The following essay was written by Ann Arbor-area activist Danny Steinmetz. Enjoy. Vice President Mike Pence made the Billy Graham Rule famous when he made it public that he does not have private meetings or dinners with women. It is in the news again recently because Robert Foster, a candidate in the Mississippi Republican gubernatorial primary, refused to let lesbian […]

“I wouldn’t want to be the one that tells Gov. Jerry Brown that he can’t teach a government class because he would otherwise have to go back to college,” said Myrna Castrejón, president and CEO of the California Charter Schools Association. I would. Because Jerry Brown is in no way qualified, prepared, certified, or remotely capable of being a teacher. […]

A lawyer who has dreamed of unchecked GOP power now has a client unafraid to abuse it If you had any doubt who William Barr is, your worst fears were confirmed this week. He is a man utterly devoted to bending the law to grab political power for Republican presidents to use with impunity. Exhibit A: The Justice Department announced […]

In the battle for brains, conversations fight fascism Fear makes people vote conservative. Donald Trump’s unique value proposition to the Republican Party is his shamelessness in giving voice to the fear that white political dominance is fading, a fear that has long guided conservative strategies to maintaining white power while representing fewer and fewer Americans — both in its demographics […]

What’s become painfully clear over the past two and half years is the Donald Trump is the master of creating chaos, in part to create a distraction from the things he doesn’t want people to know about. Many of these things he wants to keep in the shadows relate to reversing any progress made on reversing global warming, loosening environmental […]

The first democratic presidential primary debates took place this past week in Miami, Florida over the course of two nights. Twenty out of twenty three candidates qualified to stand on the debate stage, and ten candidates stood each night (we seriously have to work on pushing some people out of this race). On the first debate night, moderators Chuck Todd […]

The week ended with yet another excellent article from Peter Greene​ in Forbes, this time on the dangers of “Tax Credit Scholarships”, one of Betsy DeVos major thrusts as Secretary of Education under Donald Trump. So, what are Tax Credit Scholarships? They are complicated financial mechanisms that allow businesses to divert their tax payments to fund specific private and religious […]

In our podcast this week, we interviewed journalist Andrea Pitzer, author of the important book One Long Night – A Global History of Concentration Camps. In the interview she talks extensively about how the German concentration camps during the lead up to World War II did not start out as the death factories that they eventually became. However, over time, […]

Trump is good at getting away with rape, racism and justifying atrocities, and your disdain is his secret weapon. There are few words that infuriate the people who despise Donald Trump more than “He’s actually good at this.” Call him a fool, a clown, any ableist term you can mutter to suggest that he’s deranged, diminished or flailing and people […]

I haven’t written much about the Flint Water Crisis lately, largely because my pals over at Michigan Advance and the fine reporters at MLive have been doing such a good job. I’m inspired to write today as I reflect on two recent stories, one of which is not actually about Flint. The first story is the astonishing move taken by […]

There are currently 23 Democratic presidential candidates (yeesh) for the November 2020 election and things are starting to heat up. Nineteen of those candidates visited Iowa recently in an effort to coax voters into jumping on their bandwagon, highlighting some of their most popular policy stances and sharing their personal stories. Soon enough, these candidates will come flocking to Michigan […]