It’s no secret that Michigan is one of the most heavily gerrymandered states in the entire country. Here’s the 11th Congressional District, for example: The 9th District is almost as bad: Note that they are both adjacent and interlocking. The 11th District is highly Republican and 9th District is reliably Democratic. For good measure, here’s the 14th which is another […]

Michigan Republicans have pending legislation that would make our state’s Medicaid rules, as LOLGOP put it, “the most regressive requirements in the entire nation.” They would force hundreds of thousands of poor residents to either find a job that will allow them to work no fewer than 29 hours a week or they’d lose their benefits. It would also impose […]

Back in February, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed accused unnamed “establishment Democrats” of using “birther-like tactics” to derail his primary campaign after Bridge magazine published an article raising questions about his eligibility to run due to residency requirements. I was hard on Dr. El-Sayed writing, “Publishing this article is not a “birther-like” tactic and the accusation is offensive. People […]

This is becoming indecent… It’s no secret that Michigan Republicans are deeply in the pocket of corporations in our state. One of their first orders of business after taking control of our state government in 2010 was to pass a massive tax cut for corporations paid for by raising the taxes of over half of the residents in our state […]

“So much for running a government like a business. You can keep the $100 your tax cut will give me, if you take responsibility for your conduct and reimburse me what your potholes have cost me.” That’s the message Ann Arbor attorney John Minnock had for Gov. Rick Snyder this week, as reported by the Detroit Free Press. He wasn’t […]

When Republicans in Congress passed the Trump Tax Scam, one of the things they did was to raise taxes on citizens at the state level. In Michigan, that increase in taxes amounts to $1.5 BILLION, something even Republicans have been forced to admit. Democrats, who have been trying to enact an increase in the personal tax exemption for years, today […]

Last year in a rare exhibition of bipartisanship, the Michigan state senate voted unanimously and the House voted 89-11 to pass a new rule involving the taxation of a purchased vehicle when someone trades in another vehicle in the transaction. Under a 2013 law, buyers initially could exempt the value of the trade-in vehicle up to $2,000 from the sales […]

Following on the heels of an encounter with a reporter in the Netherlands where he gaslighted the reporter twice in the span of a couple of minutes, former Michigan legislator Pete Hoekstra held a press conference and things went decidedly “not well”. Hoeksta, the U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands, confronted this time not by just one reporter but multiple reporters, […]

“[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 […]

Pistols in your preschools… In true Orwellian fashion, the author of legislation passed yesterday by the state Senate that allows guns to be carried in so-called “no-carry” or “no gun” zones, said that the church shooting in Texas this past week was actually an argument FOR loosening gun restrictions in Michigan: Despite outcry from Democrats and school groups, people could […]

 If you’re looking for a window into 2018 in Michigan, the most important race took place last night in the western Upper Peninsula. On first blush, it looks like a pretty routine result in the special election for the 109th state House District: Democrat Sara Cambensy held a seat that’s been blue for more than a half-century. The district has a […]