August 2014

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August, 2014

An independent chronicle of 11th Congressional District Republican Party news and events
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      'The Elephant In The Room' is a newsletter reporting items of interest to active Republicans in the 11th District - primarily present and future Precinct Delegates, but also other interested Republican party participants. Occasional bulletins may also be sent if an important item comes up that can't be delayed. If you know others who would have in interest in reading this, but do not currently receive it, they can be added to our mailing list. Just send an e-mail from the address at which they wish to receive the newsletter to EITR@Juno.com, with the word 'Subscribe' in the header. If you do not want to receive any further issues, simply reply to this address with the word 'Cancel'.

     Previous issues can be found here: (Link)

11th Congressional District Republican Committee (CDRC)
      The most notable business of the March 25 11th CDRC meeting was voting on a new member to fill an open slot. Two of the candidates withdrew before the meeting began, which left Audrey Robinson (a member of the Wayne 11th Committee), and Catherine Heise (wife of State Rep. Kurt Heise). Both candidates were from the legal profession. The committee spent some time asking them questions. There was concern expressed on whether the candidates would have sufficient time to devote to committee business. Mrs. Heise was asked if she was under consideration for any position as a judge, and on two different occasions she replied definitely not. Audrey Robinson was asked what work she had done for Republican candidates, and she listed a long series of campaigns, particularly a ten day trip in the U.P. doing door knocking. This seemed to strike the committee very favorably. When the vote was taken by secret ballot, it was 6 for Heise and 15 for Robinson.

      After the meeting was adjourned, Mrs. Heise walked over to the chairman and claimed he had influenced the outcome by "winking, nodding, and smiling" to guide candidate Robinson's answers. This came as rather a surprise to others at the meeting, since no one else present had Mrs. Heise's keen ability to detect these clever signals.

      Not long after, on April 10, Governor Snyder appointed Mrs. Heise as a judge on the Third Circuit Court.



      The April 22 CDRC meeting started off early with some comments from the committee members. Liz Smith brought up the 'Michigan Freedom Fund' two page color mailing attacking Dave Agema; she stated that "it was beautifully done". Barb Harrel responded that "it was a hit piece".

      OCRP chair Jim Thienel had requested time to speak against the Part Time Legislature ballot initiative. Mr. Thienel's speech eventually devolved into a rather unusual discussion which included many members of the audience. Those present mostly all chimed in agreeing that the PTL petition was a bad thing. One notable exception was OCC commissioner Robert Gosselin, who was asked what he thought. He said that Michigan had the third highest paid legislators in the country, and as a long time conservative, he had been in favor of a shortened legislative session for years, and had introduced a bill for that when he was in the legislature. He took the opportunity to mention that other candidates running who were also conservative included Jim Rundstedt, Jim Scott, and judge Mike Bosnic. Others had endorsed candidates too, but Mr. Gosselin's were more notable, coming from someone who spoke up on principle, refusing to sing along with the choir.



      At the May 27th meeting, Dennis O'Connor and Chris Roosen were elected to replace committee members who had resigned. Barb Harrel announced that the Oakland County Convention would include an expanded number of at-large delegates, now including county wide elected officials.

      After the official business was finished, the meeting adjourned and a debate on the Part Time Legislature was held.

Trotting Across the State
      The information discussed here was recently received, and prompted getting out a last minute pre-election edition of EITR. There is more at the author's website than can be read in one sitting, but it seems germane to the 11th District Congressional race. (Link)

      A financial investigator from Florida has been researching Michigan foreclosure industry connections to what's going on in his own state. From his website:

      " Trott, unlike the rest of his Michigan competitors, has a near monopoly on everything foreclosure in Michigan. Trott’s vast foreclosure empire includes, the Detroit Legal News and it’s sister publications throughout Michigan that advertise 80% of the foreclosures in Michigan, Greco Title and Seaver Title which he merged with Lawyers Title several years ago and the Coldwell Banker Weir Manuel Real Estate offices through out southeast Michigan.

      Having this vast empire gives Trott a serious financial incentive in kicking people out of their homes either legally or illegally. Trott’s firm gets paid roughly $5,000 to $7,500 to handle a foreclosure for a lender. .....
.....

      The fees he receives for doing title work is paltry compared to the amount he makes selling the properties. The vast majority of these foreclosed homes are not sold individually as is popularly believed. They are sold in bulk to institutional investors with Trott’s real estate office receiving 6% of the sales price as a commission.

      These are the numbers that Trott doesn’t want the public to know because it lends credibility to what his critics have been saying about his business practices since the housing crisis began.

      When you break the numbers down, Trott through his various firms makes roughly $25,000-$30,000 for a typical $150,000 home in Michigan, he successfully forecloses on, takes possession of and sells for his clients.

      So in other words, David Trott has no incentive to work with homeowners to keep them in their homes when he can make roughly four times more money ramming a foreclosure through by any means necessary even when his client lacks standing. Therefore, he has an incentive to commit perjury, having his employees file false documents on public records and everyone’s favorite crime, robo-signing. "


      The website includes copies of document signatures, purported to be signed by the same Trott & Trott attorney, which don't look very consistent:

      It's obvious the Democrats already have access to this information, but have plenty of motive to sit quietly on it until after August 5. Mr. Trott's primary opponent doesn't have the money to publicize the details of this issue, but if Trott ends up being the Republican candidate for Congress, there's no doubt there are plenty of well funded Democrat interest groups that will jump at the chance to blanket the district in non-stop TV ads portraying the wealthy Republican banker looting the public. It's easy to envision a thirty second spot showing just the variable signatures, with an ominous voice-over predicting a millionaire con artist moving from the TARP inflated banking industry, and putting him in direct government control.



      And for some comic relief:

      One of Mr. Trott's real estate acquisitions has made a splash in "Traditional Home" magazine: (Link)

.       After all, who is really qualified to run for Congress if they don't have a $350,000 poolhouse? The "designer covered seating pieces" are dripping with the political class' tasteful elegance. You can just see Liz Fessler Smith's pearl necklace glinting contentedly in that perfect setting. (Link).

Kestokleptomania?
      The Oakland County Pallet War
      by Marian Sheridan

      There is a silent war going on in the 39th District between Rep. Klint Kesto and voters in his district. Some of them are quietly working to express their displeasure and educate the public on major bills Kesto has supported. More specifically, votes for HB 4111 and HB 4714, both of which were major parts of the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare disguised under the name of "Healthy Michigan". How is this group getting it's message out to others in district 39? By displaying Kesto's voting record painted on wooden pallets and placing them around his district. However over 30 of these pallets along with nearly 100 handwritten signs have been stolen, many from private property.

      In one instance, someone sitting with a sign saw a car go by with a Kesto sign on it, and then saw the same car return shortly after without the Kesto sign on it. It sped up to the sign and went to take it, but the gal sitting there had a camera on them so they jumped back in their car and took off.

      Kesto is facing a challenger in the August 5th primary, tea party candidate Deb O'Hagan, who has harsh criticisms for Kesto over his voting camaraderie with Lansing liberals. He has everything to lose by the public knowing about voting record since taking office in 2012, and everything to gain by hiding from it, even if it means breaking the law to do so.

And now, for something completely different:
      An individual paid by the Michigan Republican Party was observed stealing Livonia State Rep. candidate Ken Crider's signs from outside the Wayne 11th Lincoln-Reagan dinner on May 15. When spotted, the absconder ran with the signs to a car parked in an adjacent lot, breaking several traffic laws while fleeing in an attempt to elude identification, but did not succeed. Since witnesses say the sign grabber was not an attendee at the event, one might wonder who found it in their interest to summon the activity.

Wayne County residents: Grab your wallets ...
      The following was researched by a Plymouth Township resident. It's written from that frame of reference, but the same approximate parameters apply to most 11th district municipalities in Wayne County.


      VOTE NO on Wayne County RESA Proposal
      by Mike Oliansky

It's called the "Wayne County Regional Education Service Agency Regional Enhancement Millage Proposal", and it's bad for the Plymouth-Canton Community schools.

The PCCS district will pay an additional $10.4 MILLION in property taxes and receive only $6.75 million in revenue for PCCS schools. That’s a whole 65 cents for every dollar taken out of our community.

Plymouth-Canton will be shorted $3,740,000. Where will the money go? Detroit is among the winning school districts to the tune of $3.86 MILLION.

Some people would argue that Detroit needs the money. Do they? According to the 2012-2013 State of Michigan Bulletin, Detroit Public Schools received a total of $13,825 per pupil. Their general fund expenditure was over $14,000 per pupil.

The Plymouth-Canton district received a little less than $8,500 per pupil and spent about $8,800 per pupil.

How does it make any sense that our district ends up contributing money to a district that already spends over $5,000 more per student than PCCS?

Vote NO and tell your friends what a bad deal this is for our school district.

Is A Third Party Just A Matter Of Time?
      At a Dave Trott meet and greet in Canton a couple of months ago, the 11th District Wayne County party nomenklatura were present and on deck to be counted. All the local party heads and power brokers were there to demonstrate their fealty to their benefactor; not a one was missing. Some were pleasant and dignified, but many were busy practicing their best anti-Bentivolio innuendos on the few non-ruling class people there (we peasants were far outnumbered). It's not just a local anomaly, either. Below, this excerpt from an Erick Erickson article also nicely sums up the Trott/Bentivolio situation. It was written just after Senator Cochran (in Mississippi) used Democrat votes to defeat his Tea Party primary challenger:

      "The problem for those who call themselves Republicans is that it is harder and harder to say exactly what a Republican is these days. The great lesson from Mississippi is that Republican means, more or less, that if elected the party will reward its major donors, who are just different than the Democrats’ major donors. Policy differences are about different donors, not an actual agenda to shift the country in a different direction.

      The Republicans have become the party of lobbyists, most of whom were on twitter celebrating their purchase.

      Mississippi is a crystalizing election in that sense. Cochran is, for all intents and purposes, a marionette. His strings are pulled by staffers and lobbyists. They drop him onto the stage of the Senate and pull up a string to raise his hand. These puppeteers are so invested in keeping their gravy train going that they will, while claiming to be Republicans, flood a Republican primary with Obama voters to ensure their gravy train continues .....

      And to be clear, there is nothing wrong with that. They won fair and square. They changed who the electorate was, which was allowed under the rules.

      But this becomes a longer term problem for the Republican Party. Its core activists hate its leadership more and more. But its leadership are dependent more and more on large check writers to keep their power. Those large check writers are further and further removed from the interests of both the base of the party and Main Street. So to keep power, the GOP focuses more and more on a smaller and smaller band of puppeteers to keep their marionettes upright. At some point there will be more people with knives out to cut the strings than there will be puppeteers with checkbooks. And at some point those people with knives become more intent on cutting the strings than taking the place of the marionettes."       (Link)

Major Republican Party dates this year:
     August 5 - Primary election

     August 14 - County conventions

     August 23 - State Convention (one day event at Suburban Showplace in Novi)

     September 19 - State Committee meeting

     November 4 - Election

Event calendar:
August 11, 6:30pm- Wayne 11th Picnic(Link)

August 12, 7pm- Troy Area Tea Party meeting (Link)

August 13- Lakes Area Tea Party PD meeting (Link)

August 25, 7pm- Wayne County Republican Committee meeting

August 26, 7pm- 11th CDRC meeting (Link)

      E.I.T.R. Policies and Principles
      If you have an article, event, or other news that you think the readership should know about, we welcome your contributions. Editorial judgement will be applied to consider what interest readers will have in the submission, so keep articles or letters to a reasonable length. Articles should be factual - you must be able to provide corroboration of your information. Articles can be published under an alias, but you must be prepared to be able to stand up in court, raise your right hand, and testify to what you personally witnessed (because it may come to that). Unsubstantiated allegations just won't fly here, and rumors will be not be treated seriously unless they have some special reason to have plausible and substantive news value. We will be happy to follow up on tips which cannot yet be proven, but we can't publish them as fact without confirmation.

      Letters expressing an opinion are fine, and will be published as such, if they would be of interest to the 11th District readership. Keep it local; there are other venues for national articles and issues. We want to focus this chronicle on items affecting Republican district affairs, including the activities of the office holders elected from this district.

      Notices of events, planning, organization, etc. are welcome. If you want to get word out to like minded people in this district, send in your notice or idea. Keep it succinct, factual, and don't bore the reader - nobody wants to plow through long diatribes. The 11th CDRC party leaders have no control over this publication, and cannot censor any notices or opinions.

      Responses to E.I.T.R. articles will be considered on their merits, and published if they are informative and a reasonable length. Our intention is to send each issue out at or around the beginning of the month, so sending items in at least a week before that is a good idea. That will allow time for two-way communication regarding any questions that may come up.

Denis Curran, Editor - E.I.T.R.