The following post was written by Jessica Beasley (she/they), a Senior Manager of User Experience Design at a tech company and longtime resident of Michigan. She lives in Ypsilanti Township with her spouse and an inadvisable number of cats, and mostly uses Twitter to tweet about trans stuff at @JessicleCats. The topic of Jessica’s essay is personal for me. My […]

Margaret Atwood has been quite clear that there is nothing in her book A Handmaid’s Tale that hasn’t actually happened somewhere in the world at some point. Watching the astonishing recent television series The Underground Railroad, you quickly come to realize that some of these things happened right here in America not all that long ago. We know these things […]

It’s not just Matt Gaetz The GOP’s failure when it comes to Covid-19 — which is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, according to a Lancet commission— is even more unforgivable when you realize how effective and focused Republicans can be when it comes to something they care about, like stopping Black people from voting or bullying trans kids. […]

I have taken the past couple of days to reflect on how Mike Shirkey and the Republicans in the Michigan State Legislature have contributed to the culture of misogyny and support of the insurrectionist militias that have attacked the U.S. Capitol. But these are not their only sins. They have also victimized and persecuted members of the LGBTQ+ community through […]

On Sunday, Eli Savit posted an essay here at Eclectablog outlining why Bill Schuette — Michigan’s own version of the odious Ken Cuccinelli — was out of line telling the state’s Civil Rights Commission that they couldn’t enforce their policy of including gender identity and sexual orientation as a protected class of citizens. Yesterday, the Civil Rights Commission met to […]

The following essay was written by my good friend Eli Savit. Eli is an attorney and an adjunct professor at the University of Michigan Law School. His areas of expertise include appellate and Supreme Court litigation; civil rights, education law, environmental law, and public-interest litigation. He writes regularly about legal issues on the Take Care Blog and elsewhere. Follow him […]

Everyone is angry. I get it. Our country is as divided as I can remember it being in my lifetime. Friends are divided. Institutions are divided. Families are divided. People that never seemed to be “political” are suddenly, and surprisingly, strident defenders of a particular belief or position–or equally vocal about being against that position. Everywhere you go these days […]

Oscar claims to be a “new kind of health insurance company” but engages in age-old discriminatory practices. Oscar Health seems to have an identity crisis. On the one hand, it is promoting itself as the kind of insurer that appeals to Millennials and does things differently — and seems to support LGBT equality with Pride Month-related messaging all over social […]

Most governors with a history of poisoning an entire city of Black people, an administration full of corruption and ineptitude, and with a laundry list of pro-corporate policies that have harmed the state in myriad ways would probably spend their final months in office being as non-controversial and quiet as possible. Not so with Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder. Despite his […]

I became a journalist almost 17 years ago because I wanted to dig for the truth and tell important stories, especially in politics. In the decade-plus I’ve spent in Lansing, I’ve watched most of my Capitol press corps colleagues retire, leave for better-paying jobs or get laid off. There are so many issues to cover and stories to tell — […]

New analysis from Out2Enroll shows that insurers are providing increasingly better coverage for transgender people. President Trump and his cronies have been trying desperately to sabotage Obamacare and trample on the rights of transgender people, belittling both in the process. But their despicable plans are not working. Enrollment in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is going strong. And a new […]