Circuit Court Judge Deborah Thomas recently announced that she is running for the Michigan Supreme Court. This is her second supreme court race and her candidacy is generating a lot of energy and enthusiasm. She’s a fierce and lifelong advocate for those in society without a voice in the judicial system and, in addition to her job as a Circuit […]

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette joined with the attorneys general of nine other states to sue the federal government over their recently-released guidance for educators on how to make their schools safe, welcoming places for transgender students. The other states are Arkansas, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Wyoming. In his press release, Schuette claims […]

Why Democrats must force Trump to take a stand on Ryan’s plan to end Medicare and raise the retirement age In retrospect, Mitt Romney did a couple of very smart things in 2012. He junked a dopey video Donald Trump made for the GOP convention and he hid Paul Ryan during the last weeks of the election. Donald Trump in […]

An anonymous Eclectablog reader pointed me to this video from 2010 of Donald Trump talking to Larry King about undocumented Mexican workers working in this country. In a sharp contrast to his more odious 2016 campaign trail rhetoric about Mexicans being murderers and rapists and the need to build a giant wall along the Mexican border that we’ll make Mexico […]

My county commissioner sent us a questionnaire soliciting input that would enable him to represent constituent views effectively. One question in particular nagged at me because it was more specific than all the others, had not appeared on any of the other dozens of political questionnaires I receive in a political season, and was not a topic du jour in […]

Three weeks ago, I wrote about a major legal victory for teachers in Michigan. For the second time, an Appeals Court judge ruled that a law requiring teachers to give up 3% of their paycheck to fund their retirement account was unconstitutional. Despite this, of course, there was always the possibility that the Snyder administration would appeal to the Michigan […]

As a new mother, this transgender woman has faced unique challenges that inspired a new direction for her activism. This is part of a story series about the lives of transgender people. Read the introduction here. When Racquelle Trammell found out that she and her fiancé, Liam Johnson, were expecting their first child, it was a joyous occasion. They knew […]

NOTE: This post has been updated below. Disgraced former Education Achievement Authority Chancellor John Covington is still trying to find a way to cash in on his time at Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s failed experiment on Detroit school children. Recall that he bailed out on Kansas City schools which lost their accreditation the month after he abruptly quit. Then he […]

There is a great deal of fear surrounding the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in a few short weeks. The presumptive candidate, Donald Trump, draws more protestors than the average GOP presidential candidate and, this year, that means there will be more right-wing protestors there to greet them. For example, a white nationalist group that was involved in a bloody […]

In late March, the North Carolina legislature convened a one-day special session where they steamrolled through legislation making it illegal to use a public restroom not corresponding to your gender at birth. It was quickly signed into law later that night and the state has faced an unprecedented firestorm ever since. The NBA is talking about moving the 2017 All-Star […]

And what you can do about it Why would Michigan’s Republicans pass a law that eliminates straight-ticket voting, a law twice rejected by voters, without allowing all Michiganders access to absentee ballots that would allow us the time to consider the many new choices we’ll be making at the polls? It’s about hopelessness, Rep. Brenda Lawrence said at a Voting […]