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President Barack Obama traveled to Michigan on Monday where he said a controversial anti-union "right to work" law passed by the Republican-controlled state Legislature last week really meant that workers had a "right to work for less money."

"What we shouldn't be doing is taking away your rights to bargain for better wages and working conditions," Obama told a crowd of supporters at a Daimler AG plant in Redford. "These so-called right to work laws, they don't have anything to do with economics, they have everything to do with politics."

"What they're really talking about is giving you the right to work for less money," he added. "America's not going to compete based on low skill, low wage, no workers rights. That's not our competitive advantage. There's always going to be some other country that can treat it's workers even worse."

"So, we've got to get passed this whole situation were we manufacture crises because of politics. That actually leads to less certainty, more conflict and we can't all focus on coming together to grow."

Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) and other Democratic lawmakers met with Gov. Rick Snyder (R) on Monday and encouraged him to veto the right to work legislation, although he had already vowed to sign it.

(h/t: Talking Points Memo)

This report from Rachel Maddow this Thursday was really shocking. I knew things were bad in Michigan after watching some of her previous coverage on these so-called emergency managers circumventing democracy in their state, but not this bad. Rachel summed up this segment with this statement and it's spot on:

The 2010 elections ushered in a lot of radicalized Republican legislatures and governors across the country and have done a lot of radical things. Scott Walker is famous for a reason.

But what`s happened in Michigan is the most radical thing Republicans have done anywhere in the country. They have eliminated democracy. They have eliminated voting rights at the local level in their state. They have tried to eliminate Democrats` voting rights in the state legislature.

Whether you`re on the left or you`re on the right or you`re in the center or if you don`t particularly care about politics, if all you care about is that we have a form of government in this country called democracy, we vote. If you care about the idea that we still use voting here, we still use democracy, if you care about the Constitution -- frankly, Michigan ought to have a flashing red light siren on it right now.

Chris Savage at Eclectablog, who has been following this story for some time now has more -- Michigan Republicans have ILLEGALLY passed over 96% (546) of their bills under “immediate effect”:

Last night, Rachel Maddow broke a huge story that has been happening since Republicans took over in Michigan in 2011 and has gone completely under the radar. Since January 2011, 566 bills have been signed into law. Of those, 546 of them, 96.5% were passed under “immediate effect”. Here’s the video from last night’s show that will blow your mind. Pay particular attention to around 12:30 where they show it in action. It’s astonishing. [...]

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