The only thing we have to fear is … heartless Republicans The U.S. Senate has passed legislation that would extend unemployment benefits for 1.3 million Americans who saw it run out due to Congressional inaction in December of 2013. The bill extends the Emergency Unemployment Compensation program which provides additional weeks of benefits after state-based unemployment benefits come to an […]

Rick Snyder the MINO: Moderate in Name Only Today, the Michigan Chapter of the Sierra Club released a scorecard rating Governor Rick Snyder on his record regarding energy, environment, good government and related issues. Spoiler alert: He failed. Miserably. He received a rating of 25%. The Scorecard includes 32 key decisions made by Gov. Snyder on environmental issues including 25 […]

Republicans fear their anti-poverty message could cloud their pro-poverty message The Washington Examiner’s Bryon York wants to know why some high-profile Republicans — Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Mike Lee — have decided to tell people that they care about poverty now. He’s not wondering this because the GOP doesn’t actually have a anti-poverty agenda or because these […]

Comeback state? Ferreals? The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its November unemployment numbers and, for the first time since May, Michigan’s number went down. To 8.8%. Almost 2 points above the national average of 7.0%. Here’s how our numbers have tracked the national average since late 2010 (November data not included): You can play with this graph yourself HERE. The […]

They hate it when you call them on their hypocrisy Yesterday I posted a tweet that went pretty viral on Twitter and on Facebook. Anne worked her magic and, by the afternoon, it had become this meme which went even more viral: Last evening, journalist E.J. Dionne retweeeted it (and again this morning). This caused all manner of self-described libertarians […]

Republicans can’t let the Tea Party catch them caring about the unemployed. UPDATE: Land came out for the extension right before the Senate’s first procedural vote on the bill, which surprisingly passed with 6 Republican votes. Last weekend, 43,800 Michiganders who have been out of work for more than 5 months lost their unemployment insurance. If Congress doesn’t act 86,500 […]

Every Friday I’m posting the latest enrollment figures for the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) here at Eclectablog. Full details can be viewed daily at ACASignups.net. I won’t rehash how crazy things have been for me lately. Anyone who’s been following me knows that in the past 10 days I’ve been linked to, cited or featured in stories ranging from Forbes to […]

They think you’re stupid and gullible. Don’t prove them right. In February of 2012, I penned a piece titled “The tax timebomb that explodes in Michigan in 2012 is MUCH worse than you thought”. In it, I showed how Michigan Republicans raised taxes on over half of the people in our state. Worse than that, the brunt of the tax […]

The state is bleeding money because Senate Republicans refused to give Medicaid expansion immediate effect. The Michigan Republican senators who voted against giving Medicaid expansion immediate effect have lost the right to call themselves “fiscal conservatives.” Fiscal cons is more like it, because they only care about Michigan’s financial well-being when it suits their political ideology. Now, courtesy of the […]

Bigot is as bigot does Anti-marriage equality bigots in Utah have asked the Supreme Court to halt same-sex marriages in their state after a federal judge found their statewide ban unconstitutional. Since the decision, same sex couples have been getting married in droves. The petitioners today described each of these marriages this way: Each one, the state said in its […]

Listicle this 2013 was a big — no, a HUGE — year for Eclectablog. Although we had more visitors in 2012 thanks to the presidential election, we experienced tremendous growth in 2013. In May, we brought on the extraordinarily gifted writer Amy Lynn Smith. Her coverage of health care issues and women’s issues has been stellar and she’s brought a […]