Freedom has never come cheap.

This weekend, we remember and celebrate the brave men and women who paid the ultimate price to secure for strangers the promise of liberty.

Governor Whitmer doesn’t want to stop micromanaging your lives, but legislative Republicans in Lansing just secured a major victory for workers, employers, and customers.

The science is clear. The CDC has issued important guidance. States across the country are fully re-open or re-opening soon.

This column originally appeared in the Detroit News.

Policymakers in Lansing aren’t as eager to get “vacc to normal” as they’d like you to believe.

Next Wednesday, the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration (MIOSHA) will hold a hearing on a proposal to take Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s temporary COVID-19-related workplace restrictions and make them permanent.

The administration’s decision to push forward with a plan to permanently hamstring workers, workplaces and customers came as a massive (and unscientific) blow to communities across the state who’d hoped that new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance and Whitmer’s vaccination-linked re-opening plan meant an eventual return to the proverbial “normal.”

Gas shortages. Empty pumps. Stranded motorists.

On the East Coast they’re partying like it’s 1979. A temporary closure of the Colonial Pipeline set the nation on edge (or worse), and sent prices through the roof.

Thankfully fuel shortages haven’t reached Michigan. Yet.

That could all change, though, if Governor Whitmer gets her way.

The next few months couldn’t be more important for our state’s future.

Families continue to battle a global pandemic. Workers are fighting to return to their jobs and job sites. Efforts in Lansing and local communities are underway to fight back against Governor Whitmer’s anti-science lockdown orders and restrictions.

He finally testified.

Robert Gordon, the “resigned” former director of the state’s health department testified in Lansing this week about the secret hush money scandal that’s swept over Lansing these last many weeks.

History is taught so it won’t be repeated. As the musical Hamilton so eloquently intoned, “Oceans rise, empires fall.” What can we learn from the historical fall of the Roman Empire, and how does it apply to circumstances facing America – and Michigan – today?

Rome didn’t fall in a day, and there were many factors that contributed to its eventual decline. History.com notes invasion by barbarians, economic troubles, and government corruption as just a few of the factors.

What’s Florida got that Michigan doesn't? Except healthier seniors, safer nursing homes, and lower COVID infection rates? ...and a Governor who trusts and respects his citizens… and more freedoms… and well, you get the point!

Those are the questions we’re all asking after news broke this week that Governor Gretchen Whitmer secretly jumped on an airplane (we don’t know whose or who paid for it) and traveled to the Sunshine State for an undisclosed amount of time in an undisclosed Florida city.

It has been over a year since COVID-19 came to Michigan and Gov. Whitmer’s “emergency” rule by fiat transformed our state. Since then, we still have no scientific evidence from the Governor’s office to justify any of her orders or restrictions. Meanwhile, countless businesses have gone under, students have lost out on a year of education, and the Governor continues to trample on the rights of ordinary citizens through her callous and arbitrary orders.

And if you happen to disagree with her orders, then the radical Left labels you a “science denier,” never mind that no actual science has been presented to deny.