Poor Mojo's Newswire

The GOP-dominated Michigan House has approved a bill penalizing state universities that offer same-sex partner benefits to members of their faculties. If the bill becomes law, any state college that offers domestic partner benefits will see their funding cut by 5%. The measure was authored by Tea Party-backed Rep. Dave Agema (left). Todd Heywood reports at the Michigan Messenger: Shortly after 8 p.m. Thursday night, State Rep. Dave Agema (R-Greenville) posted the following status update to his Facebook page announcing the amendment: "I had an amendment put into the education budget that takes 5% away from colleges that give same sex/unmarried benefits and places up to $60 million of that into the MPSRS K-12 budget if colleges do not stop skirting the law and the will of the people. Colleges can’t say they are short of money when they skirt the law and give such benefits. The Dems didn’t like this – it passed."

Ever since Congress passed the federal gender-equity law known as Title IX, universities have opened their gyms and athletic fields to millions of women who previously did not have chances to play. But as women have surged into a majority on campus in recent years, many institutions have resorted to subterfuge to make it look as if they are offering more spots to women. At the University of South Florida, more than half of the 71 women on the cross-country roster failed to run a race in 2009. Asked about it, a few laughed and said they did not know they were on the team. At Marshall University, the women’s tennis coach recently invited three freshmen onto the team even though he knew they were not good enough to practice against his scholarship athletes, let alone compete. They could come to practice whenever they liked, he told them, and would not have to travel with the team. At Cornell, only when the 34 fencers on the women’s team take off their protective masks at practice does it become clear that 15 of them are men. Texas A&M and Duke are among the elite women’s basketball teams that also take advantage of a federal loophole that allows them to report male practice players as female participants. . . . And instead of pouring money into new women’s teams or trimming the rosters of prized football teams, many colleges are turning to a sleight of hand known as roster management. . . . “Football is the elephant in the whole thing,” Mr. Crouthamel said. “That’s the monster.” . . .

If you own real estate in Michigan (or any Northwest Ordinance state - MI, WI, OH, IN, IL, MO, etc.), pull out your deed or mortgage, and read the legal description of the land. You'll see it's described in terms of sections of ranges and TOWNSHIPS. Those are "land" or "legal" townships. The Township of Benton Harbor, which recently made the news as the first area in Michigan where an EFM essentially rendered all of the elected officials powerless (also a new power), is a "political" township. If a "land" or "legal" township is disincorporated, the survey plats that determine where the metes and boundaries listed on your property's legal description are located get invalidated, and your deed now describes...nothing. Also, the EFMs are now empowered to tear up ANY contract - not just collective bargaining or other employment contracts. Deeds and mortgages are contracts. So, they can seize your land, and you can't prove that you own it, because they can rip up your deed and mortgage, and even with the deed/mortgage, the survey plats on which the legal description is based are invalid. So much for an eminent domain claim to at least get paid for the seizure.

The whistleblowing website WikiLeaks has begun releasing thousands of secret documents from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay that reveal the Bush and Obama administrations knowingly imprisoned more than 150 innocent men for years without charge. In dozens of cases, senior U.S. commanders were said to have concluded that there was no reason for the men to have been transferred to Guantanamo. Among the innocent prisoners were an 89-year-old Afghan villager and a 14-year-old boy who had been kidnapped.