NOTE: This post has been updated below. Before he left the state for a holiday vacation, Gov. Snyder signed a number of bills into law. While he was away, Lt. Gov. Brian Calley signed a bunch more into law including one that bans banning or regulating single-use grocery bags and one that makes the illegal selling of fetal tissue more […]

A recent article from EdSurge.com unveiled the newly-enshrined members of the Forbes “30 under 30 Education Leaders to Learn From” Class of 2017. While I tend to believe that most of this genre of rankings articles (Best Colleges, Best Places to Live, Best Chicken Wings–spoiler alert: they’re from Buffalo!) aren’t worth the paper they are printed on–or the bytes they occupy in cyber-space, as the […]

Over the past month and a half since the election, LOLGOP and I have been exhorting folks listening to our podcast to activate and be present in the lives of their state legislators, members of Congress, and their U.S. Senators. In fact, the cold open to our last podcast is a recording of us calling Senator Debbie Stabenow’s office to […]

Racism hurts everyone and until we start pointing that out, we can’t fix the economy Donald Trump isn’t going to give up “identity politics” — but some on the left think Democrats should about a “post-identity liberalism” in order to focus on winning over those 70,000 mostly white voters who gave Trump his narrow wins in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, […]

Today, 671 days before the 2018 election, Ingham County Prosecutor and former State Senator Gretchen Whitmer filed paperwork to run for governor of Michigan in 2018. It’s a smart move given that she’ll likely face primary opponents with more high profile positions (like Congressman Dan Kildee, for example.) Getting out early will help give her helpful exposure. It’s exciting to […]

I am a true believer in the power of poetry. After all, I have considered myself a poet since I was 7 years old. I can still recall the butterflies I felt in my stomach when my elementary school teacher had me read, and later perform Langston Hughes’s I Too, Sing America. It was a life changing experience. I grew up […]

Having access to health insurance has saved this young woman’s life. Her mother doesn’t know how she will survive without it. When I saw the subject line on the email, my heart dropped to the floor: “Please don’t let my daughter die.” Jean had seen my call for stories about the difference the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare, has […]

The education reform community’s obsession with “accountability” is based on the premise that teachers are motivated by rewards and punishments to work harder, and teach better. But this approach to accountability is predicated on the view of teachers as disengaged “workers” who are not intrinsically motivated, and must be coerced by threats and extrinsic measures. The truth is that virtually […]

Any vote to repeal is a vote to uninsure millions and sentence America’s sick to untold misery Add America’s sick to the top of the list of those who will most be directly threatened by Donald Trump and the GOP. If the next Republican Congress guts the funding for the Affordable Care Act next month, which it almost all but […]

Apparently things are just fine in Michigan because Republicans here have resorted to (a) making something illegal more illegal and (b) to restricting local municipalities from passing local regulations for their community. So much for “local control”. The first bill makes the sale of fetal tissue resulting from abortions more illegal. I say it makes it “more illegal” because it’s […]

If you think our biggest problem is that the super rich aren’t super rich enough, the GOP is fighting for you Take a look at this: Watch the income distribution in America change pic.twitter.com/WS80BT2UlT — Conrad Hackett (@conradhackett) December 18, 2016 If you look at this, you’d think that one of the biggest problems in our economy — if not […]