Bill Nowling's blog

As President Obama threatens to use a Parliamentary procedure known a “reconciliation” to end debate on healthcare reform and force an up or down vote, it’s good to note that Michigan’s senior senator opposes such a naked power grab.

In 2005, Michigan U.S. Sen. Carl Levin called the use “reconciliation” to end debate — as the president and some Democrats have suggested be done with regard to the healthcare — a “nuclear option” that would “destroy” the institution of the Senate.

It was the final nail in Martha Coakley's coffin and it came around 3 p.m. yesterday when I got an e-mail update that Ray Flynn just announced he voted for Scott Brown in the special election to fill the U.S. Senate seat left open by the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

Who the heck is Ray Flynn, you ask? He was the 52nd mayor of Boston until President Bill Clinton appointed him U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See (that's the Vatican). Think Big Democrat and even Bigger Irish Catholic.

There sure is a lot of talk going on about the 'T' word. Our own Pastor David Swink blogs about how he's thankful for what his taxes buy in our community. Others are talking about how we need to either: 1) Cut taxes; 2) Raise Taxes; or, 3) Restructure Taxes. 

It's a pretty rigorous debate in Lansing right now with the state's cupboards bare and a lingering recession making futile any attempt to forecast our financial future.

OK, I have to ask the most begged question to come along in a while: What has President Obama done in nine months to warrant the Nobel Prize for Peace? I am open to being convinced.

I don't want to be lumped in with the the other criticism of the President's award: I don't hate the man; I don't want to see him fail; I don't wish him ill.  So, please, save your blind partisan vitriol.

Since I am already on the Labor-Has-Too-Much-Political-Schwack jag I figured why not just lay blame for the blink-of-an-eye brief government shutdown this week at the feet of the Michigan Education Association -- the teachers' union? 

It's time Michigan Democrats kick organized labor off the bus, or a least pry its white-knuckled fingers off the steering wheel before they all go careening -- and the state with it -- off the Mackinac Bridge.

I know, I know. “Them are fightin words.” In the land of Walter Reuther and Doug Fraser, one does tempt the gods with such musings. But, for the sake of Michigan, we have to ask whether we are better off with a political system -- and by that I mean a state legislative political system -- that must genuflect toward that hallowed ground known as Solidarity House?