Much of the outrage about Public Act 4, the Emergency Manager law centers around its disparate impact on minority school districts and cities. But this law may be coming to city or school near you even if it’s not a so-called “majority minority” area. Take a look at the data that was assembled by Progress Michigan to see how obvious […]

Funny thing, when you slash funding to schools by $1 billion and stop sending tax revenues back to the cash-strapped cities where they were collected, you end up with a pretty big surplus, despite the massive tax cuts given to businesses. How big? Just over a billion dollars big. The state is bringing in more money than expected. That’s according […]

A recap of sorts by Rachel Maddow tonight of Michigan’s Emergency Manager law and its impacts, particularly on Benton Harbor. A bunch of my photos from one of the early rallies are featured. The bit at 5:15 is probably the most significant: 2011 is the year when the Republicans in the great state of Michigan decided that small “d” democracy […]

As I wrote about last week, Jonathan Mahler published an excellent piece on Benton Harbor in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine titled “Now That the Factories Are Closed, It’s Tee Time in Benton Harbor, Mich.” My review is HERE. After it was published, I sent Mahler an email, putting the Emergency Manager law, Public Act 4 into some perspective as […]

Lots of talk these days from conservatives and tea partiers in particular about too much government spending. Rather than seeing government spending as the investment that it often is, they see nearly all government spending as waste to be eliminated. As I wrote yesterday, tea party mayor of Troy, Michigan, Janice Daniels, led a coalition of like-minded tea partiers to […]

In a rather stunning rebuke this week, the Obama adminstration, through the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services denied an effort by the Republican Snyder administration in Michigan to thwart part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). The federal government has denied a request by the […]

Alright! Now THIS is more like it! Michigan’s unemployment rate fell by eight-tenths of a percentage point last month to 9.8 percent. This is the first time since November of 2008 that Michigan’s jobless rate has dropped below 10 percent. The national November unemployment rate is 8.6 percent. The jobless rate fell by eight-tenths of a percentage point in November. […]

Okay THIS is kind of creepy. Michigan residents have enjoyed or endured a roller-coaster year in terms of weather, and they’re not alone. Roughly 3,000 monthly weather records — covering rainfall, snowfall, extreme temperatures, fires or drought — have been broken in areas across the country this year, according to data released Thursday by the Natural Resources Defense Council. That […]

The mayor of Troy, Michigan, Janice Daniels, a proud member of the tea party, updated her Facebook status in June with this: “I think I’m going to throw away my I love New York carrying bag now that queers can get married.” She refused to apologize for this insulting public statement until this morning. Daniels apologized for the comment on […]

With Detroit facing an imminent takeover by an Emergency Manager, I thought now might be a good time to remind everyone about a subtle but incredibly important change that occurred when Public Act 4 — the Emergency Manager Law — was passed. This was first published in June. Please share widely if you care about this issue. When Michigan Republicans […]

Last week, I wrote about Carson Borbely & Katy Butler, two inspiring Ann Arbor teens who have done something tangible and important to combat bullying in Michigan. Fighting back against a Senate-passed “License to Bully” bill that claims to be “anti-bullying”, the created a petition at Change.org. When I wrote my piece last Thursday, the petition had a bit over […]