Today, The U.S. Departments of Education and Justice released a joint guidance to help provide educators the information they need to provide all students, including transgender students, a school environment that is safe and welcoming. The guidance is not legally binding but it makes clear that the Obama administration sees anti-transgender rules, regulations, and laws in violation of federal law […]

In 1990, Gov. Jim Blanchard signed Public Act 319 of 1990 in to law. The law prohibits “local units of government” from passing laws that restrict “the ownership, registration, purchase, sale, transfer, transportation, or possession of pistols, other firearms, or pneumatic guns, ammunition for pistols or other firearms, or components of pistols or other firearms.” It’s a pretty unambiguous law […]

Republicans may have prevailed in their latest challenge to the Affordable Care Act, but it’s nothing but another political stunt. It’s the same old story from Republicans: Do everything possible to make government look dysfunctional in an effort to dismantle it. On Thursday, a federal judge struck down a portion of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), ruling that President Obama […]

Anyone making predictions about the outcome of the 2016 presidential race is on a fool’s errand. The existence of a Donald Trump candidacy is a disruptor. It creates such chaos and uncertainty that nothing about the race is predictable. Lately I’ve been thinking about the parallels between Donald Trump as a political candidate and the character of The Mule in […]

Photo by Anne C. Savage for Eclectablog In 2008, former Republican Congressman Joe Schwarz jumped party lines and endorsed Democrat Mark Schauer in the 7th Congressional District race (which Schauer eventually won.) It was a strong statement about Walberg’s far-right tea party obstructionist positions to have a well-known Michigan Republican endorse his Democratic opponent. Schwartz later went on to say, […]

I’m very happy to announce that the amazing folk duo Mustard’s Retreat will play some music for us at our 3rd annual Eclectablog fundraiser party in Ypsilanti next Tuesday, May 17th. As part of their set, they’ll be playing their song “Take the Children and Run”, a remake of Don Lange’s song written after the Three Mile Island nuclear power […]

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder is clearly not a man who ever concedes he has made a mistake. After his privatizing of state prison food services went horribly awry with Aramark employees having sex with prisoners, bringing in drugs, and the many and repeated cases of vermin in food, he finally fired them. You would think he’d admit it was a […]

It’s time that we all stop pretending that Michigan Republicans care about students, the idea of smaller government, or that they believe that local control trumps state or federal government control. They SAY that these are bedrock beliefs of the Republican Party. These concepts are clearly spelled out in their platform. But we have all the evidence that we need […]

State Board of Education President John Austin, photo by Anne C. Savage for Eclectablog In December of last year, Rick Joseph, the 2015 Michigan Teacher of the Year and self-described “former homophobe”, approached State Board of Education president John Austin asking if he’d be interested in developing guidelines for Michigan school administrators when it comes to making the school environment […]

But it probably feels like a tax increase because may not have paid taxes in a decades Donald Trump’s move to the center has begun, the press insisted on Sunday. So far this tactical shift has included attacking Rosie O’Donnell again, spending Mother’s Day insisting that women have it easier than men and babbling about his economic plans. Basically, it’s […]

This transgender teen knows he has the kind of support every trans person should have. This is part of a story series about the lives of transgender people. Read the introduction here. At age 17, Hunter Keith has more confidence and poise than some people twice his age. Maybe that’s because he already knows who he is, and he has […]