(ANTIMEDIA) — Bawitdaba…It looks like it’s happening. The rumors started Wednesday afternoon after self-proclaimed American bad-ass, Kid Rock, posted a brief but politically breathtaking message to his Twitter account:
“I have had a ton of emails and texts asking me if this website is real… http://kidrockforsenate.com The answer is an absolute YES.”
On Thursday, Kalamazoo professor, Berniecrat and environmental activist, Paul Clements, announced that he's going to seek the Democratic nomination for the southwest Michigan congressional seat that's been occupied by hereditary plutocrat Fred Upton since... wait for it-- 1986! This is a swing district Obama won (53-45%) in 2008 and lost narrowly (50-49%) to home-stater Mitt Romney in 2012 but which the DCCC never contests. Last cycle Clements managed to raise $1,151,980 to go up against the $2,497,208 Upton raised.
I met Patrick Dunstone last cycle when he was working to defeat rubber stamp Republican Mike Bishop in his Michigan district. Bishop beat some weak DCCC recruit, Suzanna Shkreli, a 29 year old Macomb County assistant prosecutor who only managed to win 39.2% of the vote, seriously underperforming Hillary, who seriously underperformed Obama.
Last year the most winnable Republican-held seat in Michigan was the 11th district, cut out of Oakland and Wayne counties northwest of Detroit and Dearborn. It carefully skirts Pontiac but stretches awkwardly from Troy and Birmingham in the east to Novi and Livonia to the west. Trump didn’t do as well as Romney did but he narrowly beat Hillary, 49.7% to 45.3% in the district.
Drinking fountains are marked “Do Not Drink Until Further Notice” at Flint Northwestern High School in Flint, Mich. . (AP/Carolyn Kaster)
Last week, Michigan’s top prosecutor announced that five officials, including the state’s Health Department head Nick Lyon, will face charges of involuntary manslaughter for a death resulting from the Flint water crisis.
-by NoahWay to go Nick Lyon! Who, you might ask, is Nick Lyon?
State Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris, R-, right, and other senators bow their heads during the prayer before the Senate floor session in Nashville, Tenn., April 16, 2015. (AP/Erik Schelzig)
The entire Sixth Circuit heard debate Wednesday over the constitutionality of a Michigan county’s practice of opening board meetings with a commissioner-led prayer, after the court vacated a three-judge panel’s ruling against the prayer and agreed to decide the case en banc.
What happens in Haiti doesn’t stay in Haiti. Sooner or later, it comes to places like Michigan’s Benton Harbor and Flint. Our destinies are linked. Zbigniew Brzezinski, a Polish aristocrat who long puppeteered United States presidents from behind the curtains, has written: “America is too democratic at home to be autocratic abroad. This limits the use of America’s power, especially its capacity for military intimidation.” I concur.
Flint resident and founder of Water You Waiting For, Melissa Mays.
FLINT — For nearly three years, the residents of Flint, Michigan, a city located just 70 miles north of Detroit, have had contaminated water running through their pipes, poisoned by lead and other dangerous metals. The crisis began when local authorities decided to switch the city’s main water source in April 2014, choosing to pull water from the notoriously polluted Flint River in the interest of saving money.
