Happy Birfday! Today is Michigan’s 175th birthday. As a proud, lifelong Michigander, I am so happy to wish my beautiful state a glorious happy birthday. It’s because this state is so beautiful, has so much spirit and is full of so many amazing people that I and so many others will never give up the fight against the powers that […]

Regrets, I’ve had a few… Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney has a problem. A Michigan Problem. It’s not just that he penned an op-ed for the New York Times calling for the bankruptcy of our domestic vehicle manufacturers. It’s not just that he then doubled down on that statement in one of the presidential debates. It’s not just that, as […]

Emergency Managers: Not just for black cities anymore As I wrote last week, tiny Suttons Bay in the “Pinky” of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula is facing the imposition of an Emergency Manager for their school district. This past week they held a community budget forum to discuss the issue. Here is video of the 90+ minute forum: You can see the […]

Here are a smattering of photos taken by my wife Anne C. Savage at today’s protest march and rally at the gate of Rick Snyder’s private enclave/gated community. Click the photo for the full Monty at Anne’s website. My liveblog complete with crappy pictures and video is HERE.

This afternoon is an anti-Emergency Manager law march on the home of Michigan Governor Rick Snyder. Stop back regularly for photos and updates. Rick Snyder recall group Michigan Rising on the scene (along with media). Buses starting to roll in. Lots of ominous-looking black SUVs along the march route. Weird. 3:55 pm – The crowd gathers. Several hundred and its […]

My friend Bruce Fealk, Michigan Rising Communications Director, got the ball rolling on this one: Today, January 13, 2012, is the last day for signatures for the recall of Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin. For 260 days, the Solidarity singers have been singing in the Rotunda and outside the Capitol in Madison, WI. Today I asked Chris Reed, the leader […]

This morning I wrote about Perry schools being threatened with a state takeover, a city in a county with only 0.5% African Americans. They aren’t the only ones. Suttons Bay is in the “Pinky” of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. The Suttons Bay school district is facing an Emergency Manager, as well. Superintendent Mike Murray says the district planned to get state […]

Much of the outrage about Public Act 4, the Emergency Manager law centers around its disparate impact on minority school districts and cities. But this law may be coming to city or school near you even if it’s not a so-called “majority minority” area. Take a look at the data that was assembled by Progress Michigan to see how obvious […]

Funny thing, when you slash funding to schools by $1 billion and stop sending tax revenues back to the cash-strapped cities where they were collected, you end up with a pretty big surplus, despite the massive tax cuts given to businesses. How big? Just over a billion dollars big. The state is bringing in more money than expected. That’s according […]

A recap of sorts by Rachel Maddow tonight of Michigan’s Emergency Manager law and its impacts, particularly on Benton Harbor. A bunch of my photos from one of the early rallies are featured. The bit at 5:15 is probably the most significant: 2011 is the year when the Republicans in the great state of Michigan decided that small “d” democracy […]

As I wrote about last week, Jonathan Mahler published an excellent piece on Benton Harbor in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine titled “Now That the Factories Are Closed, It’s Tee Time in Benton Harbor, Mich.” My review is HERE. After it was published, I sent Mahler an email, putting the Emergency Manager law, Public Act 4 into some perspective as […]