Oh, that’s rich Michigan House Republicans are in a tight spot. With concessions made by every party swept up in Detroit’s municipal bankruptcy and a deal in place that mostly preserves retiree pensions and the Detroit Institute of Arts’ priceless art collection, the only hurdle remaining is the state ponying up $350 million. Given how much money they’ve essentially stolen […]

One of the recurring themes in the conversations that I have had with various teachers and administrators who work or have worked for the Education Achievement Authority is that when financial benefactors or members of our state government came to visit, the entire school transformed. Schedules were altered, often on the fly, to accommodate the visitors’ schedules. Kids ate lunch […]

Dude, are you for real? Keith Crain, editor-in-chief of Crain’s Detroit Business, has an op-ed out this morning titled “Maybe we need a permanent overseer”. The “we” in this case is the city of Detroit. This is not to cast aspersions on our current politicians. But we don’t know how long they will be in office and who will replace […]

A confederacy of cruelty This map should break your heart. In white are the 24 Republican-led states that have refused to expand Medicaid as part of the Affordable Care Act. One state — Scott Walker’s Wisconsin — actually used expansion to kick some of its residents off Medicaid. The results of this act of “spite,” as President Obama called it, […]

We may be at a tipping point It’s Easter Sunday and that can mean only one thing: it’s time for the annual repost of our Peeps® post. Enjoy. Spring came incredibly late to southern Michigan this year so on Good Friday, my wife Anne and I put our kayaks in the Huron River and set out to document the effects […]

Republicans will keep fighting this law the way they fight Medicare, Social Security and ‘myths’ like climate change, evolution and the female orgasm Conservatives combusted all over America on Thursday when President Obama punctuated his announcement that 8 million people had signed up through coverage in health care exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act by saying that the Obamacare […]

Even Republicans aren’t happy about Trott’s predatory practices. That won’t do him any favors in his bid for the seat held by Kerry Bentivolio, who’s on shaky ground himself. David Trott’s reputation as a foreclosure vulture precedes him. And it’s going to be a huge albatross hanging around his neck in his campaign in Michigan’s 11th Congressional District. He’s been […]

The best government corporatist money can buy I have confirmation from two independent sources in the Michigan legislature that multi-millionaire Dick DeVos is using the threat of massive financial support for Republican primary opponents of vulnerable Senate Republicans to force them to vote for the bill that would expand the Education Achievement Authority statewide. The same approach was used to […]

I don’t know what happened here. Maybe Republican Governors Association Vice Chair Chris Christie is too busy dealing with his George Washington Bridgegate problem to be doing his job. This morning, the RGA released another attack video on Mark Schauer for supporting a bill that required criminal background checks for nursing home employees, paid for by a small fee on […]

Ken Cuccinelli, former Attorney General of Virginia, has a national reputation for outrageous extremism which he paints himself with as a “morality” suit of clothing. Here in Michigan, our current AG, Bill Schuette, is equally extreme but seems not garner quite so much attention. But the similarities are there. Cuccinelli fought to overturn Obamacare in the courts and lost – […]

Someone needs to learn the ‘culture of work’ President Obama pointed out last week that the 113th Congress will be the least productive in recorded history. MaddowBlog‘s Steve Benen made this chart to show just how true this claim was: However, it’s worth pointing out that while this House of Representatives will go down in history for accomplishing less than […]