Last month, I wrote about Senate Bill 571, a Republican campaign finance bill that will do a number of truly anti-democratic things. Here’s a recap from that post: [The] faux sincere desire for voters to be more informed was proven to be the lie that it is when [Republicans] passed Senate Bill 571. This bill bans using public dollars or […]

WHAT?! A corporatist presidential candidate hired a corporate shill to run his campaign?! Get oudda here! You can file this one in the “Well That Figures” file. Donald Trump, who had raised a tidy sum of just over $11,000 through the end of September in Michigan, doesn’t have any sort of ground game in Michigan at this point so, given […]

As we wind down the year, those of us who pay attention to state politics are breathing a sigh of relief that the state legislature is no longer in session and working on ways to shape our state into the corporatocracy the Republicans so desperately want it to be. However, before they left Lansing for the year, they passed three […]

It’s well known that American corporations use off-shore tax havens to shield their profits from taxation. However, a recent report by U.S. Public Interest Group (USPIRG) gives us new details on just how widespread the tactic is and, more importantly, the impact it is having on the funding of education across the country. According to their analysis, this practice reduces […]

Back in June I reported on legislation – Senate Bill 250 which would cut the minimum wage for 18 and 19 year olds to 85% of the level for everyone else. In defending it, the sponsor, Margaret O’Brien, claimed that it was necessary because “Most of the employers I’ve talked to in my community do not have a youth training […]

A shocking bit of terrific journalism by Bloomberg Business published this week shows just how far Walmart is willing to go to crush any chance for its employees – called “associates” – to unionize. The piece, titled “How Walmart Keeps an Eye on Its Massive Workforce”, reveals that they hired defense contractor Lockheed Martin to spy on their employees in […]

Republicans in Michigan, including Governor Rick Snyder are bragging to anyone who will listen to them about Michigan’s low unemployment rate. And it’s true. Our 5% unemployment rate is below the national average and at its lowest level since the summer of 2000. What they don’t mention, of course, is that the wages of our workers is perilously low. In […]

It’s no secret that Republican Congressman Mike Bishop (MI-08) has been in the pocket of Michigan billionaire Matty Moroun for years. In 2010, Bishop was the State Senate Majority leader and promised to hold a vote on a new bridge crossing from Michigan into Canada. However, he ended up blocking the vote, something Matty Moroun liked very much, indeed, since […]

The anti-labor group Protecting Michigan Taxpayers (PMT) was formed in 2012 as a front group for anti-union forces who wanted to defeat Proposal 2 which would have enshrined collective bargaining rights for workers into Michigan’s state constitution. The group had been dormant since their victory in November of 2012 but was resurrected last spring to push a ballot initiative of […]

This week, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) released a scathing report on charter schools in 12 states which have received federal funding. The report, titled Charter School Black Hole shows that Michigan charter schools received $34,997,658 between 2010-2015 under the federal Charter School Program (CSP). 139 of the 297 charters (as of 2014, the number is up to […]

The primary justification for Emergency Financial Managers or Emergency Managers in Michigan from the very earliest iterations (and continuing through to today) is that some cities and school districts were just too full of corruption and ineptitude and that the state needed to swoop in and save the day. However, this easy answer has turned out not have been the […]