One day we’ll just call it “marriage” NOTE: Every day this week I will be posting about the fundraiser for the legal fund for April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse who are challenging Michigan’s discriminatory marriage ban. Over half of the residents in our state oppose this law and it’s time for it to go away for good. Equally as important, […]

Governor Snyder: it’s not working Three new municipalities are now under consideration for an Emergency Manager: Lincoln Park, Royal Oak Township, and Highland Park. If Highland Park goes, it will be its second time around and it will be the third city to come out of financial crisis under an Emergency Manager only to go back under an Emergency Manager […]

Even top educators are walking away The “school district for wayward schools”, Michigan’s Education Achievement Authority, has been under increasing scrutiny over the past year. Questions have been raised about the veracity of their testing and test scores. State legislators on the Education Committee have raised red flags only to be told they have to file Freedom of Information Act […]

The ban on same-sex marriage in Michigan can tear families apart [left to right: April, Nolan, Jacob, Jayne, and Ryanne] A few years ago, what started as a family vacation in Ohio nearly ended up in a fatal car crash for April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse. The two nurses had their three adopted children with them and the close call […]

You’re not helping. Not at all. Flint is a city that is slowly working to crawl its way out of the crater left behind when automakers left and the manufacturing sector imploded. Bit by bit, one step at a time, city leaders are bringing the city back with a strong vision for the future. Then stuff like this happens: Flint […]

The desperation is getting palpable While Governor Rick Snyder met with billionaire Warren Buffett and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein in Detroit yesterday, another group of wealthy moneymen were across town filing a motion with the federal judge asking that he take action on their behalf in Detroit’s ongoing bankruptcy saga. The banks that are owed money by Detroit are […]

We covered the gamut from success stories to sabotage, shedding light on topics some media outlets are ignoring. I was delighted to be a guest on Tony Trupiano’s podcast series, which he’s running until he’s fully recovered from surgery and back to hosting the “Night Shift with Tony Trupiano” radio show. The initial focus was my Obamacare success story, which […]

The unstoppable force meets the immovable object Our pit bull Suni and our cat Spooky adore each other. However, sometimes one’s happiness gets in the way of the others happiness. No, we did not glue the cat down.

Since the day that the ACA (aka Obamacare) health insurance exchanges launched on October 1st, I’ve been tracking the number of applications, enrollments and Medicaid/SCHIP expansion signups at ACASignups.net. Obviously the first few weeks were, shall we say, rocky. In addition to the now infamous website problems, reporting on the numbers was all over the map as well, with many “serious” […]

They think their pensions are OK, too This guest post is by Roger Kerson, a Michigan-based media consultant for labor unions, environmental groups, and non-profit organizations. He was director of public relations at the United Auto Workers during the GM and Chrysler restructuring. As an associate of the Arlington, Virginia-based firm PRWRK, he has provided strategic counsel to the Transport […]

Tony Trupiano’s “Night Shift with Tony Trupiano” radio show has been off the air for the past couple weeks as he recovers from some major surgery. He’s not fully back on his feet yet but is recording podcasts as he finishes healing up. It’s a delightful alternative to the constraints of a 30-minute segment which compresses our conversations into two […]