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(Posted May 4) Having set a new all-time record for Michigan park visitations in 2015, could things actually get better for the state’s iconic Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore? Well, maybe the naming of a new superintendent with impeccable credentials, brand-new from the West Coast. He’s Scott Tucker, who for the past the three years […]

(Posted April 29) Michigan’s three top political leaders scored poorly in a pair of polls released this week. Gov. Rick Snyder and U.S. Senators Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow all fall short of “meeting the mark,” any way you look at it. Political insiders across Michigan increasingly feel that Snyder’s ultimate legacy will be “irreparably […]

(Posted April 28) Maybe, and apparently it will take a federal judge, or court, to decide the question. The president of the Michigan AFL-CIO, Ron Bieber, has called a new law passed by the Michigan Legislature and signed by Gov. Rick Snyder “unfair, unconstitutional and downright un-American.” Four unions, including Bieber’s, have filed suit in […]

(Posted April 24) Among all aspirants in open (non-incumbent) races for various Michigan judgeships this year, two get the top prize — John Economopoulos of Escanaba, an  attorney in private practice, and Macomb Co. Probate Judge Carl Marlinga. How so? Well, each is running UNOPPOSED for a full six-year term on a Circuit Court with […]

(Posted April 24) Now that the April 19 filing deadline has come and gone, there are a lot of candidates running for a lot of offices in Michigan. In fact, over 8,000 of them, more than in any other state in the country, right down to the level of township trustee and local school and […]

By Bob LaBrant, Senior Counsel at the Sterling Corporation (Posted April 20) April 1, 2020 is the next census day in the United States. We are now less than four years away from the 24th decennial head count in our nation’s history. Data from the 2020 census will be used to redraw Congressional, state senate, […]

(Reposted April 23) Paul Rozycki, retired Mott Community College professor, wrote the following article in the April issue of East Village magazine: “As Flint works its way through the water crisis, the range of problems seems overwhelming. Every time it looks like we’ve solved one problem, another rears its head. “At first it seemed that […]

(Posted April 12) To declare that Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has been “embattled” during the past six months is an understatement of the first “water.” Snyder has been vilified by the ‘usual suspects’ among his political enemies — Democrats, liberals, progressives, union activists — over the Flint “water crisis.” But he’s also taken a beating […]

(Posted April 12) Actor Sean Astin, best-known for his film roles as Samwise Gamgee in “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, as Mikey Walsh in “The Goonies” and the title character of “Rudy,” talked to a Flint audience of nearly 300 last week about his late mother Patty Duke’s lifelong struggle with bi-polar disorder. Duke won […]

(Reposted April 11) Michigan Republicans convened in the Lansing Center April 8-9 (well, some of the district caucuses huddled in the nearby Radisson Hotel Friday night) to select their delegates and alternates to the GOP National Convention in Cleveland this coming July; elect their National Committeeman and Committeewoman for the next four years; and approve […]