A group of Michigan Republicans is sick and tired of having to go through training on how to handle a weapon and all that damned paperwork that it takes to get a concealed pistol license. One of the sponsors, Triston Cole, calls the permitting process “government overreach”. That’s why he signed on to co-sponsor House Bill 5303. It changes the […]

President Obama now has less than a year left in his final term in office. But that hasn’t stopped the drumbeat of calls for his impeachment among the most fervent haters of the country’s first African American POTUS. This past week, the Michigan 7th Congressional District Republicans passed a resolution asking Congressman Tim Walberg to introduce articles of impeachment. In […]

When state Senate Republicans announced that they were moving their offices to a new building in Lansing, red flags went up around the city. A bipartisan group asked Attorney General Bill Schuette to look into the $134 million project to ensure that nothing shady was going on. This was in light of at least one report that the state had […]

After passing legislation to slash revenue sharing to already struggling urban areas including Flint and after passing an anti-democratic Emergency Manager Law – Public Act 4 – and after passing another anti-democratic Emergency Manager law – Public Act 436 – after voters rejected the first one (and making it democracy-proof with an unnecessary appropriation) and after these Republican-appointed overseers – […]

Ka-CHING! In the fourth quarter of 2015, Michigan Republicans received a whopping 50% of their campaign contributions from members of the DeVos family. Four vulnerable Republican House members, Holly Hughes, Brandt Iden, Tom Barrett, and John Bizon all received $9,000 each for a total of $36,000 which is nearly the median income for Michigan residents according to analysis done by […]

I’m starting today’s news round-up by featuring an essay published by Ann Arbor social worker Beverly Davidson, LMSW, at her “Voices from the Infant, Toddler and Family Field” blog. The post is titled “No words” and the title is cruelly apt. Here’s a taste of what she saw during a recent day of volunteering in Flint: We knocked on one […]

Today’s guest post is by Laura Packard, a partner at PowerThru Consulting, a growing national progressive digital consulting shop. Enjoy. The Flint water crisis didn’t just happen. It’s been a story decades in the making. Cities in America have been on the downswing for many years — deliberate policy on the federal and state level has favored suburbs, and also the preferences […]

A bill to shield oil and gas companies from having information about details of their pipelines and other infrastructure from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests was introduced as House Bill 4540 last May. It sat in the House Committee on Oversight and Ethics without action until last December. At that point, it was clear that supporters on the the […]

In the ongoing scandal of the poisoning of Flint’s drinking water by the Snyder administration and the heart-wrenching reports of the dilapidation of Detroit Public Schools, there’s another untold story being reported today by the Detroit Free Press. Because the schools are old and may contain lead in the water lines, students cannot drink, shower with, or swim in the […]

Republicans across the state and even across the country are working diligently to make sure that Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder doesn’t take the fall for his administration’s role in the poisoning of Flint’s drinking water. Michelle Malkin and the Hot Air blog are both of examples of conservative, corporatist water-carriers who want the country to blame the U.S. EPA for […]

No Snyder administration officials will be held accountable. And that’s exactly the problem. At long last, after activists and elected officials and even bloggers like LOLGOP and I have been sounding the alarm about the poisoning of Flint residents with lead in their drinking water, the story has finally hit the national stage. In the past week, in addition to […]