It’s been awhile since I have written about Aubrey McClendon, the wealth oil magnate working to develop a sensitive Lake Michigan dune area in Saugatuck. Back in 2011, I shared his close ties to Congressman Fred Upton and other very wealthy, very powerful men HERE and HERE. Well, McClendon is back in the news today, this time after being indicted […]

The Michigan Democratic Party released shocking documentation this morning showing that a $7 million emergency loan to the city of Flint in April of 2015 came with a very deadly sting attached. Two actually. First, they were not allowed to return to water supplied by the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD). Second, they were compelled to remain in the Karegnondi Water Authority, a regional water system that won’t be completed until this summer. The two conditions had the effect of forcing Flint to stay with the Flint River as its source of drinking water, a decision that has led to the poisoning of Flint residents with the powerful, odorless, tasteless, invisible neurotoxin lead.

On Monday of this week, Gov. Rick Snyder formally appointed bankruptcy judge Steven Rhodes to be the fifth Emergency Manager for Detroit Public Schools (DPS). DPS got their first Emergency Manager (they were called Emergency Financial Managers back then) in 2009 when Robert Bobb was appointed by former governor Jennifer Granholm. The year before Bobb took over, DPS had a […]

Brought to you by your friends in the GOP There’s a good chance that the Republican Primary will essentially end on Super Tuesday and people will stop pretending that Marco Rubio was ever winning by losing. Since Donald Trump easily won the Nevada Caucus, America has been wandering around, bumping into things, wondering if everyone else is in the same […]

I have had a number of people ask me about the difference between Michigan’s March 8th primary a week from today and the primary on August 2nd. So, here’s a short explainer. The March primary on Tuesday, March 8th is a Presidential Primary. This is the election when Michigan voters weigh in on who they want to receive their Party’s […]

The following guest post was written by Nick Krieger, an attorney and former clerk in the Court of Appeals. Follow him on Twitter at @nckrieger. His essay is published here with permission. Enjoy. “Republican senators have dishonored the original meaning of the United States Constitution” We hear it almost every day. Like a broken record, the Republicans in the United […]

History is written by the whiners Is there any hope for the Stimulus? More than seven years after the Recovery Act became law it’s clear to economists that the law improved and possibly saved the economy. But — despite the Herculean or Sisyphean efforts of Mike Grunwald — most people still have no idea what it did. There’s no Hoover […]

Today’s guest post is by Laura Packard, a partner at PowerThru Consulting, a growing national progressive digital consulting shop. Enjoy. With both the GOP and Democratic presidential candidates coming to Michigan this week for their respective debates, I hope some of the larger issues that Michigan (and the country) faces will finally be addressed. Michigan state government has been broken […]

Following an investigation by the office of Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, philandering Republicans Cindy Gamrat and Todd Courser have had multiple felony charges filed against them today.

“Michigan Governor Rick Snyder Political Suicide” by DonkeyHotey When in doubt, change the messenger Further demonstrating an inability to deal effectively to the poisoning of Flint’s drinking water with a powerful neurotoxin, Gov. Snyder took the bold step of replacing his communications director and his press secretary: Gov. Rick Snyder removed his communications director and press secretary Thursday amid the […]

It’s no secret that many Republicans in the Michigan legislature want to destroy public education in our state and funnel tax dollars into the coffers of for-profit charter schools. For anyone paying attention, that’s a given. What is surprising, to me at least, is how brazen they have become. Detroit Public Schools is on the brink of bankruptcy. According to […]