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Dead on arrival

Michigan GOP apparatchik Saul Anuzis is rumored to be planning a run against Sen. Debbie Stabenow in 2012: Hmm. I don't see this going anywhere except as the official party-designated fall-guy (like those that run against Sen. Carl Levin) because no one else will do it.  Michigan has shown itself to be a very blue state in presidential election years and Sen. Stabenow is a proven vote getter with deep roots in mid-Michigan politics, too. The last GOP apparatchik (who actually won) was Spencer Abraham who won a senate seat in the GOP landslide of 1994. Come 2000 Stabenow unseated him easily and cruised to re-election in 2006. But who knows. (Daily Caller)

Ill-considered ideas from the University of Michigan's Law School’s Innocence Clinic: Michigan was the first English-speaking polity to officially banish the death penalty. Now a law student's group want to end life-in-prison-w/o-parole too. I oppose capital punishment but not LWOP. Get rid of that and watch the death penalty ballot proposals bloom like dandelions in the spring. One could easily win eventually. People rightly demand both justice and punishment. It's often hard to swallow paying for a murderer's upkeep often for decades but at least they're there for life. The victims survivor's and the general public is certain they're inside forever.  Unless a governor pardons them, a court grants a new trial (which is rare), or they die, they are never coming out. (Sure they can escape but that's not really the same kind of "freedom" as the other first three possibilities because the system never stops looking for you). Bad idea here. (Michigan Daily)

Michigan has a pot-hole problem! Reality check: Michigan has had shitty roads since the 1970's when then-Gov. Milliken cut road repair budgets by executive order. Then govenors afterward (of both parties) chose to build new roads rather than maintain what we already had. Apparently this amazing discovery of monster potholes is a news flash to the reporter who wrote this story. (AnnArbor.com)