Joshua Pugh

Recent Actions

• Posted Not Even One to Progress Michigan
  As has been reported on multiple times already, the most notable thing about the way Republicans passed so-called “right-to-work” laws in Michigan was the speed and lack of any public input. But as time goes by, giving reporters a chance...
• Posted Missing the Mark to Progress Michigan
    This weekend, Nate Silver published an analysis of the most and least accurate pollsters of the 2012 Presidential race. The competition was stiff - but the notorious Baydoun Consulting was the third worst in the country, with an average...
• Posted No Mandate to Progress Michigan
  A favorite trick of Republican pundits and hacks after President Obama’s election (in 2008 and 2012) is to discredit him as illegitimate, or lacking a mandate. In 2008, they blamed ACORN. This year, they’re already blaming Superstorm Sandy, claiming that...
• Posted They Were Wrong to Progress Michigan
  Despite the insistence from the Romney campaign and Karl Rove that Ohio would go their way once the numbers were unskewed, President Obama scored a decisive victory last night - to the point that by the time Romney had conceded...
• Posted Is Fred Upton Vulnerable? to Progress Michigan
  After surviving a primary challenge from outspoken conservative Jack Hoogendyk, Congressman Fred Upton looked invincible. But new reports from his southwest Michigan district point to a tougher race than many expected for Rep. Upton. What happened? Well for starters, his...
• Posted Not Her Fault? to Progress Michigan
  You may have missed the latest on how Secretary of State Ruth Johnson is trying to squirm out of the responsibilities that come with the job. If so, that’s okay - that’s probably the reason it was announced at 4:00...
• Posted Hypocrisy, Inc. to Progress Michigan
  Not taking the hint from the litany of lawsuits against the Affordable Care Act already tried and tossed out of court, a Grand Rapids businessman is taking another crack. John Kennedy, CEO of Grand Rapids auto supplier Autocam, sued the...
• Posted A History of Lying to Progress Michigan
  The more we find out about House Speaker Jase Bolger, the less credible he gets. Before he attempted to defraud the voters of the 76th House District of their sacred right to a free and fair election, Speaker Bolger was...
• Posted We're Still Waiting to Progress Michigan
  Although Gov. Snyder rode into office on a wave of good feelings, Michiganders are still waiting for him to bring an inclusive approach to governing. He celebrated the first day of school Tuesday by signing a bill making major changes...
• Posted Senator Pete Hoekstra? to Progress Michigan
  We've got some exciting news. This morning we released a TV ad telling Michiganders about Pete Hoekstra’s radical record - and the ideas he would endorse as a U.S. Senator.

Watch “Politician Pete” - then sign our petition and forward it to your friends...
• Posted What has ALEC been up to? to Progress Michigan
  If you’re reading this, you probably already know about the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the influence they wield over Lansing politicians. Just a few weeks ago, we were able to turn up the pressure on General Motors until...
• Posted Ruth Johnson: Yesterday's Biggest Loser to Progress Michigan
  “Offensive.”  “Wrong...lousy.” “Shameful.”  Those aren’t movie reviews. They’re reviews of the job done by Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson in her first big test as the state’s elections chief.  What happened? Well, back in February Secretary Johnson added a...
• Posted College Students: Raise Your Voice at the Ballot Box to Progress Michigan
  The following is a guest blog, written by Ann Finkel. Ann is interning at Progress Michigan this summer. Election season is upon us! It’s a time when every citizen over the age of 18 - not just those with political...
• Posted Michigan For Sale to Progress Michigan
  Who is Richard McLellan? As a longtime Lansing attorney, McLellan has spent decades helping big corporations cash in on all Michigan’s most precious assets. The Mackinac Center was started in 1987 with funding from the little-known Cornerstone Foundation, created by...
• Posted Mark Ouimet's Bad Medicine for Michiganders to Progress Michigan
  Despite all the lies and hyperbole being spread by right-wing extremists over implementation of the different pieces of the Affordable Care Act, the truth is that many of the law’s provisions enjoy support from a majority of Americans. Among those...
• Posted Pat Somerville, Principled Moderate? to Progress Michigan
  Rep. Pat Somerville is out with his first mail piece of the fall campaign, and it should come as no surprise to anyone who knows how vulnerable he is: it claims “outside groups and special interests” are distorting his legislative...
• Posted Bolger: Voter ID Laws Are OK Because Supreme Court Justice is Black to Progress Michigan
  The Speaker of the House appeared on Fox News yesterday to complain about Gov. Snyder’s veto of Republican voter suppression bills, and received effusive praise from other Republican politicians for his comments. In reality, it was nothing more than an irrational...
• Posted People Power to Progress Michigan
  If there is one simple lesson to be taken from last night’s results in the attempted recall of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, it’s that it is especially hard for one side to win an election when they are being so...
• Posted Pete Hoekstra's Birther Bonanza to Progress Michigan
  Yesterday Pete Hoekstra - whose past misdeeds in his Senate campaign have been thoroughly chronicled in this space - did it again. In his desperation to appeal to the worst elements of the Tea Party, he apparently felt it was necessary to...
• Posted GOP Priorities: Election Year Gimmicks to Progress Michigan
  Last week, using the Twitter hashtag #23dollars, Michiganders Tweeted their ideas of what the average Michigan family wouldn’t be able to buy with the $23 election year tax gimmick originally proposed by Republicans in the state House.  The gimmick had a...
• Posted What Can't You Buy With 23 Dollars? to Progress Michigan
  Today Progress Michigan released a list of items that Michigan taxpayers won't be able to buy with the 0.1 percent "income tax cut" that Lansing Republicans are proposing as they look ahead to November. For taxpayers earning $50,000 a year,...
• Posted Playing Politics with Your Right to Vote to Progress Michigan
  What if you showed up to work every day and did your job, then attended political party meetings where you bragged about intentionally sabotaging your job performance in order to advance a political goal?  That might sound outrageous, but that...
• Posted Michigan's Dismal Scorecard to Progress Michigan
  The 2012 Center for Michigan state scorecard is out, and it contains some bad news for Gov. Snyder - namely that tax giveaways for rich CEOs and a little good luck aren’t good enough to, in the parlance used by...
• Posted Tell GM to Dump ALEC! to Progress Michigan
  Every Michigander should be proud of GM's dramatic turnaround.But that doesn’t mean GM workers, drivers and shareholders should be underwriting GM’s membership to a controversial lobbying group like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).It’s time for GM to do the...
• Posted Women's Health and the Affordable Care Act to Progress Michigan
  National Women’s Health Week is an opportunity to encourage women to make their health a top priority and empower women by giving them the tools they need to take control over their own healthcare and family planning decisions. We all...
• Posted Tell Mitt He's No Michigander to Progress Michigan
  Mitt Romney is bringing his Etch-A-Sketch campaign back to Michigan.We all remember how Romney said he would “let Detroit go bankrupt.”Now Romney’s Etch-A-Sketch campaign team is trying to pull a fast one - claiming that the plan to rescue the auto...
• Posted Snyder for VP? to Progress Michigan
  The following post was written by the newest member of our team, Communications Director Jessica Tramontana. The news media worked itself into a frenzy last week, after a Florida blog speculated that Mitt Romney may be considering Gov. Rick Snyder...
• Posted Aric Nesbitt’s Subcommittee Publishes A Report Only ALEC Could Love to Progress Michigan
  Rep. Aric Nesbitt just doesn’t get it. He apparently wasn’t listening when we called him out last September for passing a resolution encouraging the federal government to kick farmers off their land to build the Keystone XL pipeline, even as...
• Posted Citizens Speak Out Against Voter Suppression Efforts to Progress Michigan
  Republican politicians have been coordinating efforts since last year to make it harder for millions of Americans to vote. In Michigan, this process was kicked off by Secretary of State Ruth Johnson, who still hasn't produced a shred of evidence...
• Posted For Sale: Your Right to Vote to Progress Michigan
  In the six months since Secretary of State Ruth Johnson introduced her package of legislation aimed squarely at making it harder for people to vote, you would think she’d be able to come up with at least one example of...