Last month, the for-profit charter corporation Mosaica announced that it was breaking its contract, signed under an Emergency Manager, to run the entire Muskegon Heights school district. Why? Because they couldn’t make a profit off of running a school system in an economically depressed community. I know. You’re shocked. “To be brutally honest – they had to be brutally honest […]

Efforts by the Koch brothers front group Americans for Prosperity to scuttle the Detroit bankruptcy settlement were shot down in flames as the state legislature overwhelmingly voted yesterday to contribute $194.8 million toward the deal. This was the amount needed to ensure that the deal did not collapse and which saves the Detroit Institute of Arts’ priceless art collection while […]

It’s not going too far to say that American workers everywhere benefit on an ongoing basis from the hard work labor unions have done over the past several decades. I work at a non-union company that treats its employees very well. They compete for talent with other companies, including union shops, and this encourages them to do right by us, […]

Detroit Bulk Storage has been denied a permit by the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to store petcoke on the banks of the Detroit River. As you may recall, they were storing giant piles of the toxic byproduct of tar sands oil refining by Koch Carbon, an energy company owned by the billionaire Koch brothers. Last year, the piles were […]

In a shocking development that surprises absolutely nobody, we learn that the Koch brothers, through their front group Americans for Prosperity, is working overtime to sabotage the “grand bargain” settlement that would bring the city of Detroit out of bankruptcy, save the Detroit Institute of Arts’ priceless art collection, and keep innocent retired pensioners from being thrown into abject poverty […]

As I was reading a Detroit News op-ed about raising the minimum wage this morning (Eclectablog motto: “we do it so you don’t have to”), I was, of course, unsurprised to see them advising House legislators to reject the bill passed by the Senate to raise the minimum wage to $9.20 by 2017. According to them, “the Senate bill isn’t […]

I was speaking with a Democratic state legislator today and they raised an interesting point. If the House passes the bill to hike the state minimum wage that was passed by the Senate last week, unless both chambers give the bill “immediate effect”, it won’t become law until 90 days after the end of the current legislative session which ends […]

A new group has formed called Citizens for Oil-free Backyards (COFBY)to oppose oil and gas exploration, drilling, and extraction in Scio Township, just outside Ann Arbor, Michigan, and in other parts of Michigan. Their efforts are in response to an effort by Traverse City-based West Bay Exploration to begin exploring for oil in Scio Township. More than 300 people attended […]

Hold the right people responsible and GET OUT THE VOTE! After my post yesterday, there has been a LOT of push back here at Eclectablog and on Facebook from people accusing Michigan Democrats, including gubernatorial candidate Mark Schauer and Senate Democratic Leader Gretchen Whitmer, of “selling out” minimum wage workers. This is absolutely unfair and entirely untrue. Was this legislation […]

This afternoon the Michigan Senate passed S.B. 934 which raises the minimum wage in Michigan but by less than an indirect initiated state statute ballot referendum would have. This legislation short-circuits the ballot initiative. However, the legislation as passed by the Senate does reflect some changes since it was first introduced. In the beginning, the legislation only increased the minimum […]

It’s been more than three years since Rick Snyder took the reins of power in Michigan and, despite having Republicans in charge of both chambers of the legislature along with all of the major administration posts, his favorability is still under 50% with 52% giving him failing grade. Among the data was a question asking how voters would rate the […]