Back in 2011, reports began to emerge that conditions in the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans had deteriorated after part of the staff had been privatized. According to reporting by The Detroit News, “contract workers [were] responsible for incidents in which a veteran suffered a broken neck as a result of improper lifting procedures and another veteran had a gastric […]

It’s all about boosting the ego of white guys who thought they’d do better with their lives It’s almost forgotten history that at this point in the 2012 election, Rick Santorum was leading Mitt Romney in the national polls. The former Senator and spokesman for homophobia could have taken the delegate lead by defeating Mitt here in Michigan. But then […]

NOTE: With so much news coming out of the Flint water crisis, it’s simply not feasible for me to write a separate post about each of them. Therefore, I am putting many of the stories together into a single news round-up post every day or two. You can read all our coverage of the Flint water crisis HERE or by […]

A few words from the legendary Democratic strategist on the fate of healthcare reform in this election. When you’re offered a few minutes to speak with someone like Jim Messina, you take it. As campaign manager for Obama 2012, Messina is considered the mastermind behind President Obama’s 2012 re-election. He also served as Deputy Chief of Staff for President Obama […]

Relentless Positive Procrastination On October 2, 2015, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder admitted that there was a problem with lead contamination in the drinking water of Flint. That was 139 days ago. So far, exactly ZERO lead water lines have been replaced in the beleaguered city. That is about to change. Well, eventually: The state of Michigan announced on Tuesday a […]

The following guest post was written by Joe DiSano, the principal of DiSano Strategies, a Lansing-based political consulting, lobbying, and public relations firm. DiSano can be reached at joe@joedisano.net and you can follow him on Twitter @joedisano.

Enjoy.

The history of Medicaid expansion in Michigan as part of the Affordable Care Act is a long and troubled one. The Republican-led legislature hemmed and hawed and finally passed it in a way that wasted hundreds of millions of dollars and unnecessarily delayed working poor Michiganders from obtaining coverage. When they finally got around to passing it, they did it […]

“Michigan Governor Rick Snyder Political Suicide” by DonkeyHotey Gov. Snyder releases over a gigabyte of new emails, still none from 2013 and before Gov. Syder released 1.02 GB of emails in pdf form from various departments in his administration. However, none of them are pre-2014, a time period when many of the decisions regarding Flint’s move to the Flint River […]

It’s time to start giving Donald Trump some credit. The billion-dollar baby deftly figured out that the GOP has the immune system of an earthworm. The party’s warring factions, weak leadership and corruption of the campaign finance system have made it ripe for a parasite to infect and capture its host’s brain while it’s still praying for Jeb Bush to […]

Crain’s is reporting that, buried in Governor Rick Snyder’s budget proposal is a section that will shift public funding and delivery of mental health services to private corporations. The move is being fought by patient advocates and the Michigan Association of Community Mental Health Boards. Gov. Rick Snyder’s $54.9 billion fiscal 2017 budget calls for privatizing the $2.4 billion public […]

After over a dozen attempts by several people to have petition language approved for the recall of Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, the State Board of Canvassers finally approved one this week. This one is based on Snyder’s creation of the the State School Reform/Redesign Office which he later moved from the Department of Education to the Department of Treasury, a […]