The Thomas B. Fordham Institute is a conservative think tank focused on education policy issues. One of their frequent contributors is a person named Dale Chu. Full disclosure: I do not know Mr. Chu, we’ve never met, and I’ve only glanced at his blog posts in the past. I do know that I’ve never run across any of his scholarly […]

Republicans have left Healthy Michigan in peril and only Gretchen Whitmer will save it — again When it comes to preserving health insurance for 680,000 Michiganders covered by the state’s Medicaid expansion program, the question is who do you trust — the woman who fought to expand it in the first place or the guy who joined “at least nine […]

Lee Chatfield is a state House Representative from northern Michigan and a white man with a real fetish for guns. He loves his guns so much that he proposed a bill in 2016 that would have made illegal local gun ordinances even more illegal. Apparently not a big fan of local government control, Chatfield’s bill was described as “super-preemption”: Yeadon […]

Marcy Wheeler on Twitter: @EmptyWheel Marcy Wheeler at EmptyWheel.net: Paul Manafort’s $46 Million plea deal Marcy Wheeler at EmptyWheel.net: Checkmate: The Manafort cooperation is pardon proof Marcy Wheeler at EmptyWheel.net: The objection that made Mueller’s case Marcy Wheeler at EmptyWheel.net: A comparison of Rick Gates and Paul Manafort’s plea deals This week Democrats lead in many polls expanded to double […]

Republican John James is “running” to unseat U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow. I use quotes around “running” because he’s down double digits in virtually every recent poll, 22.5 points in the most recent one. One reason James is doing so poorly is that he is completely out of touch with over half the electorate: women. At a recent men-only event in […]

Before the grass has even begun to grow on John McCain’s grave, Republicans have gone back in time and pulled footage of him challenging Elissa Slotkin during her confirmation hearing 2014. The McCain family is rightfully disgusted: The family is disappointed that John’s image is being weaponized this election cycle so soon after his passing, and they had hoped there […]

In this installment of The Charter School Follies we meet our hero, Eva Moskowitz, the CEO and founder of one of America’s most well-known “No Excuses” charter management corporations, Success Academy Charter Schools in New York City. Ms. Moskowitz, who never studied education, never taught in a public school, and “thought half of her teachers in high school were incompetent”, shares in […]

Think about the last time you got a call from Senate or Congress at the federal level asking for money. You either gave little or hung up the phone. Then think about that time you asked for yard signs and volunteered – there is a high probability that someone complained about the fact that the campaign office does not have […]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Stacey Abrams, Andrew Gillum, Ayanna Pressley, Sharice Davids, Rashida Tlaib. Julius N. Richardson, A. Marvin Quattlebaum Jr., Andy Oldham, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh. In the Democratic Party it’s the most diverse of times. Between 30 and 40 new women are poised to enter the House next January, shattering the previous record of 24 set in 1992’s “Year of […]

Michigan Attorney General and Republican candidate for governor Bill Schuette has a new ad out suggesting that his Democratic opponents Gretchen Whitmer and her running mate Garlin Gilchrist are Hamas sympathizers that hate law enforcement agencies. On its face, it’s shitty ad that shows just how desperate Schuette is now that he’s at least 9 points down in recent polling. […]

Ted Cruz has no doubt how Brett Kavanaugh feels about Roe v. Wade– and neither does Susan Collins Susan Collins wants you to believe something that cannot be true. She not only wants you to believe that Brett Kavanaugh may not gut Roe v. Wade. She wants you to believe that Ted Cruz would to vote for a Supreme Court […]