He sees not only the risk to his young son’s health, but to the economy and the country at large. When a healthy child starts having uncontrollable seizures out of the blue, it’s terrifying. So is the prospect of having to cope with a serious medical condition without health insurance. For Pete and his family, his six-year-old son’s diagnosis of […]

This past week I wrote about a package of voter suppression bills currently being blasted through the state legislature (HERE and HERE.) They are House Bills 6066, 6067, and 6068. Here’s a piece of what I wrote on Friday: First, we have the voter suppression effort that I wrote about on Wednesday. This legislation does away with the option to […]

Let’s just dispense with the euphemisms. Republicans are poised to ram through bills that will make it harder to vote in Michigan. Here’s where we are. Michigan already had a voter ID law, but this new legislation toughens up the process. Currently, if you don’t have your ID when you vote, you sign an affidavit and cast a provisional ballot. […]

Like President-designate Donald Trump, and his nominee for Secretary of Education, Michigan billionaire and Amway heiress, Betsy DeVos, I’m a huuuuge proponent of “school choice.” What’s more American than the freedom to choose (unless you’re a woman, and we’re talking about reproductive health choices–but I digress…)? It’s a fundamental human right to be able to make important personal choices about […]

For 9 days I sat in living rooms, walked streets and rode in taxis made in 1951. I climbed hills and reveled over the brilliance of organic farms. I learned about AfroCuban religion and culture, trekked through the Zapata Swamp, waded and meditated in the waters of the Playa Girón (Bay of Pigs), spoke with Cuban economists, nurses, doctors, students, farmers, revolutionaries, […]

It was just a few weeks ago that I was thinking, “Well, since Republicans control EVERY aspect of our state government now, at least lame duck should be quieter than usual.” That, of course, was delusional thinking and Republicans are making that very clear as we begin the 2016 lame duck – or, as I like to call it, “inflamed […]

Praising ‘Daddy’ just comes more naturally to the right The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein has a post up about Trump’s rushing to Indiana to take credit for Carrier only sending most of the jobs in its Indianapolis plant to Mexico. The headline reads: President Obama’s approval rating is still 10 percent higher than Trump’s but Stein does make a point. […]

For these two women, access to health insurance under the Affordable Care Act gives them the freedom to pursue their career goals. Phoebe Agena had a dream: to become a massage therapist. She graduated from massage school in 2009, but wasn’t able to find a job with benefits. So she began working part-time as a massage therapist while pulling enough […]