How Many Jobs Will It Take?

How many jobs created and saved by the federal jobs program will it take to nudge the far right into action? Hopefully, it’s just 280,000. That’s the number of construction jobs saved and created by the first wave of President Obama’s federal jobs program. But the way extreme conservatives tell the story, the jobs program…

Can We Talk?

You know how sometimes the far right will accuse the President of attempting to ram legislation down their throats instead of listening to their feedback and involving them in a bipartisan conversation in order to pass, say, meaningful health care reform legislation? And you know how sometimes you know they’re just grandstanding about that but…

Behind the Kitchen Door

If you had to guess — hint, you have to — what would you bet is the nation’s largest private sector employer? Wrong. It’s actually the restaurant industry. And while the industry is employing lots of folks, they’re not making much money (think under $13K annually), there are few health benefits, and the working conditions…

Hey, Mike Bishop!

Like most Michiganders, I have watched as your last round of “reforms” contributed to growing hardships and deficits in schools, more of our needy getting sick and dying for lack of health care services, and public safety being slashed, all so you can claim to have never raised taxes on Michigan’s hard working families. But…

Big Lizards

Remember that scene in “Jurassic Park” when the glass of water begins to ripple moments before the Tyrannosaurus Rex bursts through the park? The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality’s recent decision to grant Consumers Energy an air quality permit for a proposed coal-fired power plant is another ripple forecasting the imminent danger to clean energy…

Michael Steele, World Expert

Ladies and gentlemen, climate change is shaping up to be the battle of the century, the millennium, and probably the history of the planet. This fight is bigger than the aching, brokenhearted Rocky Balboa taking down ‘roid-ridden boxing-bot Ivan Drago and, ultimately, Communism. Drago, in a lot of ways, is eerily representative of the Climate…

My Twitter-esque Christmas List

All I wanted for Christmas, besides for Nebraska defensive lineman Ndamukong Suh to win the Heisman (#defensewinschampionships #offensewinstrophies), was to be able to enter a bar without coughing (#smokingbanforthewin). While Mark Ingram went home with the trophy, I did get my smoking ban. Since I’m batting .500, I’ll go ahead and revise my list and…