It’s good to be the king bank Graphic/photo by Anne C. Savage | Eclectablog There are two big questions swirling around Detroit’s bankruptcy, questions that will ultimately be decided by federal bankruptcy judge Steven Rhodes. The first is whether or not the public employee pension funds are actually underfunded by billions of dollars. Are they? As it turns out, it […]

Volunteers gather to protest Tea Party Republicans’ opposition to healthy legislation. Protesters rallied in support of Medicaid expansion in Michigan on Monday. They met at the GOP Victory Center in Livonia — which, not surprisingly, was closed. But they were undaunted, with three speakers making their voices heard on the importance of Medicaid expansion as a crowd, including two local […]

The conservative Heritage Foundation is campaigning against Obamacare. But their arguments are unsubstantiated lies. Do Republicans really think they can just willfully spread lies about the Affordable Care Act and get away with it? Sure they do, because their rabidly extremist supporters will believe anything they’re told by their spin masters. They’d like you to believe that Obamacare is the […]

Is it now too expensive to teach disabled children? [CC image credit: ~kawaii-bubble-wrap | deviantART] In April of this year, former Detroit Public Schools Emergency Manager Roy Roberts announced that Oakman Elementary/Orthopedic, a school specializing in serving disabled Detroit students, was slated to be closed. After doing a cost-benefit analysis, the school was found to be too expensive to keep […]

It’s almost as if getting 30 million Americans health insurance is worth fighting for. Hopefully you know Luther, President Obama’s anger translator from Comedy Central’s fantastic Key & Peele show. He helps the president communicate subtext too subtle for many Americans: In his weekly address, President Obama veered slightly toward Luther when discussing Republican attempts to sabotage the Affordable Care […]

This court decision “could restore small-d democracy across Michigan” Last night, Rachel Maddow reported on something that regular readers of this blog already know: a recent federal appeals court decision has major implications for the potential striking down of Michigan’s anti-democratic Emergency Manager law. While this news is, in my mind, HUGE, it barely got noticed anywhere including in Michigan […]

Confirming what has long been accepted: ALEC is nothing more than a front group for corporate interests The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) calls itself “a nonpartisan public-private partnership of America’s state legislators, members of the private sector and the general public” that “works to advance the fundamental principles of free-market enterprise, limited government, and federalism at the state level”. […]

Of course a corporate front group wants to stop this… When I was in grade school, you couldn’t run barefoot through a grassy field full of clover because there were so many honeybees that you were sure to be stung. Now, 40 years later, there are no wild honeybees left in America. Why? Neonicotinoid insecticides used to control aphids and […]

How much more time can they possibly need? Oh, and didn’t they claim they were working on this while they’re on vacation this month? This is getting ridiculous. After gaveling in and out of session in just 10 seconds earlier this week, Michigan Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville said Senate Republicans are going on a retreat “in a week or […]

You got your Right to Work and your corporate tax cuts. Now show us the jobs. For two months in a row, Michigan’s unemployment rate has gone up. It went up 0.3 points to 8.7% in June and, in July, it was up another 0.1 points to 8.8%. In contrast, the US unemployment rate was flat at 7.6% in June […]

What’s this? ANOTHER judicial smack-down of Governor Snyder and his Republican colleagues? Yes. Yes it is. [Caricature by DonkeyHotey from photos by Anne C. Savage for Eclectablog] Another day, another Republican bill signed into law by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder ruled unconstitutional. In this case, it’s not the entire law, just the part that requires state employees to pay 4% […]