It’s good to be the king The Herald-Palladium reports today that Benton Harbor Emergency Manager Joe Harris appointed himself to several city commissions. I guess he’s not planning on leaving soon after all… In an order dated Tuesday, Emergency Manager Joseph Harris removed, appointed or reappointed members to the Brownfield Redevelopment Authority, the Cemetery Board, the Twin City Area Transportation […]

Take that! And THAT! Ingham County Circuit Judge William Collette is on a roll. Yesterday he delivered two rulings that set Michigan Republicans back on their heels. First, he ruled that an obscene and blatant power grab by Oakland County Republicans is unconstitutional. An Ingham County judge on Wednesday struck down a controversial state law that changed the way Oakland […]

The best election money can buy How desperate is Mitt Romney to win in his “home state” of Michigan? THIS desperate. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and his allies at the super PAC Restore Our Future are spending $1,240,230 in Michigan this week, according to a Republican media buyer. The former Pennsylvania senator is spending $42,443 — not a typo […]

Santorum surging all over Michigan On top of two recent polls showing Santorum surging all over Mitt Romney in Michigan, we now have two more: Two more polls show Rick Santorum with a lead in Michigan’s presidential primary — and a sizeable one at that.The MRG Michigan Poll, done in concert with Lansing-based Inside Michigan Politics, shows Santorum, the former […]

Michigan’s Emergency Managers in the national spotlight In the current issue The Nation magazine, I have a piece titled “The Scandal of Michigan’s Emergency Managers” which is a general overview of Public Act 4, Michigan’s Emergency Manager law. For regular Eclectablog readers, there isn’t much new there but for those who haven’t been following, it’s likely to be a bit […]

Now let that be a lesson to you The 21-year old actress that was in Pete Hoekstra’s racist campaign ad, described in his now-defunct website’s code as “Yellow Girl” (which their web team disingenously/laughingly describes as “a typo”), has apologized. Via the Angry Asian Man blog: The 21-year-old actress just released the following statement on her Facebook page expressing regret […]

Who spiked the water cooler? The Daily Kos crew, a group of people I normally admire and adore, has completely gone off the rails with a project they are calling “Operation Hilarity”. First announced by kos himself and further expanded upon by Chris Bowers, it is essentially an effort to encourage Democrats to vote in the open Republican primaries in […]

All the news that’s fit to make you cringe Lots of news to get to today. Lots more after the jump, too, so make sure you click through. UPDATE: My article for The Nation magazine on Michigan’s Emergency Manager law will be in the issue that goes to print today and will hit the stands later this week. It may […]

Hear ye, hear ye I want to commend your attention to the Public Service Announcement banner at the top of the site today. It will run through Saturday evening. It’s an announcement for a public forum on Public Act 4, the Emergency Manager law, happening this Saturday, February 18, 2012, in East Lansing. A public forum on P.A. 4, the […]

See ya at the polls, buddy Not sure exactly how this math works out electorally-speaking but Rick Santorum seems to think his path to victory is slamming “The 99%”. At a campaign event this week (with really bad lighting, I might add) he derided Occupy protesters who were putting up a fuss: “I think it’s really important for you to […]

Karma IS a bitch This makes me smile: Debbie Stabenow’s taken her biggest lead yet in 4 polls of the Michigan Senate race PPP has conducted dating back to December of 2010. She now leads Pete Hoekstra by 14 points, 51-37, and has an even wider 17 point advantage over Clark Durant at 50-33. In 3 previous polls Stabenow led […]