Crazy Eddie's Motie News as Examiner.com article on Michigan Republican convention.

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Crossposted from Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

Here's a story about the intersection of crime and pop music that definitely fits my personal blogs's point of view, "a science fiction slant and a Detroit perspective."  The premise is definitely science-fictional and Insane Clown Posse hail from Detroit, which means it's on-topic here.

Last fall, the FBI included Juggalos in their National Gang Assessment for 2011 (PDF).  On pages 22 and 23, the FBI lists them under "non-traditional gangs," calling them "a loosely-organized hybrid gang."  Some of the criminal activities carried out by ICP fans appear in this section, along with a photo of a Juggalo with a gun that the FBI took from the ATF (trigger warning for descriptions of violence).

At first, the inclusion of Juggalos in the FBI's list was mocked by Spencer Ackerman at Wired, who observed "The FBI has recently had difficulty distinguishing ordinary American Muslims from terrorists; now it appears it has a similar problem distinguishing teenage fads from criminal conspiracies."  As recently as Thursday,  the Village Voice posted that people thought the FBI report was an example of "another example of a federal agency looking foolish for its cultural ineptitude."  That was until the U.S. Marshal Service issued a press release listing the fugitives added to New Mexico's Most Wanted.

Mark Anthony Carslon A.K.A. Mark Carlton is wanted on two felony warrants for failing to comply with the terms of probation both on underlying armed robbery cases. Carlson is a member of the Insane Clown Posse "Juggalo" gang. The "Juggalos" were recently classified as a gang by the Albuquerque Police Department Gang unit and it is believed that Carlson is still actively committing armed robberies in the Albuquerque Metro area.

Bolding from The Village Voice, who also reproduced Carlson's wanted poster, which listed his criminal affiliation as "Insane Clown Posse 'Juggalo'."  Poster over the jump.

This declaration has caused the band and its fans all kinds of grief, as outlined in Vice (NSFW--what do you expect from a magazine called "Vice"?).  If nothing else, Juggalos can be sentenced as gang members instead of ordinary criminals and the band's merchandise is no longer being sold at Hot Topic and other stores, who won't touch "gang apparel."

On Friday, ICP announced that they had had enough.  The Village Voice reported:

Insane Clown Posse announced at the annual Gathering of the Juggalos "seminar," a veritable State of the Juggalo Union address given to "the heartbeat of the entire Juggalo world," that they were planning to sue the FBI in response.

The article also contains the text of the band's press release.

ICP and their label Psychopathic Records also launched a website, Juggalos Fight Back soliciting their fans for information about any legal troubles they may have suffered as a result of their fandom.  Qualifying applicants will receive legal assistance provided by Psychopathic Records' law firm.

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The big story this week from Michigan, the one that sucked all the oxygen out of the room as it went viral on social media and the national and international press, was the silencing of State Representatives Lisa Brown and Barb Byrum in the Michigan State House, ostensibly for saying "vagina" and "vasectomy" respectively.  Join me over the jump for a sampling of the reaction so far, along with an overview of what was being debated when the incident happened.
In the spirit of a picture being worth 1000 words, here is a graphic describing the bills being debated when Brown and Byrum said "vagina" and "vasectomy."

These bills were passed, which means that if the State Senate passes them and Governor Snyder signs them into law, Michigan will have the most restrictive laws on abortion in the country.  Of course, Planned Parenthood of Michigan and most of the Democratic members of the state legislature objected vehemently.  That's where the story really begins, as the Detroit Free Press reports in With video: Two female Michigan lawmakers silenced after vagina, abortion comments.  Here's the video, so you can see for yourself.

As you can see, Barb Byrum was trying to get recognized to speak on behalf of her own amendment.  She never got a chance to do so and her amendment was never allowed to come to a roll-call vote.  I'd be as frustrated as Representative Byrum if that happened to me, especially if there had been  a year-long pattern of such behavior.  At least Representative Brown got a chance to speak.

Susan J. Demas of M-Live managed to scoop the Free Press on this story, pointing out its electoral significance in Michigan GOP tries to lose the suburbs with abortion bills.

The Republican Party poobahs in the land of soccer moms and Chevy Suburbans decided, for some reason, that having an all-white guy slate for county offices, from county executive (L. Brooks Patterson) to county clerk (Bill Bullard), was a grand idea.

And now House Republicans, desperate to satiate the ever-hungry Right to Life machine -- which burps out litmus tests like clockwork around endorsement time -- could finish the job.

The goal, as always, is to win their August GOP primaries by proving just how right-wing and right-to-life they are. But general election voters in November -- especially in Oakland County, which is decided by female independents -- don't share those priorities.

Not only could these draconian laws and the brouhaha over Brown and Byrum's words hurt the GOP, they could benefit Lisa Brown directly, as she is running for Oakland County Clerk.  A wave of motivated voters could sweep her into office in November.

The Lansing State Journal gave Barb Byrum her moment in the spotlight with Byrum: 'vasectomy' comment led to ban from Michigan House floor.  The GOP leaderships denied that it was the "vasectomy" remark that caused her censure.

But a spokesman for House Speaker Jase Bolger, R-Marshall, said it wasn't that simple.

Byrum was "gaveled down," according to Bolger spokesman Ari Adler, "for marching through the chamber and shouting like a small child throwing a temper tantrum."

"A temper tantrum"--I don't know if that's any better.

Of course, the state's progressive blogs have been over this controversy like white on rice, beginning with Michigan Liberal, where Eric B. posted Teh Demas on the GOP's war on women and updated it to include the suspensions of Brown and Byrum.  Blogging for Michigan followed suit with Democratic women banned from speaking on the House floor as did Eclectablog in http://eclectablog.com/2012/06/michigan-house-republicans-are-afraid-of-vaginas-and-vasectomies-whats-next-elbows.html.  The story started to go national with As Punishment For Opposing Anti-Abortion Bill, Male Michigan House Leader Bans Two Female Reps From Speaking in Think Progress and Brainwrap's diary of the ever changing subject line on Daily Kos.  That's when it caught fire.

The next day, I saw all the following images all over my Facebook feed.

Thanks to Brainwrap on Daily Kos.

That was just Facebook.  What about the mainstream media outlets the covered the story?

NPR: Michigan State Rep Barred From Speaking After 'Vagina' Comments
The Detroit News: Lawmaker barred from speaking after 'vagina' comment
The Nation: Vagina, Vagina, Vagina
Think Progress: Michigan GOP Spokesman: Female Reps Threw 'Temper Tantrums' Over Abortion Bill
And then there were all the Detroit Free Press articles I linked to in the introduction.  However, I have to link and quote one more, the opinion piece by Rochelle Riley, who called the action an attack on women and democracy.

But here's what really happened in the Michigan Legislature this week: Democracy was shut down. And women's voices were silenced. If our state's other legislators, our voters and our patriots allow it, then we deserve what we get.

This is America. You can't tell women they can't speak because you don't like what they say.
...
Brown and Byrum were doing their jobs. Jim Stamas was killing democracy.

Progress Michigan was just as blunt: Speak Only If You Agree With The Boys.  Remember what I wrote two months ago?  Michigan is now Ignoreland.

If the idea was to silence Lisa Brown inside the State House chamber, the action had the exact opposite effect outside the State Capitol, as outlet after outlet wanted to her her story.

The Detroit News, no liberal rag, gave her an opportunity to give her perspective in Rep. Lisa Brown: Silenced on the House floor for using correct body terms.  The Guardian allowed her to tell her story from the other side of the Atlantic in My vagina monologue: what Michigan GOP lawmakers didn't want to know, where she wrote, "If Michigan Republicans think they have the right to control women's bodies and reproductive rights, they can hear me out."  And, of course, she got on TV.  Here she is on WXYZ in State Rep. Lisa Brown speaks with 7 Action News.

For a summary and partial transcript of the video, surf over to State Rep. Brown tells 7 Action News "vagina" remark was not meant to shock on WXYZ's website.

Brown also starred in a segment on the Rachel Maddow Show that won't embed here, but is available at "Vagina" goes viral on Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

Can you say backfire?

Speaking of backfiring, this entire incident has inspired people to investigate all the prior examples of sexism by Republicans in the Michigan Legislature, beginning with Electablog noting The GOPocrisy of Michigan Republicans - calling women c-ts and whores is okay, mentioning vaginas gets them censured.  That got the attention of Jeff Wattrick over at Wonkette.

Hero Michigan Rep. Frank Foster Identifies Appropriate Words For Lady Parts

Members of the Michigan legislature are expected to behave in a manner that is becoming, not only of the dignity and responsibility of their high office, but of the people they represent.

That's why the Honorable Frank Foster, member of the Michigan House of Representatives, did the only gentlemanly thing possible when Michigan Nurses Association staffer Julia Smith-Heck wouldn't stop mowing her lawn while Foster was a guest in Smith-Heck's neighborhood last month: he called her a cunt. As a matter of fact, Foster shouted "you're a cunt" from across the street.

Stay classy, Foster Freeze.

The fun and games aren't over yet.  On Monday, there will be a performance of "Vagina Monologues" on the State Capitol steps starring nine female Michigan legislators.  Never will the expression "political theater" be meant so literally.

Originally posted at Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

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The recall of Troy Mayor Janice Daniels has sprouted legs since Eric B. posted on the front page of Michigan Liberal about it two days ago and I elaborated on his post at my blog.  First, it made the local TV news.  Take it away, WXYZ!

The mayor of Troy is facing a recall after a petition calling for her ouster was turned in.

In the segment, Daniels discounted the legitimacy of the recall.

"They're based upon my positions that I take, my votes that I take, and that is hardly reason to recall someone.  A recall should be used if someone commits a crime and I have committed no crime."

That's not true, as a press release from Recall Janice Daniels quoted in The Oakland Press article about the story points out.

"This assertion has no basis in fact. Michigan's Constitution and subsequent legislation ... permits recall for any objectionable conduct during the elected official's term in office. In contrast, when an elected official has committed an illegal act, the officer can be removed ... (in) a completely separate and distinct procedure."

In The Oakland Press article, Daniels also cited the example of Scott Walker in Wisconsin.

"I'm proud of the results in Wisconsin, where Scott Walker's team proved the people don't like recalls," she said.

That same article also linked to Janice Daniels' website and concluded by quoting the Mayor's appeal for donations and volunteers to fight the recall.  They didn't link to the website of the pro-recall group, so I will.

Recall Janice Daniels!

Things get silly over the jump.
While all this was going on, Daniels doubled down what got her national media attention in the first place, her homophobia.  As Troy Patch reported, "Troy Mayor Compares Homosexual Lifestyle to Cigarette Smoking."

"What I said while I was mayor ... I was in a business meeting, I come from a business perspective ... I said that I would bring a doctor into a meeting that would say that the homosexual lifestyle is dangerous," Daniels told Talk Radio 1270 host Charlie Langton, according to CBS. "Had I been with a group of smokers I might have said I would like to bring a doctor into this meeting to say that smoking is dangerous."

After Langton asked whether the mayor felt it was dangerous to be gay, Huffington Post reported, Daniels said she had no opinion, but noted, "I think that doctors can make a case for it, certainly."

Troy Patch has a poll asking "Are you offended by Troy Mayor Janice Daniels' recent comments comparing the dangers of the homosexual lifestyle to the dangers of cigarette smoking?"  Right now, the yes votes are winning 200 to 56 with 5 choosing "I don't know."  Lame.  Also, the comments section is getting swarmed by partisans on both sides.

Speaking of active comments sections, the entire controversy has hit Wonkette, where Jeff Wattrick, who penned the Deadline Detroit article I quoted two days ago, got to write what he really thinks about her.

Good Luck On Recall Of Lady Mayor Calling Your Kids 'Queer,' Troy, Michigan!

Michigan's most unintentionally comedic mayor since Kwame Kilpatrick was fellated while he was simultaneously texting and eating pork lips/entrails at "Benz Chili Bowl" is cold getting recalled.

We speak of Janice Daniels, the most holy and exalted mayor of Troy, MI, one of those blandly pleasant/affluent suburbs that's pretty much indistinguishable from every other blandly pleasant/affluent suburb. Oh, look, Old Navy! And P.F. Changs!

Read the comments.  They're priceless.

Speaking of P.F. Changs and political kookery, both of which apply to this subject, one of my favorite documents online is The Way of the Kook.  In the middle of a list of kooky behaviors is the following suggestion.

When in doubt: Order the Crab Won Ton

Crab Won Ton's at P.F. Changs in the Somerset Collection when Daniels is recalled!

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In my Examiner.com article Libertarians, Greens nominate candidates at Michigan state conventions, I describe the results of a very busy weekend for two of the smaller political parties, giving them the attention they deserve.  I want you to read the article just for that, but there is another story buried inside of it that I want to call to your attention; one of the local corn pone fascists is trying to manipulate the election in favor of her party by interfering with the efforts of another party on the Right.

Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson is trying to keep Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party's nominee, off the ballot on a technicality.  I guess she's trying to help out her fellow Republicans.  If so, then it's not just Democrats she's screwing over!

At their state convention at the Embassy Suites in Livonia on Saturday, June 2nd, the Libertarian Party of Michigan nominated 45 candidates for federal, state, and local offices... The delegates also selected electors to the Electoral College for the Libertarian Party ticket of Gary Johnson for President and Judge James P. Gray for Vice President, which was selected at the party's national convention in Las Vegas last month.  However, the Secretary of State may keep Johnson's name off the Michigan general election ballot because of her interpretation of the state's "sore loser" law.
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Even though the Libertarians already nominated Gary Johnson for President, he may not appear on Michigan's ballot in November.  Secretary of State Ruth Johnson is interpreting Michigan law to prevent his name from being printed on the ballot for the general election.  At issue is the Michigan "sore loser" law preventing a candidate from being on the ballot for two different parties during the same year.  Johnson's name was on the ballot for the Michigan Republican Primary in February, so Ruth Johnson is declaring Gary Johnson ineligible to run as the Libertarian Party candidate in November.  This is despite the precedent of John Anderson, who ran for President in 1980 as a Republican during the primary, then ran as an independent during the general election.  Then Secretary of State Richard Austin allowed Anderson's name to appear on the November ballot.  If the Secretary of State continues to refuse to allow Gary Johnson on the ballot, the Libertarian Party of Michigan will sue.

I descibed this situation to my wife, and she responded with exactly the same one word reaction that was on the tip of my tongue: "Petty!"  Yes, Dear, she is.

As for the Libertarian Party, it's no secret that I dislike their Objectivist wing (example on Michigan Liberal here) and have a low opinion of the Paul-bearers among them, but I wish them luck in getting their preferred candidate on the ballot.  They both deserve it and need it, especially with Michigan's partisan Supreme Court.

Crossposted from Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

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Paul Ryan came to town Monday to be the main attraction for a fundraiser for Pete Hoekstra, who is running for Senate.  Since I've had my share of things to say about Paul Ryan, it was an easy sell to get me to be one of the people demonstrating his visit.  A bunch of us carried signs about protecting Social Security and Medicare.  The protest even made the Detroit Free Press.

Candidate Pete Hoekstra rallies support

About a dozen protesters, including some senior citizens,  picketed the event at the Westin Hotel in Southfield and were more than happy to talk about their fear of spiraling health care costs.

"All I have is Social Security and my husband's pension and now I  feel like I'm being squeezed out," said Deanna Tachna, 73, of  Birmingham. "I always thought that I was part of the middle class, but  with this, there's not going to be a middle class anymore."

The reporter came at the end of the demonstration as people were starting to leave. If she had counted five minutes earlier and included  the people demonstrating by the entrance to the parking garage less than  100 feet away, she would have recorded twice as many. That's not the only error in the report.  She identified Paul Ryan as an "Illinois Republican."  He's not.  Paul Ryan is a representative  from Wisconsin, not Illinois.  He represented my wife when she lived in Kenosha County, not when she lived in the Chicago suburbs.

On the subject of followers of Ayn Rand, there is a diary about their ill effects on U.S. politics and society over at Daily Kos: Book Review: Ayn Rand Nation, by Gary Weiss.  I recommend you read it.

And now, the macro I keep on hand just for mentions of Ayn Rand.

Above originally posted to Crazy Eddie's Motie News.

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Below originally posted as Detroit, Michigan, and the auto industry in the State of the Union on Crazy Eddie's Motie News on Wednesday.

Before the State of the Union yesterday, Paul Krugman managed to scoop one of the themes of the State of the Union address.

[C]an we think of a recent example in the United States where helping to preserve an industrial cluster was an important policy consideration? Indeed we can: the auto bailout. A key argument for the bailout was that if the major US firms were allowed to go bankrupt, a whole industrial ecology would be lost with them. And the auto bailout has been a huge success, not least because it did preserve that ecology.

Aren't you glad that Obama didn't listen to the other party on this issue?

Right on cue, immediately after President Obama listed his administration's foreign policy achievements, he pointed out the success of the auto company bailout in his State of the Union speech.

On the day I took office, our auto industry was on the verge of collapse. Some even said we should let it die. With a million jobs at stake, I refused to let that happen. In exchange for help, we demanded responsibility. We got workers and automakers to settle their differences. We got the industry to retool and restructure. Today, General Motors is back on top as the world's number one automaker. Chrysler has grown faster in the U.S. than any major car company. Ford is investing billions in U.S. plants and factories. And together, the entire industry added nearly 160,000 jobs.

We bet on American workers. We bet on American ingenuity. And tonight, the American auto industry is back.

What's happening in Detroit can happen in other industries.

In the same post in which Krugman praised Obama for bailing out the auto companies in the name of preserving the industrial ecology supporting auto manufacturing in the U.S., he posted this graph of the Michigan's unemployment rate.

That's quite a recovery, although it was interrupted by the short-lived slump that accompanied the rise in oil prices during the first half of the year.  In fact, the following graph from Calculated Risk displaying the unemployment rates of all 50 states plus the District of Columbia shows that it was the best recovery of all 51 reporting.

Unemployment has fallen nearly 5% since Fall 2009, when Michigan had the highest unemployment rate in the Union. Now, Michigan is below 10% after three years of double-digit unemployment and is out of the ten worst states at 11th.  Both Krugman and Bill McBride of Calculated Risk are showing that what happened in Detroit (actually all of Michigan) is indeed worth emulating.  Isn't that a pleasant surprise?

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On December 31st, Eric B. posted Michigan's most odious #9: Small mind in the big city about Janice Daniels, the Tea Party Mayor of Troy.  The same day, I posted the following entry at Crazy Eddie's Motie News.  It's time to share it with the readers of Michigan Liberal.

In my previous post about Troy on Crazy Eddie's Motie News, I discussed the rejection of federal funding for the Transit Center.  There was something else in the report from the New York Times I quoted.

The transit fight is not Mayor Daniels's first brush with controversy. Earlier this month, it was revealed that she posted a message to her Facebook page last June, after New York State approved same-sex marriage, stating, "I think I am going to throw away my I Love New York carrying bag now that queers can get married there." In an interview, she said she regretted the online comment.

This quote plays right into a narrative that opponents of the Tea Party in general and Janice Daniels in particular already have for Tea Party candidates.  In fact, combined with the rejection of the money for the transit center, it satisfies many of Nate Silver's criteria for a good political scandal.  Let me walk through Nate's questions and their answers for these two outrages.

1. Can the scandal be reduced to a one-sentence soundbyte (but not easily refuted/denied with a one-sentence soundbyte)?

In the case of both events, the answer is yes.  For the Facebook quote, it's "Troy's mayor makes homophobic comment about New York on Facebook."  For the transit center decision, it's "Troy makes man-bites-dog choice by turning down federal money."  Neither of them can be refuted in a sentence.  Both happened.  For the Facebook status update, the response was that Mayor Daniels was sorry she used the word "queer" and deleted the status. Yeah, but that's a non-apology apology, as she didn't disown the homophobic anti-marriage-equality sentiment of the entire comment.  Also, she was still running for mayor at the time and should have known better.  As for refusing the federal money, she's turned that into a statement of principle.  In programming terms, she considers it a feature, not a bug.  That's not a refutation at all.

2. Does the scandal cut against a core element of the candidate's brand?

Yes to both.  Turning down the federal money undercuts the case that the Tea Party's ideas about fiscal responsibility will be good for business and local economies.  As one could read in the New York Times article, they're not.  In the case of the Facebook status, it undercuts the idea that the Tea Party is primarily about fiscal issues, not social ones.  Both of them also reinforce the next point.

3. Does the scandal reify/reinforce/"prove" a core negative perception about the candidate, particularly one that had henceforth been difficult to articulate (but not one that has become so entrenched that little further damage can be done)?

Both scandals play into pre-existing negative ideas about the Tea Party in general and thus can be used against her in particular.  One I mentioned earlier is that the Tea Party isn't really about fiscal responsibility, but about social issues.  In other words, they're composed of typical social and religious conservatives who are disguising their main concerns under other garb.  The other is that the Tea Party is composed of people who aren't fit to govern; in other words, they're "not ready for prime time."  While both narratives have been well-established for the Tea Party as a whole, they haven't yet been confirmed for Janice Daniels and her fellow Troy Tea Party council members until recently.  Now that they're being established for her and and the rest of the Troy Tea Party, they're very dangerous.

The most damaging scandals I've seen over the past 40 years have all happened when a politician confirmed an already existing and widely known negative narrative about them while people were looking for evidence of it.  Richard Nixon had long been suspected of being crooked.  When Watergate happened, and he said "I am not a crook," that was the end of him.  People found that he was acting in a criminal manner (although he ended up being paranoid and power-mad, not blatantly corrupt) and he had to resign.  Bill Clinton was widely rumored to be a skirt chaser.  When he was caught womanizing, he was impeached, although he managed to hang on to the presidency.  Kwame Kilpatrick had a reputation for being immature and corrupt.  When he was found to have been texting a mistress on the city dime, he ended up leaving office and going to prison.

Now, Janice Daniels isn't in the league of these disgraced politicians, but she has managed to damage the Tea Party brand and confirm people's suspicions about the movement not once, but twice.  Watch the third time be a charm.

4. Can the scandal readily be employed by the opposition, without their looking hypocritical/petty/politically incorrect, risking retribution, or giving life to a damaging narrative?

I don't know about how the opposition in Troy can manage this without looking petty, but I suspect petty goes with the territory, at least for the Facebook quote.  Google Santorum if you don't believe me.  Somehow, petty hasn't been a problem for that crusade.  On the other hand, turning down the federal funding for the transit center seems like a much more solid issue by this criterion.  When the local Chamber of Commerce is displeased with you, then any cover from business is pretty much gone.

5. Is the media bored, and/or does the story have enough tabloid/shock value to crowd out all other stories?

Oh, yes.  Both of these stories have gone viral, especially if the New York Times is covering both in one article.  Furthermore, New York Magazine covered the Facebook quote, linking to my friend Sharon's blog Keep Troy Strong.  Also, the following cartoon appeared in the Georgia Voice, which Sharon at Keep Troy Strong has also posted.

She also was named Worst Person in the World by Keith Olbermann, which is also posted at Keep Troy Strong.

That's not all.  The Atlantic has just named her actions in The Dumbest Local Politics Scandals of 2011.

[W]hen you really want fantastically stupid examples of politicians behaving badly (and let's face it, we do!), nothing compares to the dimwitted antics of this year's nominees for Outstanding Achievement in Dumb Local Politics Scandals. Without further ado, 2011's pointiest pinheads:

...

Troy, Mich., Mayor Janice Daniels: We already knew that Troy's Tea Party Mayor, Janice Daniels, is refusing to accept $8.5 million in federal grant money for a multi-modal transit hub for her town because, as she's been quoted, "The City of Troy cannot afford this $8.5 million of free money." But Daniels got her young administration off to rocky start late this year when an anti-gay post she had written on her own Facebook wall over the summer finally went viral: "I think I am going to throw away my I Love New York carrying bag now that queers can get married there," read the missive. Daniels has since apologized for her use of the word "queer," but not everyone in Troy is buying her sincerity. A petition to demand her resignation has been making the rounds. Daniels says she'll do no such thing.

Congratulations, Mayor Daniels.  You've shown how to become a textbook example of how to become the victim of your own political scandal not just once, but twice.  You may not be resigning yet, but mark my words.  The third time will be the charm.

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