The following guest post was written by my friend Chris Armstrong, Partnerships and Government Affairs Director for Small Business Majority. Chris was the former student body president of University of Michigan and experienced first hand the corrosive impacts of anti-gay bigotry at the hands of former state Assistant Attorney General Andrew Shirvell who stalked and harassed him during his time […]

A new electoral map projection from Morning Consult shows Hillary Clinton crushing Ted Cruz and Donald Trump but getting crushed by John Kasich. Here’s her versus Trump: Cruz: Kasich: The logic behind this is that Kasich is supposed to be a stand-in for the “generic Republican” candidate, which makes some sense. He’s barely known and Hillary Clinton has several Air […]

Earlier this month, I suggested that the Snyder administration has no intention of replacing a single water line in Flint where the drinking water was contaminated with the powerful neurotoxin lead through the actions of Snyder’s appointed Emergency Managers and the ineptitude of his appointee at the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), Dan Wyant, a man with zero experience in […]

This transgender woman lived a double life for decades, but not anymore. This is part of a story series about the lives of transgender people. Read the introduction here. To the rest of the world, it seemed like Becky Veal had a life anyone would want. She supported her wife and their three children, served in the U.S. Army, and […]

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. A major plank of most education reform agendas […]

Let’s face it: NOBODY has a clue how the presidential primaries will shake out. Despite recent surges (and primary wins) by Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are the presumptive “favorites” according to the basic delegate math. But there’s also the fact that this year is like no other presidential election year in recent memory and, […]

It’s well-known that MI-08 Republican Congressman Mike Bishop is a bought-and-paid-for lapdog of the Moroun family. The patriarch of that family, Manuel “Matty” Moroun, is the billionaire owner of the Ambassador Bridge that spans the Detroit River between Detroit and Windsor. Although there is a desperate need for an additional bridge to facilitate truck traffic that now backs up for […]

As the mother of a transgender child, she is a fierce advocate for transgender rights. This is part of a story series about the lives of transgender people. Read the introduction here. Every parent hopes for a happy, fulfilling future for their children. Maybe they dream about what career they might pursue, or what their wedding day will be like. […]

On March 27th, David Alexander Bullock took on a project nobody has yet dared to do: To see if he can collect nearly 790,000 valid petition signatures in just 60 days to put the recall of Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder on the ballot. Prior to 2012, signatures had to be gathered in 90 days but Republicans were tired of people […]

Constantly hearing stories about Republicans doing everything they can to make sure babies are born and then exerting an equal effort to cut services for poor families gets depressing. So I love when I hear about something, anything that suggests that conservatives actually care about babies once they’re born. If you’re like me, you’ll love nurse coaching, which has some […]

Last summer, I asked a very simple question: “Why is Virgil Smith still in the state Senate? Is it because he’s the Republicans’ useful Democratic idiot?” Democratic state Senator Virgil Smith was convicted of shooting up his wife’s car in a domestic dispute and is now behind bars. Until he resigned this past week, he continued to receive his state […]