There are few who will argue that the Citizens United Supreme Court decision has radically altered the political landscape. Most people recoil at the amount of money now being spent on behalf of candidates by millionaires and billionaires and by corporations that stand to benefit from having a politician or two on their payroll. And then there are people like […]

NOTE: Updated to clarify the restriction on unions using official school emails to conduct business. NOTE 2: This post has been updated HERE. The anti-union corporatist group the Mackinac Center is using public school email systems to encourage teachers to leave the Michigan Education Association, one of two major teachers unions in the state. I have confirmed that at least […]

The recent kerfuffle in the Michigan House of Representatives with three state Republican legislators posing with women’s fashion mags to show they “understand women” is generating the requisite amount of outcry and outrage from around the state. Having them openly mocking women in an election year is a display of such chutzpah that even Republican House Speaker Jase Bolger was […]

Next Saturday, June 14 the Partnership for Music Education Policy Development will host a Music Education Policy Summit from 9:30 a.m.-3:00 p.m. on the campus of Michigan State University at the Cook Recital Hall in the MSU Music Building. The purpose of the Summit is to examine the most pressing needs regarding music education policy in the state of Michigan. […]

Daily Kos is the most widely read political blog on the planet and, according to Alexa, the 515th most highly trafficked site in the USA. So, when they make an endorsement, something they don’t often do, it rings loudly throughout the progressive blogosphere. Yesterday, Daily Kos took the unusual step of endorsing Mark Schauer for Governor of Michigan because, as […]

I had planned to write about the sad closing of the Catherine Ferguson Academy, a high school for Detroit girls who are pregnant or who have young children that gave them a second chance they can get nowhere else. However, Rachel Maddow covered this last night so much better than I could have so I’ll just let her take the […]

This week Michigan legislators passed a package of bills dubbed “The Grand Bargain” that will help our state’s largest city, Detroit, get back on its feet. Missing from that package was a bill that would have prevented regional municipalities from renewing the existing voter-approved 10-year millage or the levying a new millage to fund the Detroit Institute of Arts. (Details […]

Attempting to deceive senior citizens is, simply put, sick and disgusting. Governor Snyder is summoning his inner Obi Wan Kenobi, using the Jedi Mind Trick to try to convince seniors that he’s not taxing their pensions. “I want to be proactive, ” he said, “and let people know it’s NOT a pension tax. What we did was clean up our […]

A couple of weeks ago, Amy Lynn Smith posted about an upcoming awards dinner being hosted by the amazing organization Michigan Universal Health Care Access Network (MICHUHCAN) is a state-wide network that promotes comprehensive health care for everyone. When she posted it, I said in the comments, “Hopefully Amy Lynn Smith is up for an award from this group. She’s […]

In Ipswich, Massachusetts, a group of sixth graders, led by their teacher, had a novel idea: send a bill to the corporation who used them as guinea pigs to test their newest standardized test. Two sixth grade math classes lost an entire week’s worth of instruction taking a trial run of a new test and now they want payment for […]

Last week, Governor Snyder pretended that he’s suddenly concerned with adding protections for LGBT folks to our state’s civil rights law, the Elliott-Larsen Act. As I have already said, this is a sham. Governor Snyder’s own words show how squishy his “support” is: “I’m encouraging them to say there’s been a lot of dialog and discussion on this. It’s been […]