You know that gigantic, $1.5 billion dollar tax cut Republicans gave Michigan businesses this year? I’ve been ranting and raving all year about how it was paid for in part by cutting a cool billion out of education. But there’s still half a billion that came from other places. One of the big cuts was to eliminate the tax exemption […]

On Tuesday of this week, Michigan Republicans held a public hearing on a controversial piece of legislation, HB 5002. As I have written about in the past, this bill makes law certain practices used by insurance companies to reduce or eliminate benefits for injured workers by using “imaginary wages” and “imaginary pensions”. While the legislation is highly controversial, Senate Reforms, […]

Newt is such a charmer, isn’t he? I love that, when he appears in the GOP primary debates, he spends 3½ of his alotted 4 minutes deriding the question and the questioner and castigating the media as a whole. There’s no better way to garner positive press than treat the members of the press as pariahs and sociopaths, is there? […]

While state officials mull over appointing an Emergency Manager for Benton Harbor schools, the state’s largest teachers union, the Michigan Education Association (MEA), has stepped up to help teachers there with much needed supplies. They put out a call to MEA teachers (flyer HERE (pdf)) to make donations and teachers across the state responded. When Republican lawmakers pushed through more […]

Ezra Klein makes a truly interesting point this morning with regards to the failure of the Deficit Commission “Super Committee”. Their failure to come to an agreement and the trigger pulled by that outcome is a dream situation for progressives. Imagine if the Democrats offered Republicans a deficit deal that had more than $3 in tax increases for every $1 […]

Republican sponsored legislation, Senate Bill 619 recently passed the Senate. This bill represents what could be the first steps toward eliminating large numbers of teachers from Michigan classrooms. A proposal in Lansing would remove most restrictions on the ability of students to attend school over the Internet, in their pajamas, without setting foot inside a classroom. The proposal would remove […]

For those of you reaching this post via Susan Demas’ silly article wherein she calls out some random liberal blogger on the internet, assigns his opinion as that of “the left”, and then files the story as “news”, I commend your attention to THIS POST. Last week, I wrote about proposed changes to Michigan’s Workers Compensation laws being put through […]

There are a pair of bills going through Congress right now that have the potential to radically alter the government’s ability to regulate industries and organizations in our country. The first of these is the childishly-named “Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act”(H.R. 10). Currently, Congress passes a regulatory law and it is up to the agencies […]

Last week, I wrote about Carson Borbely & Katy Butler, two inspiring Ann Arbor teens who have done something tangible and important to combat bullying in Michigan. Fighting back against a Senate-passed “License to Bully” bill that claims to be “anti-bullying”, the created a petition at Change.org. When I wrote my piece last Thursday, the petition had a bit over […]

Only on Fox News and the pages of the Wall Street Journal are PUMA-inciters Douglas Schoen and Patrick Caddell considered “Democrats”. Nevertheless, Fox and the WSJ trot them out from time to time to show the world that there is disharmony in the ranks of liberals and Democrats. The fact is, however, despite their resumes, these two are no more […]

After receiving a standing ovation from drivers during a pre-race drivers meeting on Sunday, First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden were unceremoniously booed at NASCAR’s final race of the year at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The two women were there honor military men and women and their families and to draw further attention to […]