ALEC’s War On Kids

Have you heard about the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)? ALEC is funded by big corporations who draft legislation, then hand it to lawmakers to introduce as their own. ALEC is the driving force behind Michigan’s recent taste for privatizing public education through voucher, charter, and cyber schools. They’ve even got a special department devoted…

You reap what you sow

Republicans cut $1 billion from local schools to pay for a $1.8 billion corporate handout that was supposed to create “more and better jobs.” That hasn’t happened. In fact, unemployment is higher than it was at the same point in Jennifer Granholm’s first term, more children are living in poverty, and recently small business owners…

Welcome to Company Town, USA!

The Mackinac Center is a partisan think-tank funded by well-heeled special interests and lobbies to bring free-market principles to Michigan’s government. If you read “free-market principles” and understood it to mean a “corporate-first mentality that benefits their wealthy backers,” then you’re probably already familiar with them. Up until recently, the Mackinac Center benefited from being…

House GOP Just Can’t Get Enough

Last night around 10:00, there was plenty of bipartisan happiness in the House chambers. After Medicaid expansion passed 76-31, some House Democrats even applauded the Republicans for finally dropping their obstructionism and compromising on a program that will deliver affordable healthcare to some 400,000 uninsured Michiganders while saving the state billions. In most states, that’s…

Say Vagina

One year ago today, State Rep. Lisa Brown said “vagina.” She was banned from speaking on the House floor for using the anatomically correct word while standing up against another far-right attack on women’s health. That word started a landslide of support for a woman’s right to choose, and thousands came out to support women’s…

Gov. Snyder: Let them eat cake!

Today, Judge William Collette ordered Gov. Snyder and a DC-based law firm to hand over all documents related to the hiring of Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr. Richard Baird, a contractor paid $100,000 through a private fund supported by secret donors, is even claiming Executive Privilege protections extend to his correspondence with the Snyder administration:…

Based On A Lie

We’ve already covered how anti-choice extremists are dishonestly attempting to get around a veto from Gov. Snyder so they can ban regular health insurance plans from covering abortion. Now they’re taking it a step further, by illegally campaigning in support of their ballot initiative in taxpayer-funded buildings. We obtained a few pictures of Right to…

Ooh, that smell!

Can’t you smell it? That’s the smell of “Skunk Works” being disinfected in Michigan’s hot spring sunshine. We were covered on TV and in the papers. Last week, we made our way to the 2013 Mackinac Policy Conference with a skunk costume and a giant paper mache Rick Snyder head. Our mission was to let Michiganders…