Fresh off a major embarrassment when his Administration’s secret “Skunk Works” project to defund public education was exposed, Gov. Snyder forced the group into the public eye. State Superintendent Mike Flanagan is now leading the project, and accepting public input on Facebook and through an online survey. We saw earlier this week that Superintendent Flanagan…
Impeaching President Obama for the crime of “Presidenting While A Democrat” has been on the lips of conservatives since early in his first term, for everything from not defending the federal ban on marriage equality in court to just existing. But it’s reached a fever pitch in recent days, as some members of the right-wing…
Last Thursday, the MIRS Capitol newsletter reported that Rep. Pete Lund would be on Off the Record over the weekend defending the plan to gut Michigan’s model auto no-fault system. This would be out of character for Lund, who declined to write an op-ed in the Detroit News defending his bill that would rig Michigan’s…
For many voters in Michigan, yesterday was Election Day. One Senate seat was up for grabs, and it was won by progressive state Rep. Jim Ananich (D-Flint) with over 75 percent of the vote. But far more voters had to decide whether they’d support new money for schools and local governments, which have faced billions…
For the second time since taking control of Lansing, Republican politicians are working to gut Michigan’s model no-fault insurance system. What’s different this time? Rick Snyder is on board with the plan. The Republican plan to gut auto no-fault (known affectionately as “Snydercare” around our office) would fundamentally change how auto insurance works for Michigan…
I have no idea why Rep. Anthony Forlini decided he would write a column about the regular (rich) Americans who were affected by flight delays because of sequestration. But his column in today’s Detroit News missed the mark in more ways than one. Rep. Forlini decided he would try to thread the needle by simultaneously…
Last month, I went on Tony Conley’s radio show on WILS in Lansing to talk about conservative activist Jack Hoogendyk’s shameful lies and scare tactics about Medicaid expansion in Michigan. I predicted to Tony that Hoogendyk would argue with no evidence that the federal government would break its promise to fund Medicaid in the future,…
Occasionally the Mackinac Center digs into their file of donors, finds one who isn’t afraid of having their identity disclosed, and runs a profile on them. One of their recent profiles was interesting, to say the least. In March, they featured a guy named Jack Engelhart, who founded Quality Pool Supply. How was Jack’s pool…
Since last July, it’s been clear that if they retained a slim majority in this legislative session, House Republicans would be totally unmoored, driven by nothing more than a desire to obstruct any legislation aimed at creating jobs, making health care affordable for people who don’t have it paid for by taxpayers, and extracting revenge…
This week we put out a release calling on Gov. Snyder to explain why his Administration was spending taxpayer dollars on sending “right-to-work” fliers to every employer in the state, and bragging on a state website that right-to-work would lead to “greater efficiency and higher potential profits”: This was obviously an admission that the right-to-work law…