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 […]

At some point in the ten years and one day since we began blogging under the Eclectablog banner, I had to make a decision. Was Eclectablog going to be a “state blog” or a “national blog”. If we aimed to be only a state blog, that would limit our reach because, at some point, folks outside of Michigan would just […]

Regular readers of Eclectablog will know that I have been off the grid for the past few weeks while I recover from surgery. As a result, I will have to miss an exciting event that I haven’t missed in years: the annual Progress Michigan conference called the Michigan Progressive Summit. But that doesn’t mean YOU have to miss it and […]

Poor li’l Cameron Myers. He’s an 18-year old white “country boy” from rural Auburn, Michigan. Seems this pathetic little punk got his fee-fees hurt when somebody stole the racist Confederate flag off the back of his truck in the school parking lot. When he whined about it to school administrators, they didn’t do anything about it. He called it an […]

Last week, 550 gallons of coolant containing toxic organic solvents (alkyl derivatives of benzene, specifically) were released into Lake Michigan from an electrical transmission cable running under the Straits of Mackinac. It happened because a ship went through the Straits dragging its anchor. (UPDATE: It appears that it was a tugboat owned by VanEnkevort Tug & Barge.) Enbridge Energy clearly […]

Most people know Tony Trupiano from his radio shows, podcast, posts here or as a Democratic activist who could always be counted on to help a candidate on the campaign trail or emcee an event. Tony was all those things. But most of all, he was just a really good man and a great friend. The world is poorer without him. He […]

Repeat after me: Primaries are good. Primaries are good. Primaries are good… I used to believe that primaries were a waste of precious fundraising dollars and that they unnecessarily bloodied up our general election candidate. But in 2014, after Mark Schauer was defeated in his run for governor after facing no primary opponent, I changed my views. I came to […]

At the end of January and again at the beginning of February, I spent ten days in the hospital. I took a bit of a break from my normal hyper-consumption of political news and, when I dipped my toe back in, I found that the fire hose of cacophony that I had been drinking from before my illness had only […]

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. quote on the King monument in Washington, D.C. Photo by Chris Savage. Many of us will celebrate Martin Luther King Day by visiting a museum, participating in a community volunteer event, or by watch a civil rights documentary. These are all, of course, perfectly appropriate ways to celebrate the life of our country’s preeminent civil […]

In a move you wouldn’t think necessary, this past week Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed legislation into law that makes it illegal for undercover police officers to have sex with prostitutes while they are at work. No, I’m not kidding: Gov. Rick Snyder on Wednesday signed legislation officially outlawing police having sex with prostitutes on duty by removing an exemption […]

 If you’re looking for a window into 2018 in Michigan, the most important race took place last night in the western Upper Peninsula. On first blush, it looks like a pretty routine result in the special election for the 109th state House District: Democrat Sara Cambensy held a seat that’s been blue for more than a half-century. The district has a […]