This past week, the corporatist front group and bill mill for corporate America, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), held a breakfast gathering for Michigan state legislators. Our friends at Progress Michigan were there and reported that only SIX legislators actually attended. Here is the all-Republican list of attendees: Rep. Aric Nesbitt (R-Lawton) Rep. Peter Pettalia (R-Presque Isle) Rep. Triston […]

My post yesterday, “Anti-trans* woman uses Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act to sue Planet Fitness for terminating her membership” (which I cross-posted at Daily Kos) provoked a response from the so-called “Christians” at RenewAmerica.com today. The piece is written by Ellis Washington, a founding board member of Salt and Light Global, and is titled “Salt and Light Global targeted for […]

Last week Ted Cruz showed us why we need another season of Cosmos. On Late Night with Seth Meyers, he was presented with a chance to explain why the world is on fire but it isn’t getting hotter — and he took it. It was as if the world’s greatest internet commenter had crawled into the news and started spraying […]

As I reported over a year ago, the Education Achievement Authority – Gov. Rick Snyder’s failed education experiment on Detroit children – was used as a testing ground for software that endeavors to teach children using computers with little teacher interaction. The colossal failure of this software called BUZZ has been well-documented here on this site. At the time, I […]

WHMI is reporting that the Livingston County Prosecutor’s office will move forward with misdemeanor trespassing charges against Brighton parent Glenn Ikens who had the audacity to remain seated when asked to leave the “open house” of a proposed tea party charter school in Brighton. According to a spokesman for the the Livingston County Classical Academy (formerly the Lindbom Classical Academy) […]

Another day, another report that for-profit prison food vendor Aramark has done something truly outrageous. Honestly, these stories have become so commonplace that writing them is like a wicked case of deja vu. This time it’s serving cake to prison inmates that had been partially eaten by rodents. The news comes out of emails obtained from a FOIA request by […]

What I thought was going to be a review of the premier of the documentary that made its Michigan debut on Sunday, March 8, 2015 at the Maple Theater in Bloomfield, MI, titled, She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry is turning more into a testimonial in many ways. Many deeply personal ways. Director/Producer/Writer Mary Dore was in attendance for the premier […]

If it becomes law, any healthcare provider or payer could turn away any patient based on personal or organizational beliefs. With so much work to be done to make Michigan a better place to work and live, you’d think legislators would have more important things to do than enact laws that are nothing more than a license to discriminate using […]

Robert D. Putnam wants to have a debate without starting an argument. And he may succeed. His new book Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis succeeds in displaying the kind of canniness that makes the Harvard professor a favorite of both President Obama and Jeb Bush. To maintain the kind of equanimity that keeps your work at the heart of […]

A man who bravely goes by the name of Nunya Beeswax online went for an “open carry walk” in southeastern Michigan and prompted a lockdown of the Lamphere High School in Madison Heights. Police are aware of the guy who is known for doing provocative things to get attention. In this instance he “started in Royal Oak, and he walked […]

There’s been so much in the news about over-the-top idiocy from Michigan Republicans lately that I thought I’d just put them all in one post. Over the past week or so, they’ve been trying to further degrade a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion and to corrupt our democracy by rigging the electoral system in favor of […]