When Irving, Texas police arrested 14-year old Muslim science nerd Ahmed Mohamed on Monday, it appeared that bigotry had won and that all it takes to be branded a terrorist is to have brown skin and an Arabic-sounding name. Police were called in after his teacher and principal assumed he was going to bomb the school with his oh-so-cool digital […]

Mohamed Ahmed is a 14-year old Texan from Irving who loves to invent and build things. This week, he built a homemade clock and brought it to school to show his teacher, thinking it would impress him. What happened next is has sent a shockwave of outrage across the country and across the globe and even prompted Hillary Clinton to […]

Last February, Denno Research released a poll conducted for Mothering Justice and the Economic Justice Alliance of Michigan that shows overwhelming support for requiring Michigan employers to provide time off for workers who are sick or who need to care for sick families members. Their poll of 600 respondents throughout the state showed that an astonishing 86% of Michiganders favor […]

A conversation with the co-founder of Lady Parts Justice on feminism, grassroots activism and using humor to drive serious change. In the run-up to V to Shining V 2015, I’m re-posting this interview from 2014, updated with details about this year’s events. Lizz Winstead is a woman with a mission. If you’re lucky enough to talk with her one-on-one, there’s […]

This isn’t the first time Michigan’s Genesys Regional Medical Center has let religious doctrine override medical standards. Jessica Mann couldn’t be happier about the impending arrival of her third child in October. But having any more children could put her health at risk — in fact, carrying this child to term is downright dangerous, because the 33-year-old Mann has brain […]

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 […]

Baxter Jones was a Detroit middle school teacher and track coach in 2005 when his car was struck from behind by another vehicle. The horrendous accident left him with traumatic brain injury and he is now unable to walk or speak clearly. Five years later, while on family medical leave, he was let go from the Detroit Public School system […]

And it could be Democrats greatest nightmare, too How did Mitt Romney end up losing more of the Latino vote than John McCain who lost more than George W. Bush? It mainly comes down to one utterance of “self-deportation” in one primary debate. Sure, there were other utterances that involved him saying he’d have vetoed the DREAM Act and planned […]

In what can only be described as a dramatic day in Michigan politics, House legislators convened for over 14 hours yesterday to consider the matter of expelling philandering liars Cindy Gamrat and Todd Courser from their institution. The first two rounds of votes failed to oust the two as Democrats held their position, many refusing to cast a vote, in […]

When it comes to our economy, we have one massive problem that’s like a black hole sucking in all hope of rebuilding the middle class: Only the richest are getting richer. From the year before Ronald Reagan was elected to the year before George W. Bush left the White House, the only income gains for most Americans came from working […]

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I have been following the ongoing saga & scandal of Cindy Gamrat and Todd Courser since even before they were actually elected to the House of Representatives. However, since I began writing about them, this week was the first time that this site became part of the story, albeit in a small way. […]