out of benton harbor city hall.eaches three miles. it belongs to the town. they broadcast by the town, for the town and about the town. in february, exercising his unilateral power under michigan law, emergency manager put the whole thing up for sale on ebay for $5,000. you get the cords, microphones and everything included. come and get it. it turns out even if rick schneider's state law says they the emergency guy can auction off the city to the last office chair, under federal law you cannot do that. you can not sell a low-powered radio station that way. you can't sell it on ebay. a broadcast license like benton harbor has can only go to a local nonprofit or government body. not just to the highest bidder you find on-line. the emergency manager had to take down the listing on ebay and find a qualified buyer. and now we know who is planning to buy the radio station. provided the fcc agrees to the transfer, the new owner will be the benton harbor area schools. the school district is on the verge of getting the town

. >>> news out of benton harbor, michigan.oor city and mostly african-american and the first city in michigan to have the local elected officials stripped of their power. last year by the state. under rick schneiders souped up emergency manager law your vote to who you want to run the town can be overruled. the state said that benton harbor is too broken to be allowed a democratic form of government anymore. governor schneider turned the town over to a single unelected manager who has unilateral power to do whatever he wants, no matter what the voters say. the manager says the elected mayor and the elected commission are not in charge anymore. so they are not in charge anymore. in rick schneider's michigan, democracy is considered part of the problem n places like benton harbor, at least, democracy must go before progress can begin. accordingly what counts as progress in benton harbor is up to the emergency manager guy now. under rick schneider's law, this unelected emergency official can fire the elected officials, can cancel

they said we don't believe we are there yet in benton harbor. we are going to work with folks in the community to the talk about the picture that you and have and we have as to what benton harbor's future should look like. local residents have been stripped of their right to have a say so. they have not had a local democracy since last year, since rick schneider took it away. governor schneider and the republicans legislature has done is up end the idea that in america we elect people to represent us. in america, we are governed by a democratic form of government. michigan republicans are ripping that idea out by the roots. if there are problems to be solved we do not do it by democratic means anymore in michigan. we suspend democracy to get things done, indefinitely. and it means you can be stripped of your right to vote for officials to govern your town and state level yo may not be allowed to vote in the state legislature. this picture shows michigan house democrats asking for a vote in the legislature and not being allowed one. republicans i

it's the law that let the state take control of his benton harbor.lls a single unelected manager who is free to fire all the elected officials, sell off the town's assets, move to dissolve the town, cancel contracts, almost anything the manager wants to do. this emergency manager person has unilateral control. in michigan now, a long list of cities and school boards are run this way. they are being run as something much closer to dictatorships. and i realize that's a very inflammatory word, but frankly, that's what it is. when you have somebody in charge who has unilateral authority to do whatever he or she wants, that is autocracy. as has been their custom, the republicans passed the souped up emergency manager law naturally under immediate effect. they passed it on march 15th last year, the next day the governor signed it and it took effect right then, immediate effect. and less than a month later, benton harbor's emergency manager seized all power, took power from the elected mayor and elected commission in the span of one month starting with the

it's not just for benton harbor anymore, it's for the whole state.e call votes to see whether republicans have this 2/3 majority they claim. they're demanding an actual count to see if they have all 73 votes that the republicans would need for these laws to go into immediate effect. this is the picture of the democrats demanding a vote like that last week. demanding it and not getting it. we asked the michigan democrats if they could provide us with an example of the way that republicans are running the house. saying that they've got a 2/3 majority when it seems impossible that they do. and they sent over this clip from last month. this is amazing. what's happening here, the context here is that republicans have just passed a measure making it harder to get a repeal on the ballot, to get a citizen's repeal on the ballot. michigan democrats want to repeal that emergency manager law, right. republicans are trying to unilaterally change garn law to make it harder to repeal it. and naturally, they want that to take effect right away. watch. >> speaker re

they decided to have a symbolic constitution week in benton harbor. the emergency manager said you can't do that. they overturned that vote. there is no commission. forget constitution week, is there an overseer in charge with unilateral authority. we have seen it at work in places like flint, michigan and pontiac. on the eve of today's hearing whether the emergency manager law would get recalled. last night, with the prospect of the emergency manager law put on ice until voters can have their say on it last night with every emergency manager in the state having his unilateral authority cut off within hours, last night in flint, the emergency manager there posted a dozen new unilateral orders including several affecting union contracts of public workers. flint said the decision to post all those orders including the ones that wrote the union contracts had nothing to do with today's hearing and working on them a while but a coincidence of the timing. after we saw the story in flint, we checked with the website for the city of pont yag also has an emerg

. >> you guys have to see this video of a house fire from benton harbor, michigan. this was shot by mark pairin, and just look at these flames. the top story looks like it's melting. >> looks like it's just erupting smoke and fire. >> fortunately, this home was abandoned. nobody was inside. but as the firefighters continue to hit this thing with the hose, it looks like, okay, they're starting to get it under control, seeing a lot of smoke, that's a good thing, the fire is going out. you can see, they hit the top floor and then they're hitting the ground floor. watch what happens next. >> oh! wow. it just crumbled. >> yeah. nothing left to hold the thing together. just a couple walls. the whole interior burned out. >> it basically just collapsed, disintegrates and now looks like one big bonfire. >> i'm glad none of the firefighters went inside the house, like they do sometimes. i'm sure they probably realize there was no need for it. >> right. >> but i'm glad they weren't close enough to get hurt by this. >> it's like what happens in your fireplace, you know, the fir

is on the march out of michigan apparently unsatisfied with trashing democracy in places like benton harbor and flint for unelected financial managers are now running the city's republicans the wolverine state are trying to stop people from voting altogether or at least making it a lot harder for people to vote as they try to use reports legislation is in the works that would quote retire require voters to affirm their us citizenship at the polls and photo identification when registering to vote in government sanctioned graininess to register others to vote in other words of the legislation is passed michiganders are going to jump through all kinds of hoops just to get a chance to have their voices heard in our democracy which by the way is exactly what republicans want fewer people voted as republican strategist and founder of the american legislative exchange council alec paul way rick once said. that many of our christian. what i call them grow good government but they want everybody to bow. i don't want everybody to vote elections are won by a majority of people they never happened from

as cities like benton harbor and pontiac and flint and very nearly detroit itself are having their citizensheir right to vote at the local level in michigan, the question remains what's going on in michigan? and why is it first recourse in michigan now to put a halt to all the pesky voting, to solve the state's problems by stopping the voting process that is otherwise known as democracy. and who, if anyone, is going to change that in the state of michigan? on a personal note, i have to say, i am more inclined than ever to stay on this story. one, because it keeps getting more and more interesting and more and more fraught all the time. i think something's going on in michigan that's going on nowhere else in the country and it deserves a lot more attention than it's getting. the more rocks you overturn, the more you'll learn. but also, turns out your insults make me stronger. bring it on. keep shooting the messenger. [ male announcer ] you may be an allergy muddler. try zyrtec® for powerful allergy relief. and zyrtec® is different than claritin® because it starts working faster on the first