Sometimes ya just gotta laugh The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) has put together a website that tells the story of Detroit’s financial crisis. While most of what your read these days is peril and gloom and desperation, AFSCME has taken a more light-hearted approach, telling the story using humorous animated GIFs. It’s called “GIFtroit” and, […]

The GOP’s obsession with crushing the poor could create more economic woes. Which seems to be just what they want. Today on NPR’s “The Takeaway,” I heard Republican U.S. Representative Lynn Westmoreland (GA) say the economic recovery is so slow “I don’t know how much worse we could hurt it.” Actually, there’s plenty Republicans could do to hurt the economic […]

This must be the “great progress” Donald Trump was talking about… As I mentioned yesterday, Donald Trump was all “Heckuva job, Ricky” on Twitter a couple of days ago, complimenting Governor Snyder on Michigan’s “great progress”. I’m thinking he wasn’t aware that today the Michigan Department of Technology, Management & Budget would be announcing that, for the third month in […]

Vasectomies: Harming society since … wait. WHAT?!? I have written in the past about Jayne Rowse and April DeBoer, a Michigan couple who is suing the state to allow them, as a lesbian couple, to adopt each other’s children. When they brought their case before U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman, he encourage them to challenge Michigan’s ban on same-sex marriages […]

The GOP: Willing to risk your job and your retirement to make sure you don’t get health insurance. First of all, let’s be honest about what the “Defund Obamacare” wing of the GOP is doing. They lost the 2012 election, which was in large part part about Obamacare, and in protest of that election they’re threatening a depression if the […]

Aren’t there laws against false advertising??? Yesterday, I published a piece titled “Debunking the Republican lie that health insurance costs have skyrocketed under Obama”. In it, I showed how the right is telling outright lies about the rate of cost increases of health insurance under President Obama. In that piece, I missed something. The GOP is claiming that the cost […]

You’re on a roll, Governor Snyder [Caricature by DonkeyHotey from photos by Anne C. Savage for Eclectablog] Governor Snyder has scored the coveted Birther endorsement with this tweet last night from Donald Trump: Michigan has made great progress under Snyder-Calley. @MIGOP is out early energizing the grassroots. Keep it up! #JoinMITeam — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 16, 2013 Every […]

Strike three, governor. You are out. Rick Snyder got some good news in polling this week with an EPIC-MRA poll showing him up eight points, 44-36, over Democrat Mark Schauer. This is a big swing from the 39-38 result from last spring but not entirely unexpected given Snyder’s attempts to seem reasonable and moderate by signing Medicaid expansion into law. […]

It’s a great deal. But it could have been even better. Don’t get me wrong. I’m elated that Medicaid expansion is finally the law in Michigan after an official signing ceremony with Governor Rick Snyder today. I just wish the actual benefits would start sooner. The good news is that nearly half a million Michigan residents will now have access […]

Maybe they just have trouble with math? The GOP has taken a new tack in its endless and expensive effort to derail the Affordable Care Act. Recently they have been sending out an email that says, “Since President Obama took office, the average family has seen their health care premiums increase by $3,500 a year…ObamaCare enrollment doesn’t start until October […]

Treating people with this level of disdain will lead to no good end [Photo by Anne C. Savage, special to Eclectablog] Last week on Wednesday, September 11th, during a 90+ degree heat wave and just two days after an escaped prisoner terrorized the city, Detroit Chief Compliance Officer Gary Brown intentionally and without notice cut power to major buildings in […]