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 […]

Cindy Gamrat got elected in Allegan County largely because there is such an active tea party presence there. Her over the top politics are so in-sync with this group that even her lying and philandering weren’t enough for her to lose their support. In fact, the head of the Allegan County Tea Party, Stephen Young, told WZZM, “The question now […]

“Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday machine is lost if you keep it a secret! Why didn’t you tell the world?” – Dr. Stranglove This morning, after Michigan House Democrats successfully negotiated with Republicans to urge Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette to open an investigation into the Gamrat/Courser/Cotter scandal, Schuette issued a statement through his spokesperson saying, “We […]

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. […]

After several days of testimony, the “Select Committee to Examine the Qualifications of Representatives Cindy Gamrat and Todd Courser” voted to expel both Cindy Gamrat and Todd Courser. The two Democrats on the Committee voted “pass” since they wished to hear additional testimony in an effort to establish whether or not House Republican leadership knew about the wrongdoing by the […]

This past weekend, protesters from around the state gathered at the Mackinac Bridge to call for the shutdown of Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline. The pipeline (actually TWO pipelines) are 62 years old and were built in a time when regulations were far more lax than they are now. Had the Great Lakes Submerged Lands Act been in place when the […]

NOTE: This post has been updated HERE. The Courser/Gamrat scandal continues to unfold unravel this week, sucking all of the oxygen out of Lansing and ensuring that our Do-Nothing Republican-led legislature continues to get nothing done. The hearings being held by the “Select Committee to Examine the Qualifications of Representatives Cindy Gamrat and Todd Courser” continued this week with both […]