MACKINAC ISLAND – An employee of a liberal group has filed a lawsuit against Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, alleging the gubernatorial candidate has violated the state constitution and civil service rules by using his office for political patronage and his state employees for campaign purposes.

Hugh Madden, who is communications director for the Lansing-based group Progress Michigan, sued Schuette on Wednesday in the Michigan Court of Claims, the group announced on Mackinac Island on Thursday, just outside the Detroit Regional Chamber's Mackinac Policy Conference.

The attorney who drafted the lawsuit is Mark Brewer, a former chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party.

Though the plaintiffs are linked to Democrats, the allegations in the lawsuit are similar to ones made against Schuette by Republican Lt. Gov. Brian Calley, who is opposing Schuette for the Republican nomination for governor.

Most women voters in battleground districts feel their vote in congressional elections this year matters just as much as it does in a presidential election. Overall, most are unhappy with President Trump's policies and the way he handles himself personally, but party trumps gender when it comes to many opinions of this president.

The CBS News Battleground Tracker shows a big gender gap in these districts: Democrats have a 14-point advantage among women, Republicans lead among men by five points. This is a larger gender gap than we've seen nationally in recent elections for the House of Representatives.

The latest campus free speech controversy has a twist: It involves a conservative professor conspiring with students, in emails that sound like they were written by comic book villains, to dig up dirt on a progressive undergraduate.

The controversy took place at Stanford University and involves Niall Ferguson, a controversial historian known for his defenses of British colonialism. Ferguson was one of the faculty leaders of Cardinal Conversations, a Stanford program run by the conservative Hoover Institution that aims to bring speakers to the university who would “air contested issues on our campus.” The program’s speaker slate leaned right; recent events featured race-and-IQ theorist Charles Murray, tech mogul Peter Thiel, and Christina Hoff Sommers, a prominent critic of modern feminism.

Ferguson seemed to view Michael Ocon, a left-wing student activist slated to graduate in 2020, as a threat to the program. In an email to two members of the Stanford Republicans, John Rice-Cameron and Max Minshull, he wrote that “some opposition research on Mr. O [Ferguson’s name for Ocon] might also be worthwhile.” Minshull, who works as Ferguson’s research associate, said he’d “get on” the dirt-digging.

Some of the emails had an overtly sinister tone. Rice-Cameron, who is, oddly enough, the son of Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice, wrote in one email that “slowly, we will continue to crush the Left’s will to resist, as they will crack under pressure.”

If you’re hosting a TV show that claims to be a “roadmap to the American Dream,” who better to turn to for tips on success than the Trump family? So in 2006, CNBC’s Donny Deutsch brought Donald Trump, Jr. onto his show, The Big Idea, to get the “next-generation billionaire secrets” on how to make it big. Trump Jr.’s lesson, passed down from his dad at an early age, was simple: paranoia.

Seven o’clock in the morning, I’m going to school—hugs, kisses, and he used to say a couple things. ‘No smoking, no drinking, no drugs.’ I think a great lesson for any kid. But then he followed up with: ‘Don’t. Trust. Anyone. Ever.’ And, you know, he’d follow it up two seconds later with, ‘So, do you trust me?’ I’d say, ‘Of course, you’re my dad.’ He’d say, ‘What did I just—’ You know, he thought I was a total failure. He goes, ‘My son’s a loser, I guess.’ Because I couldn’t even understand what he meant at the time. I mean, it’s not something you tell a four-year-old, right? But it really means something to him.”

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"All they want to do is assure that poor, not successful people go into government. That’s all they want to do. Because if you’re successful, you shouldn’t be penalized by stupid ethics watchdogs raising things that are potential," Charles said about ethics watchdogs.

When asked if he sees it as an "attack on wealth," Charles replied, "They discourage rich, smart, successful people from going into government. Because a lot of rich, smart, successful people say, 'Why the hell am I doing this?'"

He added, "I look at what my kids have sacrificed to go into government, with the only intent of doing good for this country and for the world, and to help people. And what they have sacrificed, and the daily barrage of negative media, and the attacks they get, and they had a perfect, beautiful life and they still have a very good life, but they sacrificed a lot."

Charles spent about a year in federal prison after pleading guilty to campaign finance violations and witness tampering for hiring a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law — who was cooperating with the federal government — and have a recording sent to his wife.

President Donald Trump’s lies are well documented. PolitiFact estimated that from June 2015, when he announced his campaign, until November 2016, when he won the election, almost 70% of the things he said publicly were “mostly false,” “false,” or “pants on fire.” On May 1, The Washington Post reported that as of that date he had issued 3,001 false or misleading statements since taking office, averaging almost 6.5 a day, up from 4.9 over the first 100 days, when the newspaper first started keeping track. The president of the United States is basically an anti-reality Pez dispenser. So why does the media often avoid using the word “lie” when reporting on all of his false claims?

Lately there has been a reinvigorated conversation around labeling something a lie. The debate boils down to a question of intent: Journalists who are most cautious with the “lie” label argue that we cannot truly know Trump’s purpose for shitting on the very concept of facts. Is he working off of misinformation? Is he exaggerating with his “Art of the Deal” tactic of “truthful hyperbole”? Is he hallucinating an anthropomorphic pumpkin that is telling him what to say? We are not inside the president’s brain, they argue, and so we cannot know.

One such journalist is Maggie Haberman, a White House correspondent for The New York Times. On Sunday, May 27, she responded to criticism about her frequent refusal to use the word “lie” in her work with a series of tweets. “I have written stories about his lies, falsehoods, whoppers, half-truths, salesman-like stretches,” she tweeted. “The reality is that what he does can be hard to label because, as anyone who has worked for him will tell you in candor, he often thinks whatever he says is what’s real.” As far as I’m concerned, all of those euphemisms for “lies” still mean lies, and if, as Haberman asserts, he really believes them, then she should report that it is also possible that the president is out touch with reality.

Later on May 27, Brian Stelter, host of CNN’s Reliable Sources, discussed the “lie” debate. In a segment titled “All the President’s Lies,” he argued that more nuance is required. “We need to distinguish between a deflection, an exaggeration, and a straight-up lie,” Stelter said, pointing to a recent example in which Trump tweeted that “killings” in Chicago are happening “at a record pace.” “Thankfully, they’re not,” Stelter continued. “The number is on the way down. So either Trump has the wrong information, which makes this a falsehood, or he’s lying. Look, it’s bad either way, but we need to recognize the differences.”

This, too, is missing the point.