Hammering Public Pay
by John Lindstrom
Gongwer News Service
February 26, 2010
To begin with, the “iron law of wages” is not really a law, not a legal law anyway. And economic scholars have never been able to determine which of the gloomy ghouls who founded classical economics — Malthus, Lasalle, Ricardo — first propounded the idea. Even more [...]

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Bridge Blockers
by Jack Lessenberry
February 19, 2010
The Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce, that stalwart defender of private enterprise, wants a new, internationally controlled bridge built between the United States and Canada.
So does Governor Jennifer Granholm, her political opposite, Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, and the governments of Windsor, Ontario and Canada.
This year, we should learn [...]

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Tea Party Hijackers
by Tim Skubick
February 19, 2010
America, they say, is a red and blue country divided between Democrats and Republicans. Now there is unfolding a civil war within the Grand Ole Party that threatens to marginalize the GOP.
Even though the re-election bid of U.S. Senator John McCain out in Arizona appears to have little to [...]

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Blood on the Campaign Trail
by John Lindstrom
Gongwer News Service
February 19, 2010
On Saturday, February 13, when they should have been otherwise engaged in buying flowers and candy for Valentine’s Day, friends and associates of former Governor James Blanchard started getting text messages telling them that Bob Bowman had decided not to seek the Democratic nomination for [...]

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Mike Bouchard Runs
as Straight-Shooting Voice
of Experience

Oakland sheriff says he knows how to get state government back in line

by Susan J. Demas
February 16, 2010
Hurricane Katrina was slamming into New Orleans, [...]

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Radio Reborn
New Formats Give Life to State and Local Issues
by Ari B. Adler
February 16, 2010

The microphones are powered up and the lights are glaring as the program host nods to his political guests. He welcomes them, one by one, to what he describes as a “Today Show-like” [...]

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Citizens United: Is the Sky Really Falling?
by Tom Shields
February 16, 2010
It’s been awhile since a U.S. Supreme Court decision caused a ruckus in the world of politics such as we’ve seen since the Citizens United decision was handed down a few weeks back.
President Obama has led the chorus of attacks on the ruling, saying it [...]

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Maxine Berman Offers Lessons for the Post-Bipartisan Era
New CMU Griffin Chair teaching politics to a new generation
by Eric Freedman
February 16, 2010
Sure, Maxine Berman remains an outspoken, liberal, pro-choice Democratic partisan from Oakland County. It’s hard not to be after 14 years in the [...]

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Summer Scenario

by Craig Ruff
February 16, 2010
The following events are fictional. Only the players are real.
The Detroit Chamber’s Mackinac Policy Conference opens on Wednesday, June 2. Downstate in Lansing, the Big Three (Granholm, Bishop, and Dillon) concede that they are solar years away from hatching a budget deal for 2010-11.
Fed-up business, civic, and association leaders gathered [...]

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Totally Awesome Lobbyists
by Annie Scott
February 16, 2010
Here’s what’s going on in a land far away but not so far apart from the Mitten …
Picture a surfer. What does he (or she) look like? Sound like? Act like?
If you’ve ever seen Fast Times at Ridgemont High, then I’m guessing you’re picturing Jeff Spicoli (quite [...]

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