His premiums are $500 less per month and there’s zero co-pay for the expensive medicine he needs to stay alive. When your life depends on taking your medication on time, every single day, it’s not something you take chances with. As a man living with AIDS, Dan Waszak was willing to pay as much as $1,480 a month for health […]

Last night during his State of the Union Address, President Obama had some fun. You could tell he was feeling freed to be himself since he no longer has to run for office and because, frankly, despite his rhetoric otherwise, there isn’t going to be a lot of “working together” with Republicans. In other words, he doesn’t have to fake […]

I have written before about an effort by a group led by Pasquale Battaglia to get Brighton Area Schools (BAS) to charter his “American Classical Academies” school. This group used to call them “American Christian Academies” before changing the name, and only the name, to avoid being seen for what they are: a tea party influenced school steeped in religion, […]

Ray Holman is the Legislative Liaison for UAW Local 6000 and, for those of you not familiar with this Local, they represent over 22,000 state of Michigan workers that cut a wide path. Their membership, according to their website, “represents workers in every Department in State of Michigan government. We are the nurses, teachers, doctors, probation officers, social workers and […]

Last night during his State of the State Address, Gov. Rick Snyder broke very little new ground. Many of us were happy to hear him support further investments in education and to call for an expansion of civil rights for the LGBT community. One glaring point for me was that Gov. Snyder never once mentioned K-12 education in the part […]

His medical bills would bankrupt him without insurance, which he might not have been able to buy before Obamacare. Things were looking good for David Wenzel in 2009. He was in the midst of starting his own business, which meant no longer having to work for someone else. But then he got the worse possible news: David was diagnosed with […]

So why did he wait until after the election?

A new Washington Post/ABC News poll is making news with President Obama at an approval ratings 50% for the first time in over a year. Other polls show his rating improving as well. Look at Gallup or Pew. It seems the rise is not just a blip in one poll but consistent across the organizations measuring presidential approval.

The press has noticed and seems to be crediting an improving economy. USA Today, for example, writes, “Good economic news appears to be fueling Obama’s improved ratings in a string of recent polls.”

Today marks the celebration and remembrance of the life and journey of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It took decades of struggle to set aside a day, and then another lengthy campaign to memorialize Dr. King in Washington, D.C., to honor someone this critical and authentically important. Given his great vision and what he did for the Civil Rights movement […]

In a recent article in The Detroit News, tea partier Todd Courser compared himself to the legendary gladiators: “We were not created by the genteel side of Republican politics,” said Courser, a 42-year-old Lapeer attorney. “We were created from the rough and tumble work of gladiators.” It’s a beautifully ironic statement given who the gladiators really were: A gladiator was […]

Almost exactly two years ago, Gov. Rick Snyder was on the fence about Medicaid expansion in Michigan. His chief concern was whether or not we have enough doctors to provide health care instead of people “simply going to an emergency room”: “I want to make sure we have access and high quality care if we’re to look into something like […]

At a conference today, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) agreed to hear the marriage equality case of April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse. The two women have adopted four children but are not able to adopt them together because they are not married thanks to Michigan’s ban on same-sex marriage. The original suit was challenging Michigan’s adoption laws […]