A look at what’s at stake if RFRA legislation comes to Michigan. On April 28, the Michigan Senate Judiciary Committee will take testimony and debate Senate Bill 4, the Michigan Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Although a vote is not expected on SB 4 that day, odds are good there will be one eventually. And understanding the implications of RFRA […]

With Brighton Area Schools deciding not to consider chartering a new charter school in their district, the group trying to open a tea party-led school in Brighton has had to turn their attention to other places. Pasquale Battaglia, the brainchild behind the project and self-described “landlord” sent a letter to Dr. Craig Douglas, the Director of the School/University Partnership Office […]

Do you ever feel like you never seem to be able to get ahead? That you work your whole life but, at the end of the month, the end of the year, you aren’t any further ahead than you were last month or last year? This one chart goes a long way toward explaining exactly why that is: As the […]

Big business and GOP have a mutually beneficial relationship — but why do the party’s favorite victims keep voting Republican? Something amazing happened when conservatives deciding that the biggest problem in America today is that gay people can buy things with money: Big business rose up and helped quash conservative overreach. Apple’s Tim Cook help lead a backlash that soon […]

This past week, the corporatist front group and bill mill for corporate America, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), held a breakfast gathering for Michigan state legislators. Our friends at Progress Michigan were there and reported that only SIX legislators actually attended. Here is the all-Republican list of attendees: Rep. Aric Nesbitt (R-Lawton) Rep. Peter Pettalia (R-Presque Isle) Rep. Triston […]

“Don’t tell me what you value, show me your budget and I will tell you what you value.” – Joe Biden Michigan Republicans put forth their proposed education budget yesterday and, as you would expect, it shows just how little the value education in our state. After slashing education funding for years, they are back this year with a paltry […]

WHMI is reporting that the Livingston County Prosecutor’s office will move forward with misdemeanor trespassing charges against Brighton parent Glenn Ikens who had the audacity to remain seated when asked to leave the “open house” of a proposed tea party charter school in Brighton. According to a spokesman for the the Livingston County Classical Academy (formerly the Lindbom Classical Academy) […]

Religious doctrine can trump medical standards and interfere with patients’ rights to make their own decisions. If you want to be sure you and the people you love have access to the complete spectrum of healthcare services, you’d better know who owns your hospital. It’s not always obvious, but it’s important. Because one in six hospital beds in the United […]

This week a somewhat abstruse debate about whether America should purposely try to antagonize 1.6 billion Muslims morphed into an impossibly stupid debate about whether the President of the United States really loves the United States. Meanwhile, in actual news, there’s an absurd lawsuit that threatens to wreak havoc on our health care system. The Urban Institute projects a victory […]

Republicans struggle to attack Obama economy they failed to sabotage and want to take credit for Republicans are in an amazing bind. The first year of the Affordable Care Act marketplaces didn’t destroy the economy. Neither have two straight years of higher taxes on the rich. Instead, we got the best year of job creation of the century. Conservatives go […]

Jeb Bush has a Bush problem. He has a Mitt Romney problem. He has a Lehman Brothers problem. But his Jeb Bush problem may be his most telling problem of all. In The New Yorker, Alec MacGillis unravels Jeb’s adventures in education “reform,” which has increasingly become a euphemism for the right-wing’s conjoined agendas of siphoning taxpayer money into corporate […]