The deal is done, but no word yet on the fate of reproductive health and other care standards Catholic-run hospitals are allowed to ignore. As reported in Crain’s Detroit Business on Monday, Crittenton Hospital in Rochester is now officially part of Ascension Health Michigan. Ascension Health is the largest nonprofit health system in the U.S. — and a Catholic-affiliated health […]

This story arrived in my email inbox today from the most excellent group Local Harvest. It’s an important story about how our food supply cycles and our food demand cycles can be out of sync to the point where we literally throw away delicious, healthy, nutritious food and import the same food from other countries. In this case, the supply […]

One of the things that (a) sets progressives’ teeth on edge and (b) quickens the heartbeats of ignorant racists, bigots, misogynists, and sexists is the idea that “political correctness” is censorship. It is, of course, nothing of the sort. It’s actually an expression of our fundamental right to call someone out on their racism, bigotry, misogyny, and sexism. You’re free […]

“Obamacare savings may be short-lived”! shouts the headline of an editorial in today’s edition of The Detroit News. They are referring to Medicaid expansion in our state, a program that is fully funded by the federal government until 2017 and funded at a level of 90% after that, all while giving an additional 600,000 working poor Michiganders health care coverage […]

Governor Snyder persists in his feelgood announcements about Michigan job growth, but he does hedge his enthusiasm because too many of us observe the realities of what is now passing as “job growth.” Yes, reality rains on Snyder’s parade every time. Most of those non-automotive jobs are low paying part time jobs that keep people zigzagging back and forth across […]

The nuclear deal that United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia and China made with Iran is the epitome of giving peace a chance. Rejecting it would set us on a likely path to war. Accepting it gives us the hope of preventing Iran from ever gaining a nuclear weapon without a tragic, wasteful military conflict. Of course, the […]

Call Ari Berman the Paul Revere of voting rights. “In 2011 and 2012, 180 new voting restrictions were introduced in forty-one states, with twenty-seven new laws taking effect in nineteen states, nearly all of them controlled by Republicans,” Berman writes in his new book Give Us The Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America. This wasn’t some freak […]

The summer of 2015 will go down in the annals of Michigan history as a time when the Republican in our state displayed an complete and utter lack of leadership. Don’t forget that the GOP controls literally every level of government of significance – and have for the past five years – so this abject failure is theirs and theirs […]

Students starting the new school year have one less thing to worry about thanks to the Affordable Care Act. With the announcement this week that Western Michigan University (WMU) will no longer offer student health insurance, there were probably more than a few students wondering, “Now what?” Fortunately, the Affordable Care Act has the answer. Thanks to the ACA (aka […]

The following guest post is from my dear friend Wally Welch. In it, he compares and contrasts former President Jimmy Carter (a personal hero of mine who is battling brain cancer) and Donald Trump (not a hero of mine who is battling xenophobia, racism, and sexism.) Enjoy Jimmy Carter, 91, in typically cheerful, humble, and matter-of-fact fashion, recently announced he […]

Michigan House speaker Kevin Cotter (R) Mt. Pleasant is a real piece of work. Bear with me here. The amount of time the Republican-controlled State House has spent this summer working on issues that matter to most taxpayers has been scant with relatively little to show for it, and it has happened without direction and leadership. Cotter’s regrettable remark about […]