In Michigan, Rick Snyder signed a bill passed by the lame-duck Senate -- the same one whose anti-union legislating dominated headlines in recent weeks -- requiring clinics that perform more than 120 abortions a year to become surgical outpatient facilities, a level of licensing intended to be onerous and put clinics out of business. He also approved a bill that purports to screen for women being coerced into abortions.

Snyder did veto another bill limiting insurance coverage in private employee plans, which would have required purchase of a separate abortion rider. He objected to that on the grounds that rape victims would have to pay out of pocket if they didn't buy the rider, and because, "As a practical matter, I believe this type of policy is an overreach of government into the private market." Overreach of government into other realms, of course, is another matter entirely. (According to Michigan resident Emily Magner, one legislator interrupted her to cry, "THIS ISN’T ABOUT WOMEN! THIS IS ABOUT PROTECTING FETUSES!”)

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From earlier: 

Gov. Rick Snyder, R-Mich., will reportedly veto a bill that would have allowed firearms to be brought into schools and other “gun-free zones," according to the bill's sponsor.

The bill was introduced by state Sen. Mike Green, a Republican, and passed out of the state legislature last Thursday, the night before the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

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We take a closer look at some of the more striking measures:

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Snyder told The Associated Press during an interview that his public safety concerns have been heightened and "deserve extra consideration" following a mass shooting that left 26 people — including 20 children — dead at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut

"We're looking at the whole situation due to Connecticut, not just the fact that there's a bill out there," the Republican governor said. "One of the things I've asked our team to look at is what's going with school policies, with mental-health-related issues, because in many respects it appears this was a mentally ill person. ... What that legislation says will be looked at through the lens of all that's happened."

Snyder said the Good Friday 1981 shooting at University of Michigan hits also plays into his decision-making regarding the legislation. He was a law school student and resident adviser when a student set fires by throwing Molotov cocktails onto the floor and fired a shotgun, killing another resident adviser and a student who was trying to help get people off the floor.

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From the Detroit Free-Press:

One bill passed the Senate, 27-10, and calls for more stringent licensing of abortion clinics; the other, passed out of the House insurance committee into the full House, would allow health care providers to refuse service based on moral objections, religious reasons or matters of conscience.

Both must be voted on by the full House.

Two bills already on Snyder’s desk would limit abortion coverage on policies sold on a statewide health insurance exchange unless consumers purchase it as an add-on. The exchange is a Web-based marketplace where consumers will be able to buy insurance as health care reform takes full effect in 2014.

“Those three issues were our top issues: conscience, insurance and regulation and reform,” Ed Rivet, a spokesman for Michigan Right to Life, told the Free-Press. “That we’re doing them all simultaneously is pretty remarkable."

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According to a report by Alexander Burns and Maggie Haberman at Politico, the union counteroffensive is setting its sights on fighting conservative state leaders in next year's gubernatorial elections, particularly in the Midwest. Via Politico:

The AFL-CIO has already built up sizable campaign operations in Pennsylvania, Florida, Nevada and Wisconsin – the site of a titanic 2012 gubernatorial recall fight – in addition to Ohio and Michigan, union officials said. The labor giant deployed new staff to those states about a year ago as part of what AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka has called the “permanent infrastructure” of national unions.

... Labor leaders have vowed to make Snyder regret signing the “right to work” law he approved this week. Beyond Michigan, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett have appeared vulnerable in polling.

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The original video shows Crowder getting punched by a protester on Tuesday while Crowder was trying to stop an Americans for Prosperity tent from being torn down. The video, which is approaching a million views on YouTube, was picked up by the right as evidence of "union thuggery":

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But on Wednesday, Eclectablog's Chris Savage argued that Crowder's video is "actually a composite of things that happened over the course of the day, many of them hours apart."

Crowder defended himself on Twitter:

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He added that the full footage was shown on Sean Hannity's show the night before.

As Robert Mackey of the New York Times' Lede Blog points out:

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The bill, sponsored by Republican state Rep. Dave Agema, would block “foreign laws that would impair constitutional rights” in the state. The Associated Press reports that though the bill "doesn’t specifically mention the Islamic legal code called sharia," its "supporters have said they are concerned about the use of sharia spreading."

From the AP:

It wasn’t immediately clear whether a vote would be taken before the lame-duck session ends. Lawmakers have said they would like to wrap up by Thursday, and they focused Tuesday on giving final approval to divisive right-to-work bills that bar unions from collecting mandatory fees from workers they represent under collective-bargaining agreements.

Agema explained: “They want specific laws applied to their specific groups. They do not want to be under our law." He added that those who are angry about the bill have "ulterior motives."

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The video is edited so it's tough to nail down the sequence of events specifically, but Crowder appears to have gotten punched while trying to stop protesters from tearing down an Americans for Prosperity tent.

Watch:

The right pounced on Twitter:

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On Sean Hannity's show, Crowder said: “I literally believe, Sean, that if I had defended myself at all, even flicked a small little jab, that they would have killed me where I stood."

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“This is pretty much a union-gutting operation,” Matthews said about the state's legislation. “You work for the Koch brothers. They don’t like unions. Why are you working for them?" Hagerstrom replied: “I work for Americans for Prosperity. This is not about the Koch Brothers.”

Matthews fired back: “Who’s paying your salary?" Hagerstrom kept repeating: “I work Americans for Prosperity."

"What’s that?" Matthews asked.

Watch:

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The American Legislative Exchange Council, of course, is the corporate-backed, conservative-leaning organization that has become a bugaboo for liberals by pushing legislation to do everything from roll back environmental regulation to weaken gun control laws, as brought to the fore this year by the murder of Trayvon Martin. ALEC, like lots of groups that work in state capitols, creates “model legislation” that friendly lawmakers can introduce in whole or as a basis for their own bills.

Both Michigan’s HB 4003, which affects public sector unions, and HB 4054, which affects private sector unions, appears to pull language directly from ALEC’s model right-to-work bill. The Center for Media and Democracy, a liberal watchdog group which has been working for years to expose ALEC’s activities, created these chart comparing the language:

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Right-to-work laws are already in place in 22 states, so do they actually create more and better jobs? We asked some experts to find out and the answer is, well, complicated.

Lonnie Stevans, a professor at Hofstra University who used quantitative models to study the issue, is not bullish on the laws. “Although right-to-work states may be more attractive to business, this would not necessarily translate into enhanced economic verve in the right-to-work state if there is little ‘trickle-down’ from business owners to the non-unionized workers," he told Salon.

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The debate over the fiscal cliff, for example, is really about tactical maneuvers preceding a negotiation about how best to reduce the federal budget deficit. This, in turn, is a fragment of a bigger debate over whether we should be embracing austerity economics and reducing the budget deficit in the next few years or, alternatively, using public spending and investing to grow the economy and increase the number of jobs.

Even this larger debate is just one part of what should be the central debate of our time — why median wages continue to drop and poverty to increase at the same time income and wealth are becoming ever more concentrated at the top, and what should be done to counter the trend.

With a shrinking share of total income and wealth, the middle class and poor simply don’t have the purchasing power to get the economy back on solid footing. (The wealthy don’t spend enough of their income or assets to make up for this shortfall, and they invest their savings wherever around the world they can get the highest return).

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Well, the voters spoke in November and dramatically voted down Proposal 2, but then this right to work discussion just continued to escalate and was becoming very divisive. So the way I viewed it is, it's on the table. It's a hot issue. Let's show some leadership. So I stepped up to say when I review it, I think it's a good thing. It's about being pro-worker. It’s about giving freedom of choice to workers.

Watch a clip of the interview via MSNBC below.

UPDATE 1.50 p.m. (EST): The Michigan House has approved both right-to-work bills, pertaining to both public and private sector workers, and the legislation will now be sent to Gov. Rick Snyder, who vowed he would sing the bills into law.

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Snyder’s announcement last week that he’d support right-to-work has taken the sheen off his carefully cultivated image as a pragmatic alternative to hard-charging GOP counterparts in Ohio and Wisconsin. But it secures a dream of the anti-union Koch brothers and the American Legislative Exchange Council, whose associates are well-represented among Snyder’s donors, and whose economic agenda has been ascendant within the modern GOP.

“I think he was being a puppet for larger interests outside of the state,” United Auto Workers vice president Cindy Estrada told Salon Monday afternoon.

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Obama received loud applause at a Michigan engine plant when he said we shouldn't be "taking away your rights to bargain for better wages and working conditions."

The president says that the right-to-work bills are more about "giving you the right to work for less money."

The Michigan House and Senate approved the legislation last week. Democrats have urged Republican Gov. Rick Snyder to veto the measure that he has pledged to sign.

The Republican-controlled Legislature is expected to take final action on the bills as early as Tuesday.

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