Hello everyone and welcome to the first edition of “This Week in Progress” — or TWIP for you cooler kids out there.
Every Friday, I’ll be doing a wrap up of all the progressive news, blogs and information from the past week that you should probably know about. TWIP will feature legislative updates, a recap of Progress Michigan blog posts and general musings peppered with sarcasm and criticism about the state of progressive politics in Michigan over the past week.
Do you have a suggestion for TWIP? Email me at sam@progressmichigan.org
This week in PM blogging:
Between a rock and a Republican
For once we agree with someone from the Michigan Freedom Fund (crazy right? But don’t expect a pattern here). Their head honcho, Greg McNeilly, was able to marry his longtime partner thanks to Michigan lifting (albeit briefly) the ban on same-sex marriage. As McNeilly said, “It comes back to that crucible of why are we allowing government to regulate matters of the heart. It can’t do it.” Amen to that! But then enters RNC Chairman Dave Agema, whom we’re pretty sure we’ll never agree with, to rain on the wedding day.
He’s got a Cousin the Furniture Business
It pays to have family in high places. For George Snyder — Gov. Rick Snyder’s cousin — that saying applies literally. Thanks to his family connections in the executive branch, Snyder’s cousin got a 115 percent increase in his state contract for furniture. Who needs good schools or quality roads when you have furniture, right?
Everyone and their Momma President support raising the wage
In case you were on vacation under a rock this week, President Barack Obama made an appearance in Ann Arbor on Wednesday to voice his support for raising the minimum wage to $10.10. That’s an issue that is near and dear to our hearts over here at Progress Michigan. Unfortunately, Rick Snyder would rather dole out corporate tax giveaways to corporations that help out average citizens.
Our pals over at Eclectablog also had a great piece on this little nugget of news. What’s the news you ask? Oh not much. Just the fact that Snyder and his conservative cronies carved out special funding to fix potholes in Republican-friendly districts while leaving their Democratic colleagues stuck in a political pothole.
TWIP Clips:
SCOTUS Doubles Down (Doubles Up?)
I’m not even sure what to say about the ruling handed down by the Supreme Court on Wednesday. It’s sad. It’s undemocratic. It puts more power in the hands of those with the cash. I’ll leave you with a piece by Amy Lynn Smith because I just can’t.
There’s Terri Lynn Land…
So Terri Lynn Land finally crawled out of the Koch-funded bunker from where she’s been running her Senate campaign. She managed to finally brave the sunlight — and questions from the media — when delivering her petition signatures to the SOS office.
BTW: Did anyone see her campaign truck? She’s really not interested in winning over the sustainability vote.
What we were treated to was some classic, pre-canned responses to questions from the media. When asked why she was running (a softball question, but still, a legit one), she responded: “Michigan families and Michigan jobs.” Seriously? She might as well have said “Freedom,” dropped the mic and walked away.
Land has barely been in the public eye since announcing her corporate-sponsored bid for Senate candidacy. Her latest (and only?) press call featured some bizarre “off the record” claims from her media person on the Affordable Care Act and she has yet to denounce the low-ball tactics of Right to Life’s attack on Congressman Gary Peters’ daughters.
The Affordable Care Act / Obamacare
Enrollment for the ACA topped out over 7 million just before the enrollment deadline of March 31. Anyone with a brain will tell you that the program has had some hiccups and severe problems, but solid numbers like these show that things are getting better. And here’s what we’ve won thanks to the ACA: Kids can stay on their parents plans until they’re 26, you can’t be turned down for having a pre-existing condition and health plans are becoming more affordable.
Don’t buy the hype from the right: the ACA is working and will only get better. If the ACA achieved free health care, a federal budget surplus and a free kitten for everyone in the country, the folks on the right and in the FOX News boardrooms would still find a problem with it.
Where we’re continuing to find problems is with the right’s ill-faded attempts to create ACA “horror stories,” which are continually being debunked as misleading and void of facts.
There will never be enough room in TWIP to cover everything that deserves coverage, but I think this was a good start to a good thing. Don’t you agree?