On September 29th, conservative Republicans in Congress spent over five hours interrogating and badgering Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards over selectively edited video that distorts the truth about what Planned Parenthood does. Despite being treated shabbily by the men on the committee she testified before, often interrupted and prevented from answering questions, she handled it with finesse and aplomb. Yesterday, […]

MIRS News Service is reporting this week that the Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) and Health and Human Services (DHHS) issued a joint statement clearing Planned Parenthood affiliates in Michigan of any illegal activities related to donations of fetal tissue. The two agencies have been investigating Planned Parenthood after Republican Senator Phil Pavlov called for the investigation in the wake […]

This past week my pal Amy Kerr-Hardin posted a now-viral piece at Democracy Tree titled “Michigan Lawmakers Propose Bill to Prevent Practicing Condom Use on Bananas“. She was writing about new legislation introduced by Republican Tom Hooker, H.B. 4883, that would, in part, prevent sex education teachers from allowing students to practice using condoms in class. The pertinent section she […]

Michigan House speaker Kevin Cotter (R) Mt. Pleasant is a real piece of work. Bear with me here. The amount of time the Republican-controlled State House has spent this summer working on issues that matter to most taxpayers has been scant with relatively little to show for it, and it has happened without direction and leadership. Cotter’s regrettable remark about […]

I wrote the following on my Facebook page yesterday: “This is more than just an outrage. It is more than just two tea party zealots forcing their ill-conceived and obsessive behavior and “ideas” upon the unwashed and uneducated who have followed them with gusto and hearty resolve. This is more than just about hypocrisy and plain stupidity. “What it is […]

This past week the Obama administration announced sweeping new regulations that will reduce carbon emissions from our nation’s power plants by 32 percent by 2030. “With this Clean Power Plan, by 2030, carbon pollution from our power plants will be 32 percent lower than it was a decade ago,” President Obama said when he announced the new plan. “The nerdier […]

Presiding Dent County, Missouri Commissioner Darrell Skiles filed a letter with the city commission asking that flags be lowered to less than half staff for one year to protest “the U.S. high court’s stamp of approval of what God speaks of as an abomination”, referring to the recent SCOTUS decision that ruled same-sex marriage bans are unconstitutinal. “[A]ll who see […]

While stumping in Nevada last week Rand Paul once again indicated that if he becomes President he will sell off some of the national parks and public lands that are currently owned by all Americans. He tied this notion of private ownership to the nation’s development in the 1800’s when the government sale of lands in the West raised money […]

The decision by 75th District Court judge Michael Carpenter to stop ALL marriages in the 75th District Court in Midland to avoid having to marry same-sex couples sent a shockwave of outrage and disbelief throughout the country yesterday. What he did was legal in the technical sense because District Court judges are authorized, not required to perform marriages. However, given […]

This post has been updated several times. See below. It hasn’t been particularly surprising to see marriages being halted in places like Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas. In these states, some government officials are refusing to marry or issue marriage licenses to ANY couple, same-sex or opposite-sex, in order to avoid having to marry same-sex couples. However, this bigotry has now […]

NOTE: This post has been updated to include information about when Michigan abolished common law marriages. Republican Todd Courser took to the internet to defend “attacks” he’s facing over his package of legislation paving the way for “RFRA for Marriage” and making it harder for same-sex couples to get married. In a piece on his website titled “Breaking Courser Answers […]