{"id":4446,"date":"2011-03-30T03:40:59","date_gmt":"2011-03-30T10:40:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=4446"},"modified":"2011-03-30T03:40:59","modified_gmt":"2011-03-30T10:40:59","slug":"republicans-attack-professors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/30\/republicans-attack-professors\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans Attack Professors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Republicans are committing class warfare in so many states that keeping up is a major struggle, but in Michigan, Republicans are not content just to trash the Constitution.  They want to police what university professors are thinking, especially if they are committing the thought-crime of mentioning Rachel Maddow.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"30edpiece\"A conservative research group<\/strong> in Michigan has issued a far-reaching public records request to the labor studies departments at three public universities in the state, seeking any e-mails involving the Wisconsin labor turmoil.<\/p>\n

The group, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy [Plutocons delinked], declined to explain why it was making the Freedom of Information Act request for material from professors at the University of Michigan, Michigan State and Wayne State University. But several professors who received the records request, which was first reported by Talking Points Memo<\/a> on Tuesday, said it appeared to be an attempt to intimidate or embarrass professors who are sympathetic to organized labor<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

This records request, which was filed Friday, comes several days after the Republican Party of Wisconsin made a records request to a prominent University of Wisconsin history professor, William Cronon<\/a>, who had severely criticized the state\u2019s Republican governor, Scott Walker, over his push for legislation to weaken public-sector unions. <\/p>\n

The Mackinac Center, which describes itself as a nonpartisan research and educational institution and receives money from numerous conservative foundations<\/strong>, asked the three universities\u2019 labor studies faculty members for any e-mails mentioning \u201cScott Walker,\u201d \u201cMadison,\u201d \u201cWisconsin\u201d or \u201cRachel Maddow,\u201d<\/strong> the liberal talk show host on MSNBC. <\/p>\n

Greg Scholtz, the director of academic freedom for the American Association of University Professors, said: \u201cWe think all this will have a chilling effect on academic freedom. We\u2019ve never seen FOIA requests used like this before<\/strong>.\u201d <\/p>\n

Roland Zullo, a labor studies professor at the University of Michigan, said he found the center\u2019s request \u201cpuzzling.\u201d \u201cIt seems an odd request for an institution that claims to be nonpartisan,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Michael D. Jahr, the Mackinac Center\u2019s vice president for communications, declined to discuss the records request. Ken Braun, managing editor of the center\u2019s political newsletter, declined to give the reason for it<\/strong>\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <NY Times<\/a>><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s some additional information about this supposedly non-partisan group.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"GOP2\"The Mackinac Center for Policy Research focuses on advancing government privatization and espousing conservative fiscal policies<\/strong>. The group actively advocates school vouchers and the privatization of the University of Michigan<\/strong>. The Center publishes the Michigan Education Report in support of its policies. In promoting other limited-government, free-market economic principles, the group advocates measures such as privatizing Amtrak and prisons facilities and eliminating government subsidies for arts and culture initiatives<\/strong>. The Center is also anti-union, having pursued initiatives to limit union political spending and attacked mandatory union membership policies<\/strong>. Additionally, the Center’s President, Lawrence Reed runs a "think-tank school" on establishing and effectively maintaining state-level conservative<\/font> think-tanks<\/strong>\u2026 [emphasis added]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Right Wing Watch<\/a>><\/p>\n

Now, if they are non partisan, the big bad wolf is neutral on the subject of pork cuisine.  They are so partisan, in fact, that they are the the architects of Snyder\u2019s plan to give his appointed lackeys the power to disband local governments and fire elected officials.<\/font><\/p>\n

Since they drew Rachel Maddow into this, she covered the issue in two segments.  In the first, she exposes how in RepubliSpeak, small limited government really means big intrusive government and gives several examples of Republican abuse of power including this one.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

In the second, she and economist Dean Baker discuss this issue and how Republican plans actually hurt the economy.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

Republican policy is simple to understand.  They promote extreme deprivation of the poor and middle classes at the same time as lavish welfare for the super-rich and criminal corporations.  Every Republican in office is one Republican too many.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republicans are committing class warfare in so many states that keeping up is a major struggle, but in Michigan, Republicans are not content just to trash the Constitution.  They want to police what university professors are thinking, especially if they are committing the thought-crime of mentioning Rachel Maddow. A conservative research group in Michigan has […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4446\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}