This past week I wrote about a package of voter suppression bills currently being blasted through the state legislature (HERE and HERE.) They are House Bills 6066, 6067, and 6068. Here’s a piece of what I wrote on Friday: First, we have the voter suppression effort that I wrote about on Wednesday. This legislation does away with the option to […]

It was just a few weeks ago that I was thinking, “Well, since Republicans control EVERY aspect of our state government now, at least lame duck should be quieter than usual.” That, of course, was delusional thinking and Republicans are making that very clear as we begin the 2016 lame duck – or, as I like to call it, “inflamed […]

As the inimitable Ari Berman talked about in detail in our podcast a few weeks ago, one of the chief ways of disenfranchising poor people – particularly minorities – is to make it hard for them to vote. And one of the ways they do that is by passing laws that require a photo ID to vote on Election Day. […]

Before I get started, I’ll say what I have said during our weekly podcast: I do not think Green Party candidate Jill Stein is the reason that Hillary Clinton lost in Michigan. Despite the fact that if only a quarter of Stein voters hadn’t thrown their vote away on a candidate they KNEW would never come close to winning, the […]

As many of you know, in addition to my blogging, I am also the Chair of the Washtenaw County Democratic Party. Washtenaw County, which is the home of Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti and University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, is a bit of a progressive bubble. In terms of local elections, our primaries are most often where the real […]

It’s bad enough that Michigan Governor Rick Snyder is fighting a federal ruling that the state of Michigan supply bottled water to Flint residents still contending with drinking water that is poisoned with the powerful neurotoxin lead. It’s actually REALLY bad. But he’s found another way to make his contempt for poor people known. In response to a lawsuit filed […]

Most of you have likely seen this video but it’s important enough that I’m posting it here to make sure it’s seen by as many people as possible. The essayist is Tess Rafferty, a TV writer, comic and author. Most of the comments I’ve seen about are some version of, “It’s like she’s in my head, speaking with my voice […]

The following guest post is by my friend Ned Staebler. Today, Ned presents us with sage advice on how to move forward in the new America with a “man” like Donald Trump at the helm. It’s a good segue from the “PROCESSING TRUMP” series I have been running. You can follow Ned on Twitter at @NedStaebler and he’s a dynamite […]

This is my contribution to my ongoing series “PROCESSING TRUMP”. After the election of Barack Obama in 2008, white conservatives felt bereft and neglected and without a voice. Aided and abetted by the Koch brothers and their corporatist front groups, they created the tea party movement. As much as we all disparage the tea party, those folks showed the fuck […]

As we talked about on this week’s podcast, a federal judge has ordered the State of Michigan and the City of Flint to return to providing bottled water to the resident of Flint who are being impacted by the ongoing tragedy of the poisoning of their drinking water with the powerful neurotoxin lead: A federal judge has ordered state officials […]

Two days after the election last week, a group of women artists – comedians, poets, singers, dancers, storytellers, and visual artists – gathered at the Pointless Brewery & Theatre in Ann Arbor for a performance art show called HERsay. The event, organized by friend of the blog Patti Smith, ended up being the perfect antidote for many of the attendees […]