In the past week and half, Michigan gun owners have made the news for improper use of their handguns several times. First, concealed pistol license holder Tatiana Duva-Rodriguez saw a guy running out of the Auburn Hills Home Depot and load stuff in his vehicle. When a security guard came running after him. Duva-Rodriguez took the law into her own […]

I learned this morning that my friend Bonnie Bucqueroux passed away yesterday. Bonnie, who changed her last name to a French-looking version of the word “buckaroo” (which was totally a Bonnie thing to do), had been sick recently but her death came as a shock to almost everyone who knew her. And just about everyone in Michigan progressive political circles […]

A woman in Michigan this week decided that shoplifting was a crime punishable by death. She was in the parking lot of a busy Home Depot in Auburn Hills when she saw a security guard chasing someone out of the store. The fleeing person got into a vehicle and drove away. That’s when the woman took matters into her own […]

It’s not often that I agree with a hard-right Republican like Rick Jones but today I find myself in that position. Jones has introduced legislation – S.B. 534 – which would end domestic partner benefits for state employees in Michigan. It’s a move that I support. I support this because, thanks to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling this summer […]

Michigan woman with a brain tumor is denied care that would be standard at any non-Catholic hospital. A Catholic hospital in Michigan is denying a pregnant woman care on the basis of religious principles, ignoring the life-threatening implications of their refusal to adhere to medical standards. Jessica Mann, a pregnant woman with a life-threatening brain tumor, requested an exception to […]

At the Republican debate this past week, Carly Fiorina attacked Planned Parenthood with an earnest ferocity that got a LOT of attention. She did it, however, by telling completely fabricated lie. Anyone who has watched this videotape, I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama to watch these tapes. Watch a fully-formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking […]

This guest post comes from Sean McElwee — a research associate at Demos and an excellent follow on Twitter. If you haven’t already, check out Sean’s work on Salon, Rolling Stone, his own blog and various other publications. You’ll see that he has a gift for lucidity and a healthy obsession with improving our democracy by increasing voting, dispelling economic […]

This past weekend, protesters from around the state gathered at the Mackinac Bridge to call for the shutdown of Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline. The pipeline (actually TWO pipelines) are 62 years old and were built in a time when regulations were far more lax than they are now. Had the Great Lakes Submerged Lands Act been in place when the […]

To get and keep a job, you need a reliable way to get there. If you lose your job – particularly if your income was low to start with – affording and maintaining a reliable vehicle is difficult, maybe impossible. And without a reliable vehicle, it’s harder to get or keep a job. Especially in areas, like much of Southeast […]

Round Island Lighthouse in the Straits of Mackinac, photo by Anne C. Savage The aspiring but unannounced 2018 gubernatorial candidate Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette appointed a Task Force to address the increasing public concern about Line 5, Enbridge’s pipeline that runs under the Straits of Mackinac. That was last year. Since then new voices and new media outlets have […]

Given the results of the last few elections in Michigan where Democrats received the majority of the votes but Republicans won a majority of the seats in the state legislature, there is little to argue about when it comes to discussing gerrymandering and how terribly gerrymandered our state is. There are hardly any competitive seats in our state anymore. Period. […]