From chairperson Lavora Barnes

On Thursday, Democrats celebrated unity heading into the November election with an historic event: a massive fundraiser which brought together three great presidents: Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Together they represent 20 years of leadership that moved America forward. 

The unity of the 3 Presidents was a reminder of the lack of Republican unity. Donald Trump is running without the support of much of his party’s leadership. He does not have the endorsement of President Bush, nor does he have the support of any of the living former GOP Vice Presidents: Dan Quayle, Dick Cheney and Mike Pence. Add to that the long list of more than two-dozen Trump cabinet members and White House staff who will not endorse him. Some are actively opposing him.

One of many reasons for that contrast is the philosophy behind the campaigns. 

Donald Trump is running to benefit Donald Trump. His two goals:

* Stay out of prison, and

* Make money for Donald Trump

His fundraising is all about him, a lot of it to cover his $100-million-and-growing personal legal bills. He has side hustles to make him wealthier, constantly hawking everything from sneakers to perfume and even Bibles with the profits going into his pocket. His TruthSocial is likely his next business to go bankrupt, but his cult members are pushing the short-term stock price to ridiculous levels which brings huge profits to Trump.

Despite all that wealth, he won’t pay his own legal bills.

At the fundraising event Thursday, Presidents Biden, Obama and Clinton had a different take on the presidency and why they served: the ability to make life better for Americans.

The fundraiser was historic in that it raised more than $25-million in one night for not just the Biden campaign, but to support Democrats up and down the ticket.

Trump has a fundraiser this week where he says he’ll raise more money. Maybe he will. But we know one winner from the event will be Trump himself. He’s staging the event at his Palm Beach club, and you can be sure he’s collecting a hefty rental and catering fee for the night … more money to line his pocket.

One of the commitments I had when I first became your party chair was to work in every county to earn every vote. This month, we will move closer to that goal with our first Michigan Rural Summit. It is being organized by the MDP’s Rural Caucus. On this week’s podcast we hear from caucus chair Mark Ludwig about the Summit.

Mark was born and raised in Michigan. His youth was spent assisting his father during the early days of the environmental movement, studying Great Lakes water birds affected by industrial pollution. He settled in Allegan County, founding a small beef farm in Clyde Township in 2005 with his wife Kim. Mark served on the Fennville Public School Board, Clyde Township Planning Commission and currently serves on the Allegan Conservation District Board of Directors. Mark graduated from Michigan State with a degree in Environmental Issues and has a Short Course Degree from UW Madison in Grass Based Dairy.

In the News

Michigan Politics

* Major shift in Biden-Trump swing state polling, including Michigan – mlive.com

* Video – MIGOP lawmaker claims buses at airport full of “illegal invaders,” but they carried NCAA teams – CNN

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From chairperson Lavora Barnes –

Saturday marked the 14th anniversary of the signature achievement of the Obama administration: enactment of the Affordable Care Act, a. k. a. “Obamacare.” Republicans rampaged against the legislation, calling it the potential death knell for the U.S. healthcare system, raising the spectre of government “death panels” deciding who lives and who dies, and predicting it would mean you could no longer choose your doctors.

President Obama fought for the law knowing it could mean he’d be a one-term President. Today in America, the Affordable Care Act is more popular than ever, and coverage is more affordable than ever.

There are more than 100 million Americans — friends, family, neighbors, people you love — who can no longer be denied coverage because of a preexisting condition. More than 45 million Americans have health coverage thanks to the Affordable Care Act and millions of seniors have lower prescription drug costs. The Biden administration is expanding the benefits of the ACA with the new ability of Medicare to negotiate prescription costs.

The law has special meaning in Michigan, and the legacy of the Dingell family. The first national healthcare bill was introduced in 1943 by Congressman John Dingell Senior. After his death, the law was reintroduced every session on his birthday by his son, John Dingell Junior. When President Obama signed the law in 2009, John Dingell was seated next to the President and presented with the first pen used to make the law official.

In a hot-mike moment, Vice President Biden famously called it, “a big blanking deal.” It still is.

But if Donald Trump and extreme MAGA Republicans in Congress get their way, they will gut the Affordable Care Act and rip away health care from millions — just like they tried to do in 2017.

As we approach the fall election, it’s important to remember that ALL of the Republican U.S. Senate candidates are enemies of the ACA. Mike Rogers, Peter Meijer, Sandy Pensler, and Justin Amash have all vowed to gut the Affordable Care Act which would result in millions of Michiganders being denied health care access and increase costs for families.

During the most recent enrollment period, more than 418,000 Michiganders signed up for affordable health care coverage. A repeal of the Affordable Care Act means “1.3 million Michiganders would lose their insurance and about 1.8 million with pre-existing health conditions could lose critical protections.”

Saturday was also a special anniversary for 323 Michigan families. It was their 10th wedding anniversary. Theirs were the first same-sex weddings in Michigan history. It’s also a part of the legacy of Attorney General Dana Nessel. In 2014, Nessel successfully argued for the plaintiffs in DeBoer v. Snyder, which challenged Michigan’s ban on the statewide legal recognition of same-sex marriage; the case was eventually combined with others and appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States as Obergefell v. Hodges, which led to the nationwide legal recognition of same-sex marriage. Another benefit of that legal effort: Nessel met her wife Alanna Maguire while they were both working on the case. She proposed to Maguire in 2015 outside of the United States Supreme Court. 

This week will be remembered for the enactment of another pro-family law: a statute protecting surrogacy births, and in vitro fertilization. We’re joined by the sponsor of the new law, Representative Samantha Steckloff. The bills are a long overdue win for reproductive rights and would-be parents who can’t conceive on their own. They not only safeguard the rights of biological parents, but also prioritize the protection and the reproductive freedom of those surrogates.

Representative Steckloff is serving her second term representing Michigan’s 19th House District.

From the chair

RESULTS

Government is supposed to work to improve our lives. We measure our public officials by results. Under Joe Biden and Gretchen Whitmer, we’re getting results.

Three years ago this week, President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act into law. There’s an excellent report on what that has brought Michigan in the current edition of the online publication The Gander.

Among the highlights:

300,000 jobs added to Michigan’s economy

The unemployment rate dropped from 6.5% in 2021 and has kept at 4% for the last 14 months.

A surge in new businesses. According to US Chamber of Commerce data, nearly 150,000 small business applications were filed in the state in 2023.

Tax relief for families. In Michigan, families of nearly 1.9 million children benefited from tax relief in 2021—with more than 1.1 million families receiving $3,000 or $3,600 per child, depending on their age. The legislation also enabled Michigan families earning less than $125,000 to get back up to half of what they spent on child care while working or studying, saving up to $8,000 for two children.

An expansion to the federal Earned Income Tax Credit also benefited 600,000 workers in Michigan in 2021, providing up to $1,500 in tax relief to those without dependent children. The Whitmer administration added to that savings by repealing the Snyder Administration cuts to the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit.

Michigan received more than $1.1 billion in federal funding to be used for rental and utility assistance. State officials said more than 250,000 applications were received, with more than 130,000 approved—an average of about $5,600 in aid for each household. Additional funding was designed to help low- and middle-income homeowners who fell behind on their bills.

The American Rescue Plan Act  also expanded health care coverage through the Affordable Care Act (ACA)—ensuring more middle-income families in Michigan were eligible for low- or no-cost insurance, and providing key incentives for states to expand Medicaid.

The law’s subsidies—which were reauthorized as part of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022—led to record-breaking sign-ups for ACA plans this year. More than 418,000 Michiganders) enrolled in plans for 2024. 

More than $15 billion in ARPA funds have been dedicated to public safety, with investments by over 1,000 state and local governments to avoid cuts to police budgets, hire more cops, upgrade equipment for first responders, and expand community violence intervention programs. 

Governor Whitmer campaigned on a promise to “Fix the Damn Roads”. She’s keeping that promise with massive repairs underway or completed across Michigan. Legislators are working on expanding road repairs to local streets.

From the chair

“Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”

                                  — Ronald Reagan (10-28-1980)

One thing some politicians rely on during their campaigns: how time weakens our memory. It’s a tactic that Donald Trump’s campaign is using: hoping Americans don’t remember just how bad things were four years ago. 

Do Americans Have a ‘Collective Amnesia’ About Donald Trump? – The New York Times

For the first half of his term, Trump rode the wave of the 8-year Obama economic recovery. But by the end of Trump’s turn, that wave quickly disappeared thanks to his bungled non-response to the COVID pandemic. Let’s go back four years and revisit the reality Donald Trump would have us forget:

March, 2020

Unemployment was at 4.4 percent. But a month later, it was a staggering 14.8 percent. By the time Trump left office, his four-year record was the loss of 3-million jobs: the worst jobs number for a President since Herbert Hoover. This week, the monthly jobs report showed another 275,000 Americans were employed. Unemployment has been under 4 percent for a record 39 months … dating back to the beginning of the Biden administration.

March, 2020

A total of 80 U.S. cases of COVID had been reported. At the White House, Trump told Bob Woodward in private that he knew COVID was extremely deadly and highly contagious. 

But he told the nation that his administration had it under control, and that the virus would disappear in a matter of weeks. His administration offered nothing but happy-talk.

Nearly 1,200,000 Americans have died from COVID. And our economy began to shut down from the pandemic. Hospitals in many cities, including Detroit and Lansing, were jammed to capacity by COVID cases.  We had nationwide shortages of personal protective equipment: N95 masks, respirators, protective clothing and even exam gloves. Worldwide supply chains were disrupted, setting the stage for a logjam in the supply chain that would disrupt our economy for three years.

To his credit, Trump pushed the development of the first COVID vaccines…but he didn’t put in place a plan for getting the vaccine to the people.

Joe Biden came into office with the goal of getting 100-million Americans vaccinated within 100 days. They did it in 58 days. Nearly half the U.S. population was vaccinated within the first 6 months. It was the beginning of the end of the pandemic. COVID no longer threatened to shut down America.

March 2020

In world affairs, Trump had already seriously damaged our standing in the world. U.N. delegates literally laughed at him during his 2018 speech to the General Assembly. NATO was on the verge of falling apart due to Trump’s open hostility to the alliance that had kept the peace in Europe for 60 years. And Trump’s open admiration for autocrats – Putin, China’s Xi, Hungary’s Victor Orban (a guest at Mar-A-Lago just this week), Turkey’s Racip Ergogan and North Korea’s Kim Jung Un – was a slap in the face to democracies across the world.

Today, the NATO alliance has been strengthened by the addition of Sweden and Finland: two nations sharing a border with Putin’s Russia. NATO is united in its support for Ukraine, with every nation contributing to the war against Putin’s aggression. World leaders once again respect our nation and its leader.

So: in answer to Reagan’s question, the answer is

Yes! Under the leadership of Joe Biden, this nation is far better off now than it was 4 years ago.

Trump will do his best to make us think otherwise, but he has no choice. He was a disaster as President, and his return to office would be devastating.

The State of the Union

President Biden’s State of the Union address.

From the chair

“Chaos”

It’s the ongoing story of Republicans running to succeed Debbie Stabenow in the United States Senate. Their story got even more muddled this week with the announcement by ultra-right-wing former Congressman Justin Amash that he was joining the circular firing squad. Michigan Republicans’ brutal infighting is getting nastier by the day. Their caustic showdown will leave them with a badly damaged nominee who is out of touch with Michigan families. Amash has an extensive record of leaving Michiganders behind: supporting dangerous abortion bans, vowing to gut health care access, and backing the 2017 tax giveaway to the wealthy and large corporations.

In the meantime, the other Senate wannabes focused on slamming each other:

Sandy Pensler and Mike Rogers engaged in website wars, with each redirecting Michiganders visiting mikerogersforsenate.com and electsandypensler.com to attacks on their opponent’s record. 

Roger Stone, a Trump ally, took aim at Rogers for being a “blatant fraud” who “voters need to be leery of.” 

Stone slammed Rogers for “leaving his home state of Michigan in the dust,” making nearly $2 million in the past two years alone, living in a $1.5 million Cape Coral mansion, and only moving back to Michigan “a few months before announcing his U.S. Senate run.”

Donald Trump continued to complicate Republicans’ bid to win the Senate seat. In response to a question if he’d pardon Trump, Rogers said it’s in the “country’s best interest not to go through that nonsense.” He went on to say that Trump’s New York civil fraud case showed “two tiers of justice.” 

Pensler bashed “career politicians” Rogers and Meijer, saying that most of the country’s problems were due to them “being unwilling to take on hard decisions because they’re afraid of losing their jobs.”

Grab your popcorn and pull up a chair. When millionaires Pensler, Rogers and Meijer start spending their vast personal funds you can count on the political bloodbath moving to your television.

All of this stands in stark contrast to the long history of our guest on this week’s podcast. Debbie Stabenow has always run on a forward-thinking platform of progress for Michigan, and the voters have endorsed that approach to campaigns time after time. Senator Stabenow symbolizes the very best in public service. Beginning as an Ingham County Commissioner, she has served the people of Michigan for nearly 50 years: state representative, state senator, Congresswoman and, for the last 23 years as our United States Senator.

In the News

Michigan Politics

* Mike Rogers tries to ...