One small section of a 798-page bill titled the “Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017” was clearly written by lobbyists for the forest products industry. Buried on page 366 is this statement: To support the key role that forests in the United States can play in addressing the energy needs of the United States, the Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of Agriculture, […]

It’s been a bit of a rough go with the fundraiser this year. As of last night we were down $5,000 in sponsorships from last year. And I was hoping to be significantly UP from last year so that we could upgrade our podcast equipment. But, as I told one of our sponsors, our opponents are legion and highly effective. […]

Gov. Rick Snyder is determined to prove that privatizing critical state services is a big money saver for the state. What his spreadsheets and dashboards fail to take into account are the unseen and unbudgeted prices paid when those private for-profit groups fail to act professionally. First it was Aramark who got busted for: Running out of food Making unauthorized […]

As bad as things are in Flint, Michigan – and they are REALLY BAD – in the past couple of weeks, they’ve gotten far, far worse. With the state of Michigan no longer subsidizing the city residents’ water bills having declared the water there now “safe” (it’s not), the city has now started charging residents again. Keep in mind that […]

In the course of reviewing emails obtained from Michigan Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette in response to a Freedom of Information Act request last year, staff at Progress Michigan, Michigan’s primary progressive watchdog group, found nearly two dozen emails originating from the private email accounts of Schuette and some of his top staff. Based on this proof that they were […]

In what can only be described as a laughable op-ed in The Detroit News today, multi-millionaire Republican and Foreclosure King David Trott attempts to portray a Republican bill to roll back consumer financial protections under Dodd-Frank and kneecap the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a federal bureau that has “won almost $12 billion in refunds and relief for an estimated […]

Anyone who listened to our podcast interview with Flint activist Melissa Mays knows that having their drinking water poisoned with the powerful neurotoxin lead is only part of the ongoing catastrophe they continue to deal with three years after the switch to the Flint River. In addition to elevated lead levels, residents are still experiencing skin rashes, bacteria-related respiratory infections […]

While the world was reeling and dealing with the outcome of the November 2016, an election won by a man who claims to value jobs over the environment and the climate, wind energy was quietly sneaking into fourth place as the source of electricity in America. In 2016, for the first time, wind energy became the leading source of renewable […]

The following essay was written by my friend Desiree Cooper. Desiree is the author of Know the Mother, a freelance writer, and the former Communications Director for Planned Parenthood of Michigan. Enjoy. Birth control is a no-brainer. Americans have agreed that family planning is a good thing as far back as 1936, when Gallup first asked whether Americans favor the […]

The effort to bring federal dollars into Flint to help them deal with the Republican-made catastrophe that poisoned their drinking water with the powerful neurotoxin lead has been long and arduous, primarily because Republicans themselves did everything they could to make the path long and arduous. First, it took nearly a year for Republican members of Congress to even pass […]

The following guest post was written by Dennis L. Green, a retired certified Professional Engineer from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD). Dennis graduated from Cass Technical High School’s Electrical program in 1963 and received his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Lawrence Tech in 1969. After graduation, Dennis went to work for the Detroit Water Department, Engineering […]