Weiland, 39, is a former reporter for the Lansing State Journal. She was laid off in June along with 700 others across the Gannett News system. It was the latest in a continuing process of scaling down by the news giant designed to strengthen faltering stock price returns. Weiland was called into the offices of the publisher at about 5 p.m. on June 21.

“We found out that morning that there would be 700 layoffs,” Weiland said. “I was told about 5 p.m. So they got a full day out of me.”

Weiland’s eight years of service were rewarded with eight weeks of severance pay, she says — one week for each year. But for the former reporter, what really burned was that Gannett CEO Craig Dubow retired in October, walking away with a $37.1 million retirement and disability agreement.

“If you divide that by 700 people, you get about $50,000 — that was my annual salary,” Weiland says.

Meanwhile, Weiland is now struggling to pay the bills. She is behind in her mortgage and facing foreclosure. When she was laid off, her credit cards, mortgage and bank accounts were all owned by different banks. But now, they are all owned by Bank of America. Unable to find a job even with her recently earned masters’s degree from Central Michigan University, she called Bank of America to ask for assistance. They ignored her pleas for help, she says.

“I’m upset with them because they got all this money from the government,” she says of the banking giant. “They drag these out for months and months, making people jump through all kinds of hoops and still they get foreclosed on.”

And that is why the former-journalist picked up a sign and a stack of “Occu-bucks” and marched three blocks through downtown Lansing. She and six others stood in front of the bank branch, holding signs such as “end corporate greed, help people’s needs,” “Honk if you support the 99 %,” and “born in the U.S.A. — will die in a third world country.”

The protest was closely monitored by at least two Lansing Police cars and a security guard in the lobby of the Bank of America.

Among the passersby were state lawmakers, and Ari Adler, spokesman for House Speaker Jase Bolger, stopped by the Bank of America ATM to withdraw money. He did not engage with protesters.

For Weiland, she continues to receive unemployment, but has lost her food assistance. The state authorized a whopping $16 in benefits for her, but when new rules kicked in earlier this year requiring those receiving the benefits to prove they did not have more than $5,000 in assets, Weiland gave up. To get the banking documents to provide her case worker, her bank would have charged her $15.

“It would not have been worth it,” she says. “I am not looking to game the system. I just don’t want the game rigged anymore.”

“It’s like America hates its own people,” she says of welfare cuts and tax realignments the state implemented earlier this year. “We seem to denigrate our own people, and I don’t know why.”

She says her experiences of covering poverty in the Lansing area were nothing in comparison to living in poverty. She has turned her dining room table into a food pantry, she says, lining the table with canned foods.

“When you are in it, you are exposed to it in a very different way [than when reporting on poverty],” she says.

“Yeah because he chickened out,” Jones said of Agema. “He called and said he wanted to come and speak. We said that would be fine. That would be great. A little bit later, all of the sudden, he said he couldn’t speak.”

Jones said Agema claimed he had agreed to speak without knowing his schedule, which the pastor said he “found hard to believe.”

“I believe some type of group or interest group got to him and put pressure on him. And of course he backed down,” Jones said. “I mean our politicians are not men of courage, they’re politicians.”

“Rep. Agema did not call Mr. Jones. That is completely untrue,” said Mark Kasvin, a legislative aide to Agema.

Jones’ version of events was followed up by an email from James Terpening, a Lansing area resident who facilitated Jones’ appearances in Lansing.

“I am the rally organizer for Operation Freedom’s Tree that had Terry Jones in Lansing. Agema DID agree to speak and I was the one that spoke to him, when he canceled he called my cell phone and left a voice mail saying he had to cancel and he was sorry which I still have. He wanted to do our rally and only backed out after he had pressure placed on him.”

Michigan Messenger has requested the audio from this voicemail, but has not received it as of press time.

Kasvin said that the scheduling conflict was a meeting with a constituent in Lansing.

“I was shocked a member of the Michigan legislature would agree to speak at an event like this in the first place,” Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero said of Agema’s alleged agreement to speak at the rally. Bernero called Agema’s “foreign laws” legislation “a solution looking for a problem.”

“I just think it’s much ado about nothing,” said Bernero. “It’s a bunch of crap.”

GOP Gov. Rick Snyder’s office on Tuesday came out against the foreign laws bill.

“Regarding Rep. Agema’s bill, we have yet to see any evidence that it is needed or that foreign laws are being practiced in our state,” said Geralyn Lasher, Snyder’s communications director.

Agema has made a series of headlines this year with proposals to eliminate the Healthy Michigan Fund Initiative which would eliminate Michigan’s match for federal HIV funding dollars and instead use that money to pay for airport improvements; proposals to fine state universities for offering partner benefits to same-sex couples and legislation to develop an Arizona like immigration law in the state.

Jones spoke to the media following his rally on the steps of the state Capitol Wednesday night, which drew a half dozen supporters, 15 protesters and gaggle of press. He was also surrounded by the highest security put in place at the state Capitol in recent years. As people entered the grounds, they were subjected to having their bags searched. At least 50 officers were visible flanking either side of the Capitol steps, as well as across the street in front of Lansing City Hall and the Romney building. In the hour before Jones’ speech was scheduled, officers with bomb sniffing dogs patrolled the grounds, while facilities staff filled a series of orange plastic barricades with water.

Jones said the small turnout didn’t bother him.

“We’re not disappointed. We would like to have a lot more but we realize that these things are difficult,” Jones said of the lackluster turnout. “They’re very controversial. People are afraid of Islam. They’re afraid of the radical element, what would happen. They’re afraid maybe their neighbors will them. Of course the mayor spoke out against us. That’s a whole lot for people to over come.”

He delivered a rambling speech arguing that Islam poses a growing threat to America. The speech was peppered with claims that those of the Islamic faith have never contributed to betterment of society, that Islamic regimes such as Saudi Arabia did not participate in foreign aid as the U.S. and Europe do, and that true Islam is not what he called “the watered down version” seen in the United States. Jones’ said true Islam is represented by suicide bombers, honor killings, polygamy and more.

Early on in the evening protesters started chanting “stop hate speech.” Jones ignored the chanting, but one supporter, who would only identify himself as Eugene because he was afraid of people knowing who he was, frantically and angrily pleaded with police to stop the counter protesters. MSP officers did move in, telling protesters that they either had to stop chanting or move to the public sidewalk.

Protesters held a large banner and series of smaller signs condemning Jones’ views.

After the event, Jones also announced he will hold an event at Lansing’s Hunter Park today at 5 p.m.

“We will have to deploy more resources; spend more money to allow him to exercise his Constitutional rights,” said Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero. “We’re taking all the necessary precautions to protect the kids and the neighborhood…Our main priority is public safety.”

In an interview with Michigan Messenger, Gleason announced he plans to carry the protest on into Friday and is calling on citizens to join him Friday night in the Capitol as well to protest the Republican-dominated Senate’s failure to pass a long-delayed anti-bullying measure.

“I made the decision when the other side was laughing as they got up to explain their ‘no’ votes,” said Gleason. “That’s supposed to be the family values and Christians?”

During debate on a to bill lift the cap on the number of charter schools in the state, Democrats offered up amendments to the state school code that would mandate anti-bullying policies in the schools. The first amendment, offered by Sen. Glenn Anderson of Westland would have amended state law to include enumerated protected classes required in school policies statewide. Democrats tend to favor the enumeration legislation, saying that by identifying protected classes they are protecting all schoolchildren.

The second amendment was an offer to use legislation favored by Republican lawmakers which would simply bar all bullying.

Both amendments were shot down, while the charter cap legislation was ultimately passed.

“The reason I am doing this is I know people, I have had family members tell me they were abused. I’ve known too many kids who were bullied,” Gleason said.

Michigan is one of only three states without some sort of statewide anti-bullying law. Activists have been trying to get the state legislature to pass a law for nearly a decade, but have never been able to get a bill approved by both chambers.

Kevin Epling, whose son Matt committed suicide following a brutal bullying incident in East Lansing, says the Senate is “failing” the youth of the state.

“We are failing our kids in such a blatant way,” Epling said. “We deserve to be one of the last states with a law.”

Any anti-bullying legislation that might be passed would be named Matt’s Law after Epling’s son. Epling has since become a vocal advocate against bullying, giving speeches at schools across the country, and recently participating in a White House Conference on Bullying in D.C.

“While Senator Gleason sat in his office in protest of the disgraceful way that senators reacted to yesterday’s efforts by Democratic senators to pass anti-bullying legislation, I fear that the laughter that came from conservative legislators on the Senate floor in response to the efforts may have continued when the senators arrived home,” said Emily Dievendorf, policy director at Equality Michigan. “Senators Gleason and Anderson look at legislating with the welfare of our kids in mind, recognizing that we need to address bullying and address it now because our kids are just not making it when we force them to fend for themselves… Unfortunately, the Senate was dominated by the testimony of legislators that allowed their biases to trump attempts to save our kids. Conservative senators have now set the standard for bullying. They taught the younger generation of bullies how it’s done.”

Gleason may soon not be alone in his protest. Epling and Equality Michigan Executive Director Denise Brogan-Kator both have called on people to join the senator in his Friday night sit in.

“Senator Gleason supported enumerated anti-bullying legislation yesterday, and chose to stay in his office last night, because he cannot in good conscience stand by while other legislators permit the existence of a learning environment that is excluding and killing our kids,” Brogan-Kator said. “I have expressed Equality Michigan’s support for Senator Gleason’s protest and will stand with him Friday night as he continues to bring attention to the legislature’s brazen dismissal of their responsibility to Michigan’s children.”

“I would call on any citizen who is available to join Sen. Gleason Friday night,” said Epling who is rearranging his work commitments to join the protest for a period. “I also encourage people to call, visit, email their senators. Particularly the constituents of those senators who made a mockery of this issue. The citizenry has to rise up and say this is the time. They need to make it happen.”

Agema was slated to discuss his bill to prohibit Michigan courts from recognizing any foreign law that conflicts with the constitution. While Agema claims the law is not targeting Shariah law, he uses Shariah as an example when he speaks of the legislation.

Agema said that he was unaware of his scheduling conflict until Tuesday afternoon while he was at a Habitat for Humanities event. Staff from his office called him when inquiries about his appearance with Jones started coming in. Agema called Terpening and left the voice mail Terpening posted on his website.

Agema said had he not had the scheduling conflict he would have appeared on the steps with the controversial pastor.

“I’d have only talked about my bill,” the Republican lawmaker said. “I would not be there to talk about his agenda.”

Terpening and Jones contended last week that Agema had called Jones’ Florida church and asked if he could speak at Jones’ rally.

Terpening arranged the rally with Jones last week as part of the launch of a new project to get voters to reject all incumbents. The 34-year-old has a checkered history, including criminal convictions dating back to 1997, the Michigan Department of Corrections Offender Database reports. Among his convictions are charges for uttering and publishing, embezzlement and fleeing a police officer.

“He will not be at the event,” Chris Jones, an aide in Agema’s office, told MLive.com. The aide said he did not know whether Agema had been contacted about the event or whether he had, at some point, confirmed his attendance.

Jones’ website, StandUpForAmericaNow.com, identifies Agema as one of the rally speakers:

OPERATION FREEDOM’S TREE and STAND UP AMERICA NOW RALLY

Featuring Speakers Dr. Terry Jones, James Terpening and Representative Dave Agema, author and main sponsor of Michigan’s Anti-Sharia House Bill 4769

While the legislation is being touted in this announcement as an anti-Sharia law, in news reports over the weekend, Agema denied the goal was to address only Sharia law encroachment onto American laws. In an interview with the Grand Rapids Press, Agema had this to say in defense of the legislation:

Though he uses Sharia law as examples, Agema argues his bill is not anti-Muslim and does not target Sharia law specifically. “It will prevent any religious or foreign law from taking precedence,” he said. Twenty-five other states have introduced similar legislation.

Geralyn Lasher, communications director for Gov. Rick Snyder, issued the following statement on Jones’ Wednesday protest and Agema’s “foreign laws” bill:

We do not support the message of hate and intolerance that Mr. Jones has chosen to bring to Michigan. As the nation observes the tenth anniversary of the tragic events of September 11, 2001, we will be encouraging people to commit to share our time and talents to build a stronger Michigan. Instead of the sinister attacks defeating our nation, America stood tall. Regardless of background, race or religion, Americans reached out to each other with compassion and courage.

Regarding Rep. Agema’s bill, we have yet to see any evidence that it is needed or that foreign laws are being practiced in our state.

A protest Jones spoke at in Dearborn earlier in the year resulted in officials there needing to send out riot police to control the situation, the Oakland Press reported.

In addition to the Wednesday rally, Jones announced his planned appearance in St. Johns had been canceled, but that he would hold a meeting at Lansing’s Hunter Park on Thursday afternoon. Hunter Park is located on the city’s Eastside, which is a diverse neighborhood.

Joan Nelson, executive director of the Allen Neighborhood Center which covers a large part of the Eastside including Hunter Park, had this to say about Jones announcement:

Pastor Jones’ choice of Hunter Park seems strange, indeed, given that it is home to the annual World Refugee Day festival and located in a neighborhood that celebrates its rich diversity. I think the Pastor will find that people in this area are not interested in his fringe politics and hate speech. It seems that this man has come an awfully long way to insult residents of our neighborhood and the people of Lansing. Nevertheless, he has the right to do so; let’s hope he makes it quick and goes home.

The barbarian outfits were in response to a radio interview Marcus Bachmann gave in 2010 that insinuated that LGBT people were “barbarians” who “need to be educated.” The dance troop also featured a fake Marcus Bachmann who was “baptized” in glitter during the stunt.

Here’s video of the protest:

“I am here because the Blue Green Alliance is an important player in mobilizing the environmental and labor communities to develop the clean energy agenda,” said former Congressman Mark Schauer, who now runs the Blue Green Alliance. “Those jobs will help us compete in the global competition for jobs — and it is global. We don’t win that competition by cutting education.”

Capitol Committee officials say the crowd was between 4,500 to 5,000 people, but organizers told the crowd the number was 10,000.

“Gov. Snyder said he wanted shared sacrifice,” said Sen. Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer (D-East Lansing). “But it is clear once again that he and the GOP leaders are falling back on picking the same old winners and losers they have always relied on.”

Snyder’s budget has been assailed by a broad coalition of groups because of plans to eliminate the Earned Income Tax Credit and to start taxing pension incomes for seniors. The budget also eliminates the Michigan Business Tax and its dreaded 22 percent surcharge and replaces it with a flat six percent business tax. That move results in furthering the budget deficit the legislature has to overcome to nearly $3 billion.

Robert Quackenbush, 68, says he dedicated 51 years of his life to working, including 35 years in a foundry in Saginaw. He did that, he said, so he could get a modest retirement pension.

“I earned what I got,” he said. “I don’t like the idea of some one trying to take it away.”

Terry Miller, 67, chimed in on the conversation at this point. “That’s what we put our time in for. So we could retire and enjoy it.”

Miller is a retired UAW worker from Flint.

“The middle class came with the union and it will go away with the union,” Miller said.

“This is the worst it’s ever been in my lifetime,” said Quackenbush, commenting on legislation unions say will undermine organized labor’s collective bargaining power.

Snyder’s former Democratic rival, Virg Bernero, deliver an impassioned populist speech to the crowd.

“It’s not the money changers on Wall Street that make America work. It’s not the big banks that make America work. It’s you,” Bernero roared at the raucous crowd.

Bernero took a swipe at the GOP, claiming they were rehashing trickle down economic theory that, he said, had proven to be a failure. Growing the economy, he argued, starts with the workers, not the rich.

“If you take care of the grass roots…good things will grow up!”

Bill Lambert, who organized his Facebrook group Pro-Choice Houston to protest the fundraiser, said the goal was to shame Dillard’s for supporting hate speech, referring to one of Heroic Media’s anti-abortion-rights billboard slogans: “The most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb.”

Lambert said the group of about 20 held signs reading “I trust black women”; ”Dillard’s: The most dangerous store for women’s rights”; and ”What’s heroic about racism?” and occasionally chanted “Down With Dillard’s.”

Though he said pedestrian traffic around the corner of Louisiana and Polk streets was sparse — and thus there was little interaction between protesters and Heroic Media supporters — Lambert said he was pleased with the turnout, adding that pro-abortion rights grassroots activism is not as prevalent today, despite myriad efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade.

It’s a position Amanda Williams, president of the University of Houston’s Student Feminist Organization, agrees with. Members of the SFO (about 10, according to Williams) teamed up with Pro-Choice Houston to protest the fundraiser. Williams, who is a U of H senior majoring in English literature and minoring in women’s studies, told TAI that she thinks the anti-abortion-rights movement has organized more diligently because theirs is a battle that is harder to win but easier to fight.

“It’s easier to fight against something,” Williams said. “And some people think, ‘Why defend women’s rights? We already have the right to choose.’ But this is a crucial time in the pro-choice movement. They want to reverse Roe v. Wade. … It affects students, it affects young women.”

Protesting Heroic Media, Williams said, was about attacking the common arguments made on the anti-abortion-rights side, one being that abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood target African-Americans, evidenced by large amounts of abortion clinics in African-American communities, according to anti-abortion-rights groups.

‘[An abortion] is one of the biggest decisions of a woman’s life, Williams said. “Do they think women are persuaded by simple placement of a building?”

Both Williams and Lambert appeared on the Houston Indymedia radio station Friday to discuss the protest.

“[Heroic Media] is not putting up billboards about getting prenatal care to uninsured women,” Lambert said, regarding the fundraiser’s aims. “Instead they’re trying to shame women. … Attacking a woman’s right to choose is attacking her dignity.”

“And even if abortion providers were targeting [women] by race, does this organization really think that women need some sort of godly enlightenment, some savior?” Williams said. “I think by now we are all smart enough to recognize racism when we see it. African-American women know their rights and all women have the intelligence to make the right and best decision concerning her own health, her own body, and her own faith. No one is being fooled by these billboards, and I believe it’s completely insulting.”

However, people walking in and out of the Hyatt Regency in Downtown Houston — the location for the scheduled Sowing Seeds for Life! event — might run into a few dozen grassroots protesters planning to bring attention to the messages behind the billboards Heroic Media and its affiliate Life Always have been erecting throughout the country.

“We want to make people know the truth about abortion rates, that they’re not part of some Nazi program,” said Bill Lambert, founder of the Facebook group Pro-Choice Houston, which organized the protest. “It is a stupid racist thing to come up,” he said, referring to one of the slogans Heroic Media has spread over highways in African-American neighborhoods in various cities: “The most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb.”

“The outrage is everywhere,” said Lambert, who washes dishes by day and champions women’s rights on his off hours. “Our [protest] is a thoughtful approach to the issue, to talk about the root causes of [high abortion rates among African-Americans] instead of vilifying black women and calling their wombs unsafe.”

Pro-Choice Houston, which Lambert said comprises approximately 250 members, will be joined Saturday by members from the University of Houston’s Student Feminist Organization (SFO) and the International Socialist Organization (ISO). Thus far, 36 Facebook users have confirmed they are attending the protest, while 30 have said they might attend. Lambert said their plan is to stand outside the Hyatt, starting at 10:30 a.m., for the two hours Heroic Media sponsors and supporters will be modeling Dillard’s springwear. Protesters will hand out leaflets Lambert’s team put together, explaining their position on Heroic Media and its ad campaign.

An excerpt from the Pro-Choice Houston leaflet, taken from a Guttmacher Institute report, reads:

In the US, the abortion rate for black women is almost five times that for white women. Antiabortion activists, including some African-American pastors, have been waging a campaign around this fact, falsely asserting that the disparity is the result of aggressive marketing by abortion providers to minority communities. They ignore the fundamental reason women have abortions and the underlying problem of racial and ethnic disparities across an array of health indicators. The truth is that behind virtually every abortion is an unintended pregnancy. This applies to all women – black, white, Hispanic, Asian and Native American alike. Not surprisingly, the variation in abortion rates across racial and ethnic groups relates directly to the variation in the unintended pregnancy rates across those same groups… These higher unintended pregnancy rates reflect the particular difficulties that many women in minority communities face in accessing high-quality contraceptive services and in using their chosen method of birth control consistently and effectively over long periods of time. These patterns of abortion rates mirror the levels of unintended pregnancy seen across these same groups, and the disparities in unintended pregnancy rates result mainly from similar disparities in access to and effective use of contraceptives.

Neither representatives from the Dillard’s Memorial City store that is lending clothes for the event, nor representatives from Dillard’s headquarters would respond to The American Independent’s requests for comment on the scheduled protest or previous reactions to the event.

“[Heroic Media's] media campaign targeting African American women on billboards was especially offensive,” said Houstonian Hope Sanford in an email to TAI explaining her involvement in the protest. “The group attacks Planned Parenthood, who provide contraception and education to a large segment of Texas women (we have the highest rate of uninsured women in the US) and one of the videos on their site actually has a young woman, supposedly being coerced into abortion asking plaintively, ‘Don’t I have a choice?’ Well actually, not if Heroic Media gets their way! Rather than targeting vulnerable young women with unintended pregnancies using cleverly framed guilt and shame tactics, we should advocate for better access to contraception and education.”

As TAI previously reported, last fall, a Dillard’s store in Austin loaned clothes to a Heroic Media fundraiser attended by 200 people that raised approximately $45,000 to fund an Austin-focused campaign, according to Heroic Media spokesperson Kimberly Speirs. This fundraiser — with an expected attendance of 400-500 people — will fund a Houston campaign. Speirs has not confirmed the nature of that campaign, but last month she told TAI that the featured speaker at this event will be an African-American woman who chose not to have an abortion.

The mission of Heroic Media is just that, to help women choose not to have abortions. The organization self-identifies as a ”faith-based non-profit that reduces abortion by creating a Culture of Life through television, billboard and internet advertising which connects women in crisis with life-affirming pregnancy centers.”

What many people have taken issue with is the racially-tinged media tactics Heroic Media has used in some of its advertising, as well as the crisis pregnancy centers the advertisements and billboards point viewers to. Groups such as NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation have reported (PDF) that some crisis pregnancy centers offer misleading information about what services they offer in addition to misleading or distorted information about abortion. (“>Read a related story on Texas crisis pregnancy centers, from The Texas Independent.)

“Heroic Media can do whatever they choose,” Sanford said. “However, Dillard’s should be called out for sponsoring a fundraiser for them. People who shop there should know what they are inadvertently supporting.”

Check out the video after the jump: