Flint’s water, Detroit’s schools and the assault on democracy Elected officials can: a) call a meeting to order; b) approve the minutes; c) and adjourn the meeting. That’s democracy under Michigan’s Emergency Manager Law. Watch out. It could be coming to your state. At this year’s Netroots Nation, Eclectablog’s Chris Savage hosted a panel on “Flint and Detroit Public Schools: […]

By now you’ve probably read about Donald Trump’s wife Melania and the speech she gave at the National Republican Convention last night. Her plagiarism of Michelle Obama’s 2008 speech was first noticed by journalist Jarrett Hill whose tweet blew up the internet: CORRECTION: Melania stole a whole graph from Michelle's speech. #GOPConvention WATCH: https://t.co/8BCOwXAHSy pic.twitter.com/zudpDznGng — Jarrett Hill (@JarrettHill) July […]

The dashing young man in the photo above is Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Charles S. Kettles. LTC Kettles, who lives in Ypsilanti, Michigan, was awarded the Medal of Honor yesterday at a White House ceremony. His story is extraordinary. Here’s an excerpt from President Obama’s remarks: May 15, 1967, started as a hot Monday morning. Soldiers from the 101st Airborne were […]

The list of speakers appearing on stage at the Republican National Convention this week has finally been announced (HERE) and it’s chock-full of people you have probably never heard of. It’s also chock-full of people who are Trump family members (five of them!), Trump employees, or celebrity heartthrobs of the tea party/anti-Obama/anti-Clinton persuasion. The number of people who have declined […]

Bill Schuette says he has some “bold new ideas” for Michigan. Widely expected to run for governor in 2018, Schuette is testing out the planks for his bid at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this week. So what are these bold new ideas? Tax cuts and school choice. In other words, the same stale, failed ideology that Republicans have […]

You can kill a revolutionary but you can’t kill the revolution. All photos by Anne C. Savage This afternoon, as I was sitting in a Netroots Nation 2016 panel titled “Rejecting the Pale, Male and Stale Leadership Pipeline: Roadmap to Building Inclusive Orgs”. Suddenly, a group of young, mostly African American activists burst into the room carrying a spay-painted banner […]

When, in the wake of the Flint water crisis, Dan Wyant resigned from his post as director of the Department of Environmental Quality, Gov. Rick Snyder’s outgoing chief of staff lamented the move. “I’m not sure why this decision was made but if it’s only optics, keep in mind that finding a replacement who has the trust of the business […]

I am thrilled to announce today that we have added a new writer to Team Eclectablog. Jen Eyer has written a couple of dynamite guest posts (HERE and HERE) for the site and she’s clearly a great fit for our team. Jen is the Vice President of Vanguard Public Affairs and has a long history in the world of journalism. […]

How would Andy Saas’ life be different if Obamacare had never become law and Kentucky’s former governor hadn’t accepted Medicaid expansion? “I would end up with no teeth in my face.” That’s what Saas told Politico’s Rachana Pradhan for a must-read investigation into the inequities of Medicaid expansion. A door-to-door meat salesperson who also runs recovery houses for former addicts, […]

I wrote my first piece about the Livingston Christian Academy, now called the Livingston Classical Academy (LCA), back in December of 2014. Since then, the group – which hopes to open a school with a curriculum steeped in tea party ideology and right-wing principles – was sent packing by Brighton schools. However, after shopping around, LCA ended up landing a […]

It’s GOP platform time, when America gets reminded that the Republicans who are ruining acres of underwear with their fears that Trump is ruining their brand were doing a fantastic job on their own. We’re often told how unpopular Donald Trump is — and it’s true. He’s the least popular candidate on record. But he’s practically SuperReagan Pokémon Kardashian compared to […]