Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. quote on the King monument in Washington, D.C. Photo by Chris Savage. Many of us will celebrate Martin Luther King Day by visiting a museum, participating in a community volunteer event, or by watch a civil rights documentary. These are all, of course, perfectly appropriate ways to celebrate the life of our country’s preeminent civil […]

Let’s practice minimizing the Trump infection First, here’s what you need to do: That’s the word from brain scientist George Lakoff. Here’s why I’m joining in and I hope you will, too. Did you know the president is about to step up his attack the free press using all the authority the American people have invested in his office? If […]

Flip. Flop. At a bipartisan meeting with House and Senate leaders on Tuesday, Donald Trump had this to say about an impending bipartisan agreement to protect roughly 800,000 Dreamers, undocumented immigrants brought to the USA when they were children: [W]hen this group comes back — hopefully with an agreement — this group and others from the Senate, from the House, […]

“[Republican] Gov. Rick Snyder proposed legislation Monday to offset what he said would amount to an unintended $1.5-billion annual tax increase for Michigan residents resulting from the recent federal tax reform package.” That’s the lead sentence in an article in the Detroit Free Press from yesterday titled “Snyder proposes plan to offset federal tax reform for Michigan taxpayers“. The article […]

The health of nine million children is at risk, with even more at stake in hard-hit Flint. It’s bad enough that if Congress does not act to reauthorize the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), nine million lower-income children will lose the health insurance that allows them to see a doctor or go to the dentist. The problem is even worse […]

It’s great to see the watchdogs watching the dogs. Anyone who has been paying attention to the political career of Michigan Attorney General Bill “Shady” Schuette knows that he’s been running for governor for decades. Each rung on his political ladder has been one more step toward his ultimate goal, at least so far as Michigan politics goes. For the […]

This is how Democrats make it clear what we stand for Tammy Baldwin has every reason to be cautious. Republicans have already spent $3.1 million to unseat the first openly gay member of the U.S. Senate, “which is more than what all the other Democratic Senate incumbents on the ballot this year have faced combined,” according to the Huffington Post’s […]

The reviews are in! The GOP went too far to help corporations in its new tax bill, says Marco Rubio, who voted for the bill after “winning” concessions that deliver $0.00 to $6.25 a month to some of America’s poorest families. “If I were king for a day, this tax bill would have looked different. I thought we probably went […]

What becomes of the broken hearted? Ventricles rotted with despair Your father lost his air for us You shared your grief with us Y’all gave your lives for us A lineage of reluctant Ancestry Two bodies Deceased prematurely Molded out of tragedy Like Whitney and Bobby Kristina We grieve your tragic endings Though we watched you suffer publicly May the […]

“Two North” is a story about a Christmas when I was in grade school during a period when my mom was spending time on the psychiatric ward of our town’s hospital after trying to commit suicide to escape a physically-abusive husband. I was thirteen. It was a cataclysmic event in our lives but it brought us together into a two-person […]

5 reasons Trump’s tax scam won’t improve the GOP’s prospects Twas the night before the night before Christmas when Donald Trump did what villains in action movies are supposed to do. He interrupted the story to explain his evil plan. “You all just got a lot richer,” the president told the crowd at Mar-A-Lago, his for-profit club where he sells […]