In 2018, worker advocacy groups gathered enough signatures to put several citizen-initiated ballot proposals on the November ballot. However, according to law, before that happens, the legislature has the ability to make them law immediately by passing them as legislation. If this is done, it bypasses the governor and they become law without the governor’s signature. There were several ballot […]

I haven’t written much about the Flint Water Crisis lately, largely because my pals over at Michigan Advance and the fine reporters at MLive have been doing such a good job. I’m inspired to write today as I reflect on two recent stories, one of which is not actually about Flint. The first story is the astonishing move taken by […]

If you worried that poor, maligned Enbridge Energy was alone in its fight against the monstrous power of Michigan citizens who are desperate to save our Great Lakes from an unimaginable environmental catastrophe, you may now rest easy. A new corporate front group, an “AstroTurf” group as they are frequently called, has come to their aid, posing as, in their […]

INSERT PAINFUL EYEROLL HERE… The Republican Speaker of the House in Michigan’s legislature is Lee Chatfield, a 30-year old father of five and graduate of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University who attempted to bring a loaded handgun onto a commercial flight last summer. In a recent interview, Chatfield characterized Attorney General Dana Nessel and Governor Gretchen Whitmer as “driven purely by […]

I have always had special disdain for former Michigan governor John Engler. He was the grandfather of the corporatist right’s attacks on organized labor while he was in office and his repugnant legacy is something that we still deal with today. So I was shocked, dismayed, and outraged that the Michigan State University Board of Trustees chose Engler to be […]

In 2018, over half of the Democratic candidates for the state legislature and Congress who won their primary and went on to the general election in Michigan were women. When you talk about women finally getting parity in terms of high elected office (or ANY elected office, for that matter), there’s only one political party who is even close to […]