Nothing crass or pandering about that… In typical Republican fashion, Gov. Snyder is proposing an election year tax cut that barely covers one trip to the grocery store. It appears that, after doing the math, he’s determined that he can buy your vote for $75. Roughly 1.3 million Michigan taxpayers could be in line for a rebate check averaging $75 […]

Something more important going on than revelations that your district is failing Detroit students? Given the turmoil that has rocked the Education Achievement Authority since teachers have begun speaking out about the outrageous teaching conditions and learning environment in EAA schools, you would think the district’s Executive Board and Board of Directors would have plenty of business to attend to […]

This week, the Ann Arbor Education Association will be sponsoring a forum on the Governor Snyder’s failed education experiment known as the Education Achievement Authority. I will be speaking at the event and participating in the panel discussion along with Wayne State University professor Thomas Pedroni, State House Rep. Jeff Irwin, Eastern Michigan University professor Christopher Robbins, and others. The […]

All photos by Anne C. Savage, special to Eclectablog President Barack Obama traveled to East Lansing, Michigan yesterday to sign the federal farm bill into law. Last updated in 2008, the bill in its current form has been worked on for four years. Much of the wrangling was contentious and no topic was as contentious as its impact on the […]

No interview write-up today, though I’m actually doing an interview. The interviews take 2-3 hours to write up so I’m taking a break. However, I thought I’d share a few odds and ends that I’ve learned over the past couple of weeks that haven’t, at least so far, made it into the pieces I’ve done on the Education Achievement Authority. […]

Michigan RNC candidate calls for the ‘purging’ of gays from the GOP First, we had a a Republican National Committee member from Michigan saying that Vladimir Putin’s anti-gay propaganda laws were “common sense.” When Dave Agema paired that insight with an anti-Muslim post, his colleagues stopped cheering him on and realized that he could blow the millions the Kochs are […]

If you want to position yourself as an alternative to Tea Party zealot Rep. Kerry Bentivolio, maybe associating with Donald Trump isn’t the best idea. We’re judged by the company we keep, and Republican Congressional candidate David Trott is making his allegiances known. The latest report from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) shows plenty of contributions to Trott for Congress, […]

Another win for the good guys… The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan today granted a motion to reopen the lawsuit filed by the Sugar Law Center and others against Michigan officials challenging the constitutionality of Public Act 436, Michigan’s undemocratic Emergency Manager Law. From their press release: The Court’s order follows three orders from the […]

NOTE: My reporting on the Education Achievement Authority involves multiple posts. You can read all of my coverage of the EAA by clicking HERE. One of the questions that I have asked during the course of my reporting on Governor Snyder’s Education Achievement Authority (EAA) is, “Why would you create something that seems designed to fail?” One answer is that […]

This past week a federal report came out saying the carbon emissions will not be increased by allowing the Keystone XL pipeline to run through the USA. This will rejuvenate efforts by the Big Oil proponents of the pipeline to keep up their political pressure. But this argument has, in my opinion, never been about increased carbon emissions. It’s about […]

FACT: Obamacare only gives subsidies to families that are WORKING. When the sober, affable E.J. Dionne complains that our health care debate is “stupid,” you know things gotten silly. The right’s fear-mongering of a totalitarian takeover of the 2009-2010 gave way to the theoretical job-killing of 2011-2013. When Obamacare’s open enrollment arrived with the best job growth in half a […]