On June 21st of this year, an explosion rocked the Philadelphia Energy Solutions oil refinery in Philadelphia causing a massive amount of damage to the facility. The gigantic fire ball was captured on video by @1NiceTownBean: @6abc @CBSPhilly @FOX29philly Philadelphia energy Solutions Refining Complex at about 4:15 am pic.twitter.com/vK1Vs2MEfR — hood’s favorite vegan (@1nicetownbean) June 21, 2019 This explosion was […]

During the time when the Flint water crisis was unfolding, right wing conservatives spent a lot of time trying to convince the country and the world that it was all the fault of the local government. They portrayed these local leaders as incompetent buffoons who poisoned themselves, countering the reality that the local government officials had literally NO POWER to […]

Michael Bennet, US Senator from Colorado and presidential candidate, had what the pundits this morning are calling “a moment” at last night’s Democratic Debate on CNN. Let’s hope that moment ends immediately. Ironically enough, Bennet’s big moment came as he waxed poetic about “America’s public schools”, a topic that has received a depressingly minuscule amount of attention. Because while Bennet […]

It’s taken years of concerted effort but, at long last, Betsy DeVos and the Koch brothers can finally claim victory: Teachers in Michigan are now paid less today in both real and corrected-for-inflations dollars. In 2009, the average teacher salary in our state was $63,025. In 2017, the most recent year for which we have data, the average was only […]

There they go again. This important essay was written by Mike Jackson, executive secretary treasurer of the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights union. Please contact your state legislator and ask them to vote NO on House Bill 4406. The Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), an anti-union organization, is hoping taxpayers further subsidize their failed training programs. This time, […]

I’ve noticed an uptick lately in the number of folks talking about school choice, charter schools, and competition. I’m guessing this is a by-product of the recent swing in public opinion against charter schools, and the attendant backlash against 2020 presidential candidate and big charter school cheerleader, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker. The conversation around charters and choice, however, like […]

Trump and his Republican enablers, like Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, are beginning to realize that they have approximately zero chance of ever winning another election–if held and run fairly–on the issues, so they are scrambling frantically to redefine these issues in a clumsy and desperate effort to confuse and distract voters. Here are just 2 examples; one from national […]

When the GOP loses their bets, they use their gerrymandered majorities to make workers to pay UPDATE, 12/4/18: Michigan’s GOP-controlled House has voted to gut both the One Fair Wage minimum wage increase and earned sick leave. The bills now go to the desk of the governor. If you wonder how that’s going to go, the Detroit Free Press reports, […]

It’s no secret that Michigan is one of the most heavily gerrymandered states in the entire country. Here’s the 11th Congressional District, for example: The 9th District is almost as bad: Note that they are both adjacent and interlocking. The 11th District is highly Republican and 9th District is reliably Democratic. For good measure, here’s the 14th which is another […]

In 2016, Donald Trump got around 37% of the vote from members of labor unions. He actually out-performed Mitt Romney in this regard suggesting that his faux pro-worker rhetoric hit its mark. Since then, he’s continued his attempts to appease union workers and convince them — despite a preponderance of evidence to the contrary — that he is on THEIR […]

This past week, corporatists ticked off a major agenda when the United States Supreme Court decided in their favor in the Janus v. AFSCME case. With this decision, SCOTUS has turned America into a “Right to Freeload” country. Will Swaim, president of the California Policy Center, an affiliate of the Koch brothers State Policy Network (SPN), celebrated the decision to […]