Last week I wrote about how the corporatist front group Mackinac Center had sent a mass email to teachers in over 50 school districts in Michigan encouraging them to leave the Michigan Education Association, one of the two largest teachers unions in the state. Their effort didn’t stop there. This week, teachers across the state received postcards in the mail […]

Bills would undo the law that requires women to buy extra insurance for miscarriages and abortions, even in cases of rape or incest. See update below. In a decisive move, Democratic State Representative Sarah Roberts and State Senator Gretchen Whitmer introduced bills on Monday that would repeal a controversial law that forces women to buy additional health insurance coverage for […]

Back in 2010, Rick Snyder was a relative unknown in Michigan at this point in the midterm election cycle. In fact, he didn’t crack 50% on name recognition until the after the primary election in August. In contrast, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Schauer is known by over 60% of the electorate according to recent polling by Mitchell Research (pdf). Not […]

Michigan’s Republican led legislature adjourned on Thursday without passing the package of road repairs Governor Rick Snyder says he’s been working on for years. This should be clear reminder what happens when you elect Republicans to public office: sabotage. Business leaders need to face that an increasingly intractable GOP has no interest in doing anything that might give voters the […]

The UAW is vilified on a regular basis by anti-union corporatists, including their Republican shills in our state legislatures and the federal government. Our domestic vehicle manufacturers are being hobbled and strangled by the “union bosses” and “union thugs” who have the audacity to collectively bargain for good wages and benefits. Now that the Great Recession is largely in our […]

It’s been a mixed bag for women’s reproductive rights in Michigan this week. Good to know people are paying attention. News about the heinous package of three fetal heartbeat bills introduced by Republican State Rep. Tom Hooker in the Michigan House quickly went national. So Michigan now has the dubious distinction of joining the ranks of some of the most […]

After working until 1 in the morning the previous evening, the Michigan Senate was looking at another marathon session as they tried to tackle road funding and a last minute push to expand the Education Achievement Authority. Although EAA expansion had been considered dead earlier in the afternoon, a group of EAA lobbyists, representatives from their two law firms, their […]

This guest post was written by Sue Browne, Regional Program Manager for the BlueGreen Alliance. On Tuesday at the Michigan AFL-CIO offices in Lansing, labor and environmental leaders called on Governor Snyder and state and local lawmakers to take the lead in crafting a flexible state plan to help Michigan meet its emissions reduction targets, as laid out in EPA’s […]

New legislation is being considered today to expand the state school reform/redesign school district (SRRSD) to up to 50 schools statewide in Michigan. Currently the Education Achievement Authority is the only entity contracted with the state Department of Education to provide SRRSD services. No schools would be permitted to be ordered added to the SRRSD until January 1st of 2015 […]

In general, when you see a car with American flag and bald eagle stickers all over it, there’s also a “Support our Troops” ribbon sticker to go along with them. For some people, nothing says “patriot” like a “Support our Troops” sticker and nobody loves to wrap themselves in that patriotic swag more than Republicans. But, for some Republicans, that […]

In the midst of the worst of the Great Recession, before Barack Obama was even sworn in, Eric Cantor was the leader of the movement to do nothing to help the new president fix the disasters he inherited. During the debt limit crisis of 2011, the author of The New New Deal Mike Grunwald points out, Cantor’s job was to […]