This is a striking report. It’s about a remarkable inner-city school in Detroit named Catherine Ferguson Academy — and the Michigan Republican power-grab that’s being referred to as “financial martial law.” Watch:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640

Rachel’s right; this really is the next big move in what I’ve been calling the Movement Conservative Coup, the cadre coup of modern American government and institutions (for example, the Southern Baptist Church and the group that determines textbooks for the state of Texas).

While there were many minor steps along the way (victories for their side, defeats for the other), there are probably three major moves in recent years, three great leaps forward, to borrow a Maoist phrase.

▪ The birthing room has to be Bush v. Gore, the corrupt and judicially indefensible handing of the U.S. presidency to the Movement Conservative candidate by Movement Conservative judges on the Supreme Court. The broader coup has been a work in progress for decades, but the current on-steroids phase starts here.

▪ After that comes the U.S. Patriot Act, Bush II’s response to the 9/11 attack.

▪ Then comes Citizens United, the gift that keeps on taking. We’ve just started seeing those effects. That by itself almost guarantees that the Coup’s owners and chief beneficiaries will own us for a generation.

▪ And now Michigan and its “financial martial law” — a test bed for near-dictatorial control of local government by state governors.

Michigan is just the start; these Teabag-enabled Republicans want it all, and if Michigan isn’t rolled back, these laws will roll out in every Republican-controlled state.

GP