Commentary
Column: Democrats revive the Equal Rights Amendment from a long legal limbo, face an uphill battle
Democrats in Congress are making a new push to get the long-dormant proposed Equal Rights Amendment enshrined into law. As legislation, it would guarantee sex equality in the Constitution and could serve as a potential legal antidote to the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which removed the federal right […]
Rick Haglund: Post-bankruptcy Detroit needs to get smarter. U of M and MSU are ready to help.
Updated, 7:23 a.m., 7/26/23 Media outlets across the country are assessing Detroit’s progress as the city marked the 10-year anniversary of filing the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history on Tuesday. The results, not surprisingly, are mixed. Detroit’s finances have stabilized and many basic services have been restored. Billions of dollars of development projects have […]
Column: Politicians attempt to make us believe that God wants you to have guns
How many AR-15s do you think Jesus would have had? It’s a question so ludicrous that it seems like a parody, but it’s not. In different times, I might have thought that the question was so preposterous on its face that the average Jesus follower would dismiss it as a statement meant to provoke a […]
Column: Underperforming political journalism and pitfalls of conventional wisdom
Writers covering election politics these days generally do not disclose anything relevant about issues and top candidates. Mostly, they read online speeches and social media posts, view broadcast and YouTube segments, report poll predictions, scan databases and launch wave after wave of commentary. We are drowning in a tsunami of political opinion. There are a scant […]
Column: Joining the fight to protect cost-free preventive health care services
Everyone deserves equal access to the care they need to stay healthy. That is something that we at the Michigan League for Public Policy firmly believe and it is why we have joined the United States of Care and 15 other health advocacy organizations in submitting an amicus brief in the Braidwood Management Inc. v. […]
Dick Polman: Republicans crying over cocaine at the White House have forgotten Jan. 6
What a perfect holiday-week news story, the equivalent of a brainless summer movie. Some clown recently left a small baggie of cocaine in the White House visitors area, thus inspiring various clowns in the MAGA cult (especially the twice-indicted clown) to froth at the mouth. Suddenly they’re all concerned about “security,” which would be laughable […]
Column: When a truth-teller meets misinformation: ‘What you do matters’
After spending a few days in Washington, D.C., recently for an editors conference, I found myself with a few hours before my plane back to Nashville and decided to go to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The museum opened in early 1993; three decades later, it was still packed, and that’s a good thing. […]
Column: Gender-affirming care has a long history in the U.S., and not just for transgender people
In 1976, a woman from Roanoke, Virginia, named Rhoda received a prescription for two drugs: estrogen and progestin. Twelve months later, a local reporter noted Rhoda’s surprisingly soft skin and visible breasts. He wrote that the drugs had made her “so completely female.” Indeed, that was the point. The University of Virginia Medical Center in […]
David Hecker: Michigan students deserve to learn in a healthy environment
As educators and advocates for public schools, we believe in empowering our students with the knowledge and skills they’ll need to succeed and thrive later in life — but we also recognize our responsibility to provide a stable future for young people doesn’t end there. As the chair of the union-led Michigan Green and Health […]
Column: Kids Count Report shines spotlight on America’s faltering childcare system
The burdens that families have been carrying on their shoulders as a result of costly and hard-to-find childcare in our country keep getting heavier, causing too many households to struggle to make ends meet, while also driving people out of the workforce and having a direct impact on child well-being at a critical time in […]
Rick Haglund: Who will win the race to electrification — Detroit automakers or their competitors?
We knew, or should have known, that the transition from gasoline to electricity-fueled vehicles was going to be bumpier than driving down a pothole-strewn Michigan road. The internal combustion engine has powered cars and trucks for more than a century. Shifting to a new power source is the biggest personal mobility transition since the automobile […]
Column: One year into the abortion access crisis, barriers still remain in Michigan
When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade one year ago, it stripped tens of millions of people of the right to make their own medical decisions. At Planned Parenthood of Michigan, we have seen the devastating consequences of this decision firsthand. People across the country are being denied the care they need and […]