This week Michigan legislators passed a package of bills dubbed “The Grand Bargain” that will help our state’s largest city, Detroit, get back on its feet. Missing from that package was a bill that would have prevented regional municipalities from renewing the existing voter-approved 10-year millage or the levying a new millage to fund the Detroit Institute of Arts. (Details […]

Attempting to deceive senior citizens is, simply put, sick and disgusting. Governor Snyder is summoning his inner Obi Wan Kenobi, using the Jedi Mind Trick to try to convince seniors that he’s not taxing their pensions. “I want to be proactive, ” he said, “and let people know it’s NOT a pension tax. What we did was clean up our […]

We can’t do anything about climate change but we won’t just sit back and let women get birth control Less than a day after President Obama unveiled his plan to curb carbon emissions using the EPA’s regulatory power, China indicated that it will be curbing its carbon pollution for the first time ever. This historic act of cooperation (and self-preservation) […]

In Ipswich, Massachusetts, a group of sixth graders, led by their teacher, had a novel idea: send a bill to the corporation who used them as guinea pigs to test their newest standardized test. Two sixth grade math classes lost an entire week’s worth of instruction taking a trial run of a new test and now they want payment for […]

Last week, Governor Snyder pretended that he’s suddenly concerned with adding protections for LGBT folks to our state’s civil rights law, the Elliott-Larsen Act. As I have already said, this is a sham. Governor Snyder’s own words show how squishy his “support” is: “I’m encouraging them to say there’s been a lot of dialog and discussion on this. It’s been […]

The Affordable Care Act is saving one Michigan couple big money — and may just be saving a life. Charles Barnett was as “healthy as a horse” until late 2012, says his wife, Linda. That’s when he discovered a swollen lump in a gland. As it turns out, Charles had a stage 4 tumor under the floor of his mouth […]

If you need any further proof that The Michigan Embarrassment, Terri Lynn Land, is out of her league in running for the U.S. Senate, this is it: A gaggle of reporters, photographers and cameramen clamored to get in a few questions to the former Secretary of State after the forum on Mackinac Island where she and U.S. Rep. Gary Peters, […]

Back in March, I wrote about an effort by McCoig Materials to create a gravel mine just north of Chelsea, Michigan in Lyndon Township. Here’s what I wrote then: As you look at the photo of downtown Chelsea above, imagine 80 gravel trucks a day, 6 days a week rumbling through the middle of it and then back again after […]

And why shouldn’t they be? They’re getting the care they need at a price they can afford. A national survey conducted by PerryUndem for Enroll America provides some of the first insights into how people who got covered during the first Affordable Care Act (ACA) open enrollment period feel about their new insurance. Not surprisingly, they feel pretty darn good. […]

Many of us in the progressive arena advocate passionately for LGBT civil rights. And right we should; it is literally the civil rights struggle of our time. Interestingly and unfortunately, LGBT rights have become mainly synonymous with civil rights for gay and lesbian men and women. Bisexuals like myself often aren’t taken seriously by straight or queer people and we […]

Koch tested. Right to Life approved. Democrat Gary Peters continues to lead his likely Republican opponent for the U.S. Senate Terri Lynn Land. Meanwhile, Republican hopes of a wave that could help them take over the Senate should be waning, if Republicans actually paid attention to polls they don’t like. The Washington Post‘s Greg Sargent notes: A pair of new […]