“Planned Parenthood is not going anywhere”

President Obama delivered remarks to the national Planned Parenthood conference today. He had been scheduled to deliver them earlier in the week but, instead, delayed his speech to spend more time with the victims of the explosion in West, Texas. When it was announced that his original speech was cancelled, the anti-Choice group Susan B. Anthony List declared victory (as did others).

They were, of course, quite wrong.

Details and a full transcript of his speech after the jump.

It’s about opposing Obamacare from every possible angle.

Considering all the shenanigans in the Michigan legislature lately, you might have forgotten about Michigan Senate Bill 136, the “Religious Liberty & Moral Conscience Protection Act.” Well, I haven’t — and I hope you won’t, either. It could come up for a vote in the Senate at any time and we need to let our Senators know this bill does not represent the will of most Michiganders, including many in the healthcare field.

As I wrote here previously, the bill would give healthcare providers, facilities and insurers the right to refuse to provide or cover “objectionable” healthcare services on religious or moral grounds. But the bill is alarmingly vague, opening the door to discrimination and refusal to provide care to almost anyone, for almost any reason.

Worst of all, there are no genuine protections for patients in this bill. Those are even more vague because the bill isn’t about patient care at all. It’s about legislators and a vocal minority who want to put up roadblocks to anything even remotely related to Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act.

Click through for more.

The State of Michigan is in a weird state

A collection of stories about Detroit, Flint and the jaw-dropping stuff happening in these two cities.

Click through for the Full Monty.

By ‘Bill of Rights’ they mean the 2nd and 10th amendments One of the most ridiculous arguments made during the debate about background checks was, “Why pass new laws? Criminals won’t follow them anyway. Stick to legislating against those who actually listen — like gays and women.” This isn’t an argument against a particular law — it’s an argument against […]

Bonnie Duncan deserves your support

Last week, Alex Showerman from Democracy for America did a guest post about DFA’s scholarship program to the Netroots Nation conference every year.

Many esteemed activists have received scholarships over the years and I typically promote the candidacy of one or two of them. This year I’m asking you to give one of your votes to Bonnie Duncan, a former Michigander now living in Vermont and running a health food store. Why? Click through to find out.

Reclaiming Abraham Lincoln’s progressive legacy from today’s Republican Party

Next Saturday from 5:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m., the Lapeer County Democratic Party will have their annual Spaghetti Dinner Fundraiser. Anne and I have been invited to speak to the attendees and we’re both really looking forward to it. In addition, Anne has assembled a 30-minute slideshow of some of her best photos, a “greatest hits” album, if you will, that we’ll be showing for at least part of the time.

Details and printable flyer after the jump.

I had a terrific conversation with Tony Trupiano last week on Night Shift with Tony Trupiano talking about the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, the State Policy Network and Lee Fang’s terrific article on the corporate front groups that are shaping our public policy and laws.

You can listen to it after the jump.

After spending time reading and writing and thinking about the post I put up earlier, “Michigan Republicans stealing bills introduced by Democrats to deny them legislative victories”, I ended up in a funk. I realized that there are actually some areas of common ground between our legislative Democrats and Republicans. They actually DO agree on some things and on some good legislation.

But the politics in this state (and elsewhere, too, I’m sure) have become so toxic that our politicians are fighting to get credit for anything that could be described as “good”. They are so intent on pandering to their constituents and making sure “the other guys” don’t get credit for anything positive that they will steal each others legislation.

More after the jump.

If you can’t win on your own ideas, steal someone else’s

Michigan Republicans have made it patently clear that they have no intention of letting Democrats score any legislative victories whatsoever. In the recent House appropriations legislation debates, for example, Democrats introduced over 70 amendments and every single one of them was shot down by the House Republicans. But even Republicans don’t think that EVERY idea that Democrats have is a bad one. It’s just not something they want the rest of Michigan to believe. So, in order to deny Democrats any legislative victories in the current session, Republicans have begun using an approach that I haven’t heard of before: introducing legislation that is identical to a bill that was introduced by a Democrat and then supporting that one instead.