Gunmen kill 11 people on Pakistan-Iran border






QUETTA, Pakistan: Unknown gunmen killed 11 people as they prepared to illegally leave Pakistan in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, officials said on Saturday.

The gunmen, riding motorcycles, attacked a convoy on Friday night in Pakistan's Gwadar district near the border with Iran, some 1,600 kilometres (1,000 miles) southwest of Quetta.

Officials described the dead as "illegal immigrants" -- believed to be Pakistanis and Afghans who were attempting to leave the country.

"Six gunmen riding three motorcycles attacked the illegal immigrants' convoy in Suntsar Dasht area in Gwadar district. We have received 11 dead bodies of the immigrants," provincial home secretary Akbar Durrani told AFP.

"The immigrants were travelling in a convoy of three vehicles, however, their exact number is unknown," he said.

A local administration official said the victims could not be identified.

"We could not identify the victims. But their physical appearances suggest that seven of them were Pakistani while four others were Afghans," Sohail Rehman, the administration chief in Gawadar told AFP.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

Pakistan's Gwadar district neighbours Iran's Saravan province. People smugglers use the route to traffick illegal immigrants to Europe, via Iran and Turkey.

- AFP/xq



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Five lynched in Jharkhand

KHUNTI ( JHARKHAND): Five youths, who were suspected of being involved in extortion, were on Saturday lynched at Manhu village of the district, police said.

A group of villagers caught the five around 10 am and killed them with sharp weapons and stones, superintendent of police Amarnath Mishra told reporters here.

All the bodies were recovered, he said, adding, the police were trying to establish their identity and background.

The police have launched raids to nab the killers, he added.

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Pictures: Fungi Get Into the Holiday Spirit


Photograph courtesy Stephanie Mounaud, J. Craig Venter Institute

Mounaud combined different fungi to create a Santa hat and spell out a holiday message.

Different fungal grow at different rates, so Mounaud's artwork rarely lasts for long. There's only a short window of time when they actually look like what they're suppose to.

"You do have to keep that in perspective when you're making these creations," she said.

For example, the A. flavus fungi that she used to write this message from Santa grows very quickly. "The next day, after looking at this plate, it didn't say 'Ho Ho Ho.' It said 'blah blah blah,'" Mounaud said.

The message also eventually turned green, which was the color she was initially after. "It was a really nice green, which is what I was hoping for. But yellow will do," she said.

The hat was particularly challenging. The fungus used to create it "was troubling because at different temperatures it grows differently. The pigment in this one forms at room temperature but this type of growth needed higher temperatures," Mounaud said.

Not all fungus will grow nicely together. For example, in the hat, "N. fischeri [the brim and ball] did not want to play nice with the P. marneffei [red part of hat] ... so they remained slightly separated."

Published December 21, 2012

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Obama Still an 'Optimist' on Cliff Deal


gty barack obama ll 121221 wblog With Washington on Holiday, President Obama Still Optimist on Cliff Deal

Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images


WASHINGTON D.C. – Ten days remain before the mandatory spending cuts and tax increases known as the “fiscal cliff” take effect, but President Obama said he is still a “hopeless optimist” that a federal budget deal can be reached before the year-end deadline that economists agree might plunge the country back into recession.


“Even though Democrats and Republicans are arguing about whether those rates should go up for the wealthiest individuals, all of us – every single one of us -agrees that tax rates shouldn’t go up for the other 98 percent of Americans, which includes 97 percent of small businesses,” he said.


He added that there was “no reason” not to move forward on that aspect, and that it was “within our capacity” to resolve.


The question of whether to raise taxes on incomes over $250,000 remains at an impasse, but is only one element of nuanced legislative wrangling that has left the parties at odds.


For ABC News’ breakdown of the rhetoric versus the reality, click here.


At the White House news conference this evening, the president confirmed he had spoken today to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, although no details of the conversations were disclosed.


The talks came the same day Speaker Boehner admitted “God only knows” the solution to the gridlock, and a day after mounting pressure from within his own Republican Party forced him to pull his alternative proposal from a prospective House vote. That proposal, ”Plan B,” called for extending current tax rates for Americans making up to $1 million a year, a far wealthier threshold than Democrats have advocated.


Boehner acknowledged that even the conservative-leaning “Plan B” did not have the support necessary to pass in the Republican-dominated House, leaving a resolution to the fiscal cliff in doubt.


“In the next few days, I’ve asked leaders of Congress to work towards a package that prevents a tax hike on middle-class Americans, protects unemployment insurance for 2 million Americans, and lays the groundwork for further work on both growth and deficit reduction,” Obama said. ”That’s an achievable goal.  That can get done in 10 days.”


Complicating matters: The halls of Congress are silent tonight. The House of Representatives began its holiday recess Thursday and Senate followed this evening.


Meanwhile, the president has his own vacation to contend with. Tonight, he was embarking for Hawaii and what is typically several weeks of Christmas vacation.


However, during the press conference the president said he would see his congressional colleagues “next week” to continue negotiations, leaving uncertain how long Obama plans to remain in the Aloha State.


The president said he hoped the time off would give leaders “some perspective.”


“Everybody can cool off; everybody can drink some eggnog, have some Christmas cookies, sing some Christmas carols, enjoy the company of loved ones,” he said. “And then I’d ask every member of Congress, while they’re back home, to think about that.  Think about the obligations we have to the people who sent us here.


“This is not simply a contest between parties in terms of who looks good and who doesn’t,” he added later. “There are real-world consequences to what we do here.”


Obama concluded by reiterating that neither side could walk away with “100 percent” of its demands, and that it negotiations couldn’t remain “a contest between parties in terms of who looks good and who doesn’t.”


Boehner’s office reacted quickly to the remarks, continuing recent Republican statements that presidential leadership was at fault for the ongoing gridlock.


“Though the president has failed to offer any solution that passes the test of balance, we remain hopeful he is finally ready to get serious about averting the fiscal cliff,” Boehner said. “The House has already acted to stop all of the looming tax hikes and replace the automatic defense cuts. It is time for the Democratic-run Senate to act, and that is what the speaker told the president tonight.”


The speaker’s office said Boehner “will return to Washington following the holiday, ready to find a solution that can pass both houses of Congress.”


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The biggest Pinocchios of 2012




Virtually all of this year’s fact checking was focused on the presidential election. So, in selecting our biggest Pinocchios of the year, we spent days going though old columns and reliving an election that seems rather distant now.

In many ways, it was depressing reading. So much of the campaign was fought over trivial or inconsequential issues. For instance, we wrote nearly 20 columns dissecting every possible claim about Mitt Romney’s career at Bain Capital, which came under attack both from his Republican rivals and the Obama campaign.


Romney left himself open to scrutiny because he incorrectly claimed that he helped create more than 100,000 jobs at Bain — he mainly created wealth for his investors — but the attacks often were equally false. A candidate’s experience and background is certainly worthy of debate, but all too often in 2012 it just turned into a game of political gotcha.

In this election, fact checking certainly became part of the conversation, with many additional news organizations joining FactCheck.Org, PolitiFact and The Washington Post in scrutinizing politician’s statements, especially during the debates. Since fact checking is a relatively new genre of journalism, however, it is frequently misunderstood.

Fact checking is a complement, not a replacement, for other reporting. Good beat reporters obviously are well-placed to analyze issues and spot falsehoods, and that’s an essential part of their jobs. But, especially in a political season, it is difficult to analyze every claim and counterclaim while also writing day-to-day stories about the news.

Fact checkers, by contrast, can dig deeply into an issue or even a single statement. We can help explain, at length, how a politician justifies his or her assertion and whether there is much of a factual basis for it.

Some commentators said after the election that fact checkers had failed because politicians kept saying misleading things. That’s ridiculous. Fact checkers are not trying to change the behavior of politicians. We are simply trying to inform voters.

Indeed, after more than 30 years of writing about Washington institutions, we believe there is little difference between Democrats and Republicans in terms of twisting the facts and being misleading when it suits their political purposes. So if a politician believes he or she has a winning argument that moves voters — such as attacks on Romney’s Bain record — then there is little motivation to drop that argument simply because a journalist says it is misleading.

While we deal in the facts, the most difficult — and controversial — part of the job is assigning the number of Pinocchios at the end of the column. We try our best to be consistent, but by its nature the rating is somewhat subjective. It gets especially difficult in the Two- versus Three-Pinocchio realm. We appreciate informed commentary by readers and critics — such as Mark Hemingway in the Weekly Standard and Sean Higgins in the Washington Examiner — who have pointed out our leaps in judgment or inconsistency of standards.

Still, a study by George Mason University’s Center for Media and Public Affairs released in October found that this column split its ratings almost equally between the two parties.

***

In compiling this list, we primarily focused on claims that had earned Four Pinocchios during the year. To keep it simple, we have shortened the quotes in the headlines. Click on the headlines to read the original column.



‘Mitt Romney hasn’t paid any taxes for 10 years’




Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Utah) made this inflammatory charge, repeatedly, without offering any evidence except for vague references to receiving a phone call from someone who had invested with Bain Capital. At the time, Romney (citing dubious precedent) had only made public two years of tax returns — though he later released a summary prepared by his accountants showing he had paid federal and state taxes in each of the past 20 years. But in any case, Reid was reckless in making such a claim without any evidence to back it up.



‘Obama sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China.’



This was the key point of a 4-Pinocchio television ad that the Romney campaign aired in Ohio during the waning days of the campaign. As we noted at the time, it was a sign of desperation. The series of statements in the ad individually may have been technically correct, but the overall message of the ad was clearly misleading — designed to piggyback off of a claim by Romney during a speech that Chrysler was moving Ohio factory jobs to China. Even more remarkable, the Romney campaign fiercely defended the ad, even as it came under harsh criticism from, among others, Chrysler.


Romney Chrysler Ad



‘As a corporate raider, Romney shipped jobs to China and Mexico. As governor, he did the same thing: Outsourcing state jobs to India.’



This line came from an Obama campaign ad that managed to jumble together a series of inaccurate claims about Romney’s business experience. He wasn’t a corporate raider, he did not outsource jobs to China and Mexico and as governor he did not outsource jobs to India. (With the support of liberals and conservatives, he vetoed a bill that would have terminated at state expense a $160,000 phone-service contract. The jobs returned to the United States when the contract ended.) Special mention should also be made of a 29-minute video released by a pro-Newt Gingrich Super PAC, titled “King of Bain,” which also made wildly inaccurate claims about Romney’s business career.


Obama ad


Pro-Gingrich Video



‘90 percent of the budget deficit is due to George W. Bush’s policies’




President Obama repeatedly reminded voters that he became president during a grim economic crisis. But he went too far when he claimed that only 10 percent of the federal deficit was due to his own policies. About half of the deficit stemmed from the recession and forecasting errors, but a large chunk (44 percent in 2011) were the result of Obama’s actions. At another point, Obama falsely suggested that the Bush tax cuts led to the Great Recession.



‘Let me tell you how I will create 12 million jobs’




For a business executive, Romney sometimes had trouble with numbers. He claimed that he would create 12 million jobs in his first term, touting an energy plan (3 million), a tax plan (7 million) and cracking down on China (2 million). But these numbers came from studies that often had little to do with Romney’s policies — or had time lines as long as a decade. In other words, the figures bore no relation to reality.


Romney ‘12 million jobs’ ad



‘Mitt Romney closed my plant, I lost my health insurance and short time later my wife died.’



This ad by the pro-Obama Super PAC Priorities USA Action featured a steelworker, Joe Soptic, who blamed Romney for the death of his wife after he lost his health insurance when the steel plant closed. But Romney was no longer actively managing Bain when the plant closed — and Soptic’s wife did not die until five years later. She also continued to have health insurance for a number of years after the plant closed. It is also quite likely that Bain’s involvement extended the life of a dying steel plant, in which case Soptic kept his insurance longer than he might have expected.


Priorities USA Action ad



‘Ten percent of all deaths in the Netherlands are from euthanasia — and half of those people are euthanized involuntarily at hospitals because they are older and sick.’




Former senator Rick Santorum (R-Penn.) made this claim during the GOP presidential primaries, spawning huge headlines in the Netherlands. He even claimed that the elderly in the Netherlands wear “do not euthanize me” bracelets. But there was not a shred of evidence to back up his claims. About 2 percent of deaths in Holland are from euthanasia, with virtually no reports of action being taken without the explicit request of the patient.



‘Reagan made a deal to cut $1 in taxes for $3 in spending cuts, and the Democrats never made the cuts.’




We recently explained why this claim — a feature of the current “fiscal cliff” debate — is simply historical myth — and a deal that President Ronald Reagan himself misunderstood. (He makes this assertion in his memoir.) The agreement was not 3:1, but more like 1:1. Congress actually delivered on a good hunk of the spending cuts, but the Reagan administration failed to do its part. So this bit of historical fiction should be dropped from the political discourse.

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Asian markets retreat as US fiscal cliff fears grow






HONG KONG: Asian markets mostly fell on Friday after Republicans scrapped a vote on putting in place a back-up plan if talks on averting the US fiscal cliff end in failure.

The news out of Washington late Thursday cancelled out a rally on Wall Street and upbeat data on the US economy, while it also hit currency traders, who have sent the safe-haven yen higher despite more Bank of Japan monetary easing.

Tokyo fell 0.99 per cent, or 99.27 points to 9,940.06, Seoul shed 0.95 per cent, or 19.08 points, to 1,980.42 and Sydney was 0.23 per cent lower, losing 10.5 points to end at 4,623.6.

Hong Kong slid 0.68 per cent, fell 153.49 points to close at 22,506.29, while Shanghai lost 0.69 per cent, or 15.04 points, to end at 2,153.31.

With just under two weeks to go before huge tax hikes and spending cuts are due to kick in -- and likely tip the economy into recession -- US lawmakers are still unable to reach a compromise that will avert the fiscal cliff.

Late Thursday in Washington Republican House Speaker John Boehner scrapped a vote on a bill that would have extended tax cuts for all Americans earning less than $1 million even if a wider deal could not be struck.

The move, which he described as his "Plan B", was dropped because he did not have enough support. Boehner said his party would recess until after Christmas.

The measure had been blasted by President Barack Obama's Democrats as a diversionary tactic that would never have passed in the Senate, where they hold a majority.

Now both parties must come up with a budget that will cut the country's deficit with less painful measures before the start of January, when they take effect.

Wall Street ended in positive territory on Thursday, however, lifted by fresh data further indicating the US economy is getting back on its feet.

The Commerce Department said the economy grew 3.1 per cent in the third quarter, up from the estimates of 2.7 per cent and 2.0 per cent previously stated.

The figure reflects upward revisions to consumer spending, exports and government outlays, and a downward revision to imports.

Also Thursday the National Association of Realtors said existing home sales rose 5.9 per cent month-on-month in November to their highest level in three years.

The Dow rose 0.45 per cent, the S&P 500 gained 0.55 per cent and the Nasdaq climbed 0.20 per cent.

Thursday's delay in Washington sent the yen higher in Asian trade. The dollar bought 84.05 yen against 84.38 yen in New York late Thursday. The euro was at $1.3204 and 111.00 yen compared with $1.3241 and 111.72 yen.

However, the Japanese unit is still being pressured after the country's central bank announced fresh monetary easing Thursday, while dealers expect further measures in the new year when the new government is in control.

Oil prices fell, with New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in February down $1.00 to $89.13 a barrel and Brent North Sea crude for February falling 53 cents to $109.67.

Gold was at $1,648.01 at 1045 GMT compared with $1,668.30 late Thursday.

In other markets:

-- Taipei fell 0.99 per cent, or 75.53 points, to 7,519.93.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. was 1.25 per cent lower at NT$94.8 while leading smartphone maker HTC rose 1.63 per cent to NT$280.0.

-- Manila closed 0.45 per cent higher, adding 26.20 points to 5,823.94.

Metropolitan Bank and Trust rose 2.06 per cent to 101.70 pesos and Philippine Long Distance Telephone gained 1.18 per cent to 2,570 pesos.

-- Wellington fell 0.51 per cent, or 20.71 points, to 4,054.74.

Air New Zealand was down 0.78 per cent at NZ$1.28, Fletcher Building shed 2.37 per cent to NZ$8.25 and Telecom eased 2.59 per cent to NZ$2.26.

-- Singapore closed up 0.54 per cent, or 16.95 points, at 3,175.52.

Singapore Telecom rose 0.60 per cent to S$3.37 and DBS Group gained 0.54 per cent to S$14.99.

-- Bangkok shed 0.07 per cent or 1.00 points to close at 1,377.40.

Coal producer Banpu fell 1.42 per cent or 6.00 baht to 418.00 baht while PTT Plc was unchanged at 333.00 baht.

-- Jakarta ended down 21.04 points, or 0.49 per cent, at 4,254.82.

Carmaker Astra International fell 2.60 per cent to 7,500 rupiah, cigarette maker Gudang Garam lost 2.73 per cent to 57,000 rupiah, while palm oil producer Astra Agro Lestari decreased 1.62 per cent to 18,250 rupiah.

-- Kuala Lumpur shares gained 4.96 points, or 0.30 per cent, to close at 1,670.60.

British American Tobacco added 1.7 per cent to 60.50 ringgit, DiGi.com rose 1.5 per cent to 5.36 and Axiata climbed 1.2 per cent to 6.68.

-- Mumbai fell 1.09 per cent or 211.92 points at 19,242.0 points.

Jet Airways slid 7.03 per cent to 566.5 rupees while Jindal Steel fell 3.52 per cent to 454.25 rupees.

- AFP/ck



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Fatwa prohibits uploading photos on matrimonial, social sites

BAREILLY: An organisation of Sunni Muslim clerics here have termed as 'haraam' the uploading of photos on the internet for matrimonial purpose and on social networking sites.


The fatwa issued by Madarsa Manzar-e-Islam of Dargah Aala Hazrat came in response to a question posed by a man from Kanpur.


He had asked whether it was appropriate according to Islamic laws to post pictures on matrimonial and social networking sites.


Mufti Syed Mohammad Kafeel replied that this action would be considered 'haraam'. However, he said bio-data could be posted on the internet without photo.


Imam of Shahi Jama Masjid Mufti Khurshid Alam said a fatwa of Mufti Azam Hind was already available in which he has termed photos without necessity as 'haraam'.


He, however, said a photo can be used for passport and other application forms wherever it is necessary.

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Hollies Get Prickly for a Reason



With shiny evergreen leaves and bright red berries, holly trees are a naturally festive decoration seen throughout the Christmas season.


They're famously sharp. But not all holly leaves are prickly, even on the same tree. And scientists now think they know how the plants are able to make sharper leaves, seemingly at will. (Watch a video about how Christmas trees are made.)


A new study published in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society suggests leaf variations on a single tree are the combined result of animals browsing on them and the trees' swift molecular response to that sort of environmental pressure.


Carlos Herrera of the National Research Council of Spain led the study in southeastern Spain. He and his team investigated the European holly tree, Ilex aquifolium. Hollies, like other plants, can make different types of leaves at the same time. This is called heterophylly. Out of the 40 holly trees they studied, 39 trees displayed different kinds of leaves, both prickly and smooth.



Five holly leaves from the same tree.

Five holly leaves from the same tree.


Photographs by Emmanuel Lattes, Alamy




Some trees looked like they had been browsed upon by wild goats and deer. On those trees, the lower 8 feet (2.5 meters) had more prickly leaves, while higher up the leaves tended to be smooth. Scientists wanted to figure out how the holly trees could make the change in leaf shape so quickly.


All of the leaves on a tree are genetic twins and share exactly the same DNA sequence. By looking in the DNA for traces of a chemical process called methylation, which modifies DNA but doesn't alter the organism's genetic sequence, the team could determine whether leaf variation was a response to environmental or genetic changes. They found a relationship between recent browsing by animals, the growth of prickly leaves, and methylation.


"In holly, what we found is that the DNA of prickly leaves was significantly less methylated than prickless leaves, and from this we inferred that methylation changes are ultimately responsible for leaf shape changes," Herrera said. "The novelty of our study is that we show that these well-known changes in leaf type are associated with differences in DNA methylation patterns, that is, epigenetic changes that do not depend on variation in the sequence of DNA."


"Heterophylly is an obvious feature of a well-known species, and this has been ascribed to browsing. However, until now, no one has been able to come up with a mechanism for how this occurs," said Mike Fay, chief editor of the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society and head of genetics at the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens. "With this new study, we are now one major step forward towards understanding how."


Epigenetic changes take place independently of variation in the genetic DNA sequence. (Read more about epigenetics in National Geographic magazine's "A Thing or Two About Twins.")


"This has clear and important implications for plant conservation," Herrera said. In natural populations that have their genetic variation depleted by habitat loss, the ability to respond quickly, without waiting for slower DNA changes, could help organisms survive accelerated environmental change. The plants' adaptability, he says, is an "optimistic note" amidst so many conservation concerns. (Related: "Wild Holly, Mistletoe, Spread With Warmer Winters.")


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Fiscal Cliff 'Plan B' Is Dead: Now What?


Dec 20, 2012 11:00pm







The defeat of his Plan B — Republicans pulled it when it became clear it would be voted down — is a big defeat for Speaker of the House John Boehner.  It demonstrates definitively that there is no fiscal cliff deal that can pass the House on Republican votes alone.


Boehner could not even muster the votes to pass something that would only allow tax rates on those making more than $1 million to go up.


Boehner’s Plan B ran into opposition from conservative and tea party groups -including Heritage Action, Freedom Works and the Club for Growth – but it became impossible to pass it after Senate Democrats vowed not to take up the bill and the president threatened to veto it.  Conservative Republicans saw no reason to vote for a bill conservative activists opposed – especially if it had no hopes of going anywhere anyway.


Plan B is dead.


Now what?


House Republicans say it is now up to the Senate to act.  Senate Democrats say it is now up to Boehner to reach an agreement with President Obama.


Each side is saying the other must move.


The bottom line:  The only plausible solution is for President Obama and Speaker Boehner to do what they have failed repeatedly to do:  come up with a truly bi-partisan deal.


The prospects look grimmer than ever. It will be interesting to see if the markets react.



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Did Michigan lawmakers ram through ‘right to work’ laws?




(James Fassinger/Reuters)


“The people of Michigan do not want this law, and Governor [Rick] Snyder and the lawmakers who are trying to enact this anti-worker bill before their terms expire at the end of the year know full well that what they are doing is immoral and unjust. They are not carrying out the will of the people; they are punishing the people who voted to replace them in the new year.”



-- American Federation of Government Employees president J. David Cox, Sr. in a news release, Dec. 11, 2012

Michigan last week enacted a pair of so-called right-to-work laws that allow employees to opt out of paying union dues when they work for union shops, dealing a blow to organized labor in a state that was once at the heart of that movement and which still claims the fifth-highest unionization rate in the nation.

J. David Cox, Sr., head of the American Federation of Government Employees union, released a statement the next day condemning the measures. He described their passage as an effort by GOP lawmakers to strike a blow to labor before leaving the GOP-controlled legislature.

“Today’s maneuver by Michigan Republicans to ram through a ‘right to work for less’ bill in the lame-duck session of the Michigan Legislature is a vile example of political revenge,” Cox said.

Let’s take a closer look at the Wolverine State’s 2012 election results to determine whether Republicans would have the numbers to pass the same legislation in 2013.

The Facts


Republicans controlled both chambers of the Michigan legislature and the governor’s office in 2012. That won’t change next year.

The GOP lost five seats in the state’s House of Representatives during the 2012 election, but they still maintained the majority. For the next session, they will hold 59 seats, compared to 51 for Democrats.

No seats in the GOP-controlled Senate were up for grabs this year.

The state’s Republican governor, Rick Snyder, is in the middle of a term, so he will remain in office for 2013.

Snyder initially took a moderate stance on the state’s collective bargaining rights, saying the GOP should not try to weaken them because the issue would be too divisive. But he also said he would sign right-to-work legislation if the legislature put such measures on his desk.

There is little reason to doubt that he would sign right-to-work legislation in the next session if the GOP-controlled Michigan legislature had decided to wait that long.

In terms of this year’s legislation, the House measure passed by a vote of 58-52, with all but six Republican representatives supporting it. The Senate versions passed overwhelmingly by votes of 22-16 and 22-4, with four GOP lawmakers opposing the bills.

Since no seats changed hands in the Senate, we can safely assume that the vote totals there would remain the same in 2013, and the bills would move forward.

As for the House, the five incoming Democrats could change the vote tally to 58-57, which still isn’t enough to block the bill from becoming law.

Moreover, Michigan voters rejected a proposition this year to amend the state’s constitution to essentially prohibit right-to-work laws. The measure lost overwhelmingly, with 58 percent of voters opposing it.

Still, Snyder and GOP lawmakers may pay a political price for their handling of the legislation. A poll released this week by Public Policy Polling found that Snyder’s popularity has fallen dramatically in the past month, as has opinion of Republicans in the legislature. Only 41 percent of voters now support the right-to-work legislation, while 51 percent oppose it, PPP said.

The American Federation of Government Employees did not respond to a request for comment for this column.

The Pinocchio Test


Michigan voters sent a few more Democrats to the state’s House of Representatives for 2013, but the party still doesn’t seem to have enough votes to block right-to-work legislation. Based on how lawmakers voted this year, the bill would probably pass by at least one vote in the next session -- more if supporters could convince some of the Republicans no-voters to side with them.

The president of the federal-employee union said Michigan Republicans tried to “ram through” a right-to-work law in order to punish “the people who voted to replace them in the new year.” But this year’s election didn’t change the Republican control of the state legislature and governorship.

Furthermore, voters in the Great Lakes State roundly rejected a ballot measure that would have prohibited right-to-work legislation from becoming law.

That doesn’t mean most Michiganders necessarily wanted the right-to-work laws -- after all, they didn’t vote for it directly. Indeed, opposition to the laws have grown since passage. But the facts show that Cox went too far with his assertions. The union president earns Three Pinocchios.

Three Pinocchios




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