Oh, my… Former staffers for ousted tea party philanderers Cindy Gamrat and Todd Courser have filed a federal lawsuit against the Republican leadership of the Michigan State House of Representatives claiming they were wrongfully terminated. The 36-page lawsuit, which you can read HERE, outlines repeated attempts by Ben Graham and Keith Allard to alert House Speaker Kevin Cotter and the […]

Sen. Dave Robertson (R-Grand Blanc Township) is the chairman of the Senate Elections and Government Reform Committee. You would think that a man in that position would be working night and day to figure out how to make voting as easy as possible so that we would have more Michiganders participating in the democracy that is the bedrock of our […]

This past Wednesday during a Senate Education Committee hearing, Committee Vice Chair Marty Knollenberg (R-Troy) was discussing why some schools “fail”. During the course his comments, he made a statement that has dropped jaws across the country. “You mentioned why these schools fail,” he said. “You mention the economically disadvantaged and non-white population are contributors to that. And, you know, […]

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 budget is moral document” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Yesterday, the group Priorities Michigan held a press conference to highlight the faces of real people who are victims of callous, unfair Republican budgets. Intent on diminishing the size and scope of government, Republicans have shrunk our state budget by giving billions of dollars of tax breaks to corporations. […]

The following is a guest post by Paul Clements, the Democratic candidate for Michigan’s 6th Congressional District seat now held by Big Oil puppet Fred Upton. Clements ran for this seat in 2014. Though he was ultimately unsuccessful, he received a huge boost from the Mayday PAC which spent $1.5 million to support his candidacy. I interviewed him then (HERE). […]

I hadn’t intended to write any more about Todd Courser but now that we have the 385-page Michigan State Police report, we have more detail about what actually transpired in the sordid, made-for-The Jerry Springer Show affair of Todd Courser and Cindy Gamrat. As it turns out, Courser and Gamrat’s staffers Ben Graham, Josh Cline, and Keith Allard worked with […]

The Center for Public Integrity recently released a report called “State Integrity 2015” which looked at the level of transparency in the governments of all 50 states. The results were, well, horrific. Only three states received a grade about a D+. Michigan, however, stood out and not in a good way. Out of all 50 states, Michigan came in at […]

The teaching profession is steadily being transformed into a “gig job” on the model of Uber, Lyft and AirBnB wherein customers are paired with independent providers via Smart Phone apps. The model grew out of human desperation during the bleakest days of the Great Recession. As teacher shortages roll out across the nation we can count on Republican legislatures to […]

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 […]

After legislation to ban straight-ticket voting passed out of the Senate Elections Committee yesterday, the full Senate quickly took it up and passed it last evening. As I mentioned yesterday, voters in Michigan have already shot down the same ban in 2002 when a ballot referendum overturned a Republican law to stop straight-ticket voting. In my piece, I predicted that […]