As Ramona Grigg discussed in her recent guest post “We Need Paid Sick Leave Because Workers Are Humans First“, Democrats in the Michigan legislature have introduced legislation mandating paid sick leave for all Michigan workers. As she wrote, nearly half of Michigan workers are forced to take vacation days or take unpaid leave to stay home if they are ill. […]

With all of the insanity in Michigan’s legislature these days with people like Cindy Gamarat and Todd Courser, I thought it would be a nice break to show that we’re not the only state with Republicans that are … um … “different”. Today I present you with Michele Fiore, a Republican member of the Nevada state assembly. Fiore has a […]

As religious groups across the nation lobby to have new laws passed to ensure their right to discriminate against the LGBT community, Democrats and even some Republicans are moving to ensure the LGBT kids, at least, are protected from bullying and violence. The only new Democrat in the U.S. Senate after the 2014 election is Michigan’s own Gary Peters. Peters […]

Jeb Bush has gotten an early start on his path to being 2016’s Mitt Romney. And the first non-Jeb to pull ahead of him is Scott Walker (and possibly Ben Carson, too). It’s the perfect time for Walker to have his moment in the spotlight because no Republican politician better reveals the GOP’s true agenda better than the governor of […]

The first bill introduced in the U.S. Senate this session was a bill to compel the federal government to issue a permit to allow the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. This afternoon, President Obama vetoed it. Here is his veto statement: February 24, 2015 TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES: I am returning herewith without my approval S. […]

With their state Senate debating so-called “Right to Work” legislation this week and their Assembly expected to take it up next week, Wisconsin is poised to become the latest Republican-controlled state to enact the anti-union law. In the weeks and months leading up to Michigan’s passage of right to work legislation, anti-union forces rebranded it as “Freedom to Work”. The […]

As Michigan voters decide whether to approve Proposal 1 in May which will raise the sales tax to fund road repairs, a new study out by the University of Michigan Center for Local, State and Urban Policy (CLOSUP) details just how bad things have gotten. The study, done last fall, shows that only 19% of local leaders say their roads […]

Last summer, Warren mayor James Fouts denied an athiest group the right to have a “Reason Station” in the Michigan city’s City Hall. The Reason Station was athiest Douglas Marshall’s response to a “Prayer Station” the mayor had allowed to set up shop in the City Hall atrium. When denying the permit to Marshall, Fouts compared athiests to the KKK […]

If past experience is any indication, some healthcare services will no longer be available. This is the second in a multi-part series on the rise of Catholic health systems and the impact on patient care. You can read the first post in the series HERE. Refusal to treat patients on religious grounds in Michigan has made national news recently, with […]

Religious doctrine can trump medical standards and interfere with patients’ rights to make their own decisions. If you want to be sure you and the people you love have access to the complete spectrum of healthcare services, you’d better know who owns your hospital. It’s not always obvious, but it’s important. Because one in six hospital beds in the United […]

In the spring of 2011 when I first began sounding the alarm bells at Eclectablog about the undemocratic Emergency Manager legislation that was quickly passed by the newly-elected, Republican-controlled state legislature, I warned that this was not a “Michigan only” problem. I have said repeatedly that Michigan is only the beta testing ground for an agenda and a way of […]