Six Candidates Now Poised to Run For Mayor & City Council
by P.D. Lesko
It's February, and in another 60 days or so those in the mood to run for mayor and City Council as Democrats or Republicans will have gone to the City Clerk's office and taken out petitions. Those running as Independents have…
Hoekstra Campaign: “So solly, Charlie. We no want pull ad. Ad gone biral.”
by P.D. Lesko
Michigan's Asian Pacific American Affairs Commission (APAAC) and a state diversity group have been pressuring Michigan Republican Senatorial candidate Pete Hoekstra (below, right) to pull his controversial Super Bowl…
Urban Exile: Poll—88 Percent of American Voters Say Candidates Should Focus on Poverty
by J.D. Berman
Now that we're officially in the 2012 election cycle, candidates for office may want to take note of a new poll on voter attitudes toward poverty and opportunity. According to a survey commissioned by Spotlight on Poverty,…
300 Michigan Science Faculty, Collectively Paid $45M/Year, Sign Letter Protesting Union For Their Grad Assistants
by P.D. Lesko
The bumper sticker is a classic one: If you're against abortion, don't have one. Limiting the rights of others is often mistaken for standing on principle. The University of Michigan graduate student research assistants…
Michigan Backs Financial Scheme of Convicted Felon & Now Taxpayers on the Hook for $18 Million
by P.D. Lesko
Guess what you can get in Michigan for a $10,000 donation to Rick Snyder's campaign? You can get $18,000,000 in state money to bail you out when your project crashes and burns just 10 months after it's launched. You can also…
Pollsters Ask: Get Rid of Michigan’s EM Law? Voters With College Degrees Say “Keep It.”
by P.D. Lesko
Jesse Jackson, Rachel Maddow, Michigan blogger Chris Savage and a host of left-leaning pundits have been punditing and writing themselves blue in the face over the past 10 months since Public Act 4 was passed by the Michigan…
Higher Ed Experts Call President Obama’s ‘College Affordability’ Speech at U of M “political theater of the worst sort”
by P.D. Lesko
President Obama came to Ann Arbor to tell the country that federal aid to colleges should be tied to tuition costs. Federal aid to students would remain untouched, and a cranky Congress would have to pass the President's…
Urban Exile: Lifestyles of the Down and Out—Tent Cities in America
by Erika K.
“To be shelterless and alone in the open country, hearing the wind moan and watching for day through the whole long weary night; to listen to the falling rain, and crouch for warmth beneath the lee of some old barn or rick, or…
Who Are Ann Arbor’s Own 1 Percent? Hint: Many Work for Local Nonprofits & In the Public Sector
The New York Times recently published a feature about the 1 Percent. Reporters Shaila Dewan and Robert Gebeloff write: "Now, the colossal gap between the very rich and everyone else — the 1 percent versus the 99 percent — has become a…
Residents Say “No Go” to Mayor’s Plan To Pay For County-Wide & Regional Transit With City Millage
by P.D. Lesko
The public speaker, an older woman who rides the bus regularly, recounted a conversation with a friend who lives outside of Ann Arbor: "My friend said to me that she wished the AATA buses would run near her house so she could…