NOTE: This post has been updated HERE. As I wrote about earlier this week, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and Attorney General Bill Schuette are asking the taxpayer of our state to foot the bills for their legal bills related to defending Snyder from the lawsuits filed against him for his response to the poisoning of Flint’s drinking water with the […]

As Michiganders go to the polls today to choose their favorite presidential candidate, Gov. Rick Snyder and Attorney General Bill Schuette are going to the State Administrative Board to ask taxpayers to foot the bills for their troubles in Flint to the tune of $2.7 million. First we have the Attorney General’s request for $1.5 million to pay for Republican […]

The following essay was written by Mitchell Robinson and is cross-posted on his most-excellent blog at MitchellRobinson.net. Robinson is associate professor and chair of music education, and coordinator of the music student teaching program at Michigan State University. Follow Mitchell on Twitter at @mrobmsu. His essay is reposted here with permission. Enjoy. The news was shocking in its incongruence and […]

Earlier this week, former Michigan state legislator Jason Allen told UP Matters reporter Brittany Denny that he is “troubled” by the recent reports of disabled veterans in the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans suffering under the atrociously inadequate care provided by J2S Group. J2S Group is the for-profit healthcare corporation that was the beneficiary of Gov. Snyder’s privatization scheme that […]

Back in 2011, reports began to emerge that conditions in the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans had deteriorated after part of the staff had been privatized. According to reporting by The Detroit News, “contract workers [were] responsible for incidents in which a veteran suffered a broken neck as a result of improper lifting procedures and another veteran had a gastric […]

After passing legislation to slash revenue sharing to already struggling urban areas including Flint and after passing an anti-democratic Emergency Manager Law – Public Act 4 – and after passing another anti-democratic Emergency Manager law – Public Act 436 – after voters rejected the first one (and making it democracy-proof with an unnecessary appropriation) and after these Republican-appointed overseers – […]

Four state Senators, Phil Pavlov, Joe Hune, David Robertson, and Goeff Hansen have had quite enough of uppity Detroit teachers who have staged “sick-outs” to draw attention to the deplorable – unconscionable, really – conditions in their schools. Images and stories of dead vermin, mushrooms growing out of the wall, disintegrating floors, walls, and ceilings, and clear evidence of black […]

No Snyder administration officials will be held accountable. And that’s exactly the problem. At long last, after activists and elected officials and even bloggers like LOLGOP and I have been sounding the alarm about the poisoning of Flint residents with lead in their drinking water, the story has finally hit the national stage. In the past week, in addition to […]

Yesterday afternoon while most of us were driving home from work or home getting ready for dinner, Gov. Rick Snyder signed Senate Bill 571 into law. It’s now Public Act 269 of 2015. This legislation started out innocuously enough as a 12-page campaign finance reform bill that involved how funds are collected and distributed by organizations that manage “separate segregated […]

Twice in Michigan’s past Republicans have passed a law to take away the right to vote for all the candidates of a single political party with one mark on a ballot. Both times voters went to the polls and rejected their law. As the clock ticked down on the 2015 legislative session, Republicans passed the same damn law a third […]

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 […]