A well-planned, strategic vision for Michigan’s only statewide LGBT advocacy group Over the past month, there has been a plethora of great news for the LGBT community both nationally and here in Michigan. Recent polling by PPP shows that a full 70% of Michiganders believe that gay couples should either be allowed to marry or form civil unions. This echoes […]

How can they claim to be fiscally responsible if they’re willing to throw away billions in savings and revenue? If this doesn’t qualify as legislative malpractice, I don’t know what does. At the very least, it’s malfeasance. On Tuesday, the Michigan Senate approved a state budget that did not include Medicaid expansion — even though the expansion is federally funded. […]

Financial Review Team??? We don’t need no stinkin’ financial review team

The Detroit Free Press has obtained copies of the emails between Governor Snyder’s staff and Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr that prove that he was basically offered the position before the financial emergency had even been declared in Detroit. Under Emergency Financial Manager law that was in effect at the time, Public Act 72, a state review team had to make the determination that Detroit was actually in a financial emergency before an Emergency Financial Manager was hired. This detail … sorry – LAW – did not appear to get in the way of Governor Snyder making the assessment himself and hiring Orr before the process had been completed.

All the gory (and illegal) details await you after the jump.

Detroit Love

An anonymous donor stepped up recently and paid the entire $142,000 tax bill for Detroit’s Masonic Temple, allowing it to continue under its current ownership. This week, the Masonic Temple revealed that the generous donor was Detroit’s own Jack White, who has played nine concerts at the Masonic Temple in the past.

Click through for more.

Be there or be conservative

The premier progressive event of the year in Michigan is Progress Michigan‘s Michigan Summit. This impressive conference offers a chance to network, learn and become inspired in your work as a progressive organizer and activist in our state.

This year’s Michigan Summit takes place this Saturday, June 8, 2013 beginning at 8 a.m. at Brody Hall in East Lansing, MI.

The keynote speakers this year are UAW President Bob King and Partnership for Working Families Executive Director Leslie Moody.

Click through for details and links.

How Bush’s brain used the financial crisis Bush left us with and shady tax laws to engineer a decade of dominance for right wing extremists in swing states. There’s nothing that highlights the insanity of the IRS scandal than Karl Rove’s crocodile tears about the IRS even daring to investigate his humble little 501(c)(4) Crossroads GPS. “The group Rove helped […]

Give ’em hell, ladies! Just a week after dogs ravaged and killed goats and chickens at the Catherine Ferguson Academy, the school for pregnant Detroit girls is back in the news. This time the spunky girls who have shown tenacity that rivals any other single group in Detroit are suing the Detroit Public Schools and the charter school that runs […]

One term nerd, indeed

Public Policy Polling has the first Michigan gubernatorial poll out since Mark Schauer declared his candidacy and the news is very, very bad for incumbent governor Rick Snyder. According to PPP, Mark Schauer leads Snyder by four points, a huge margin for someone who is relatively unknown outside of the 7th Congressional District where he once served as Congressman.

More after the jump.

A champion of the people

This Friday, Congressman John Dingell will break Senator Robert Byrd’s record for the longest serving member of Congress having served 57 years and 177 days. He is already the Dean of the House, the longest continuously serving member of the House of Representatives. Although I am in the Congressional district next Congressman Dingell’s, I have gotten to know him well through my community organizing activities with the Washtenaw County Democratic Party. I’m proud to call him and his wife Debbie friends.

In his 57 years in Congress, Congressman Dingell has cast tens of thousands of votes and has been associated with some of the most historical legislation in our country’s history. Every session, he has carried on the tradition first set by his father of introducing legislation to create a single-payer, universal health care system in the United States of America.

Click through for a list of some of the other legislation that bear his mark and much, much more.

This is a public service announcement If you live in Michigan, you should have a look at this video from Fox 47 News about the Giant Hogweed. It’s a huge plant that is cropping up around the state and it can cause serious health problems ranging from skin discoloration to blistering and even blindness. Children and pets are particularly vulnerable. […]

Another one bites the dust Yesterday, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder declared a financial emergency in Hamtramck, Michigan. As I’ve written about before, this will be Round Two for the culturally-diverse city. They had an Emergency Financial Manager, Lou Schimmel, back in 2000 when John Engler was governor. Hamtramck (spelled correctly, pronounced “Ham-TRAM-ick”), is rare in that the city actually asked […]