This past weekend, protesters from around the state gathered at the Mackinac Bridge to call for the shutdown of Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline. The pipeline (actually TWO pipelines) are 62 years old and were built in a time when regulations were far more lax than they are now. Had the Great Lakes Submerged Lands Act been in place when the […]

NOTE: This post has been updated HERE. The Courser/Gamrat scandal continues to unfold unravel this week, sucking all of the oxygen out of Lansing and ensuring that our Do-Nothing Republican-led legislature continues to get nothing done. The hearings being held by the “Select Committee to Examine the Qualifications of Representatives Cindy Gamrat and Todd Courser” continued this week with both […]

The following essay was written by my friend Roscoe Woods, president of the American Postal Workers Union, 480-4781 Area Local which represents postal workers in the southeast part of the state. A version of it first appeared in their newsletter The Communicator over the summer. I particularly love this piece because it tells a personal story of acceptance of an […]

This morning, U.S. Senator Gary Peters released an announcement saying that he will reluctantly be voting to support President Obama and the nuclear deal his administration negotiated with Iran to prevent them from obtaining a nuclear weapon. His statement is thoughtful and brings up important points to consider as we move forward. Despite my serious concerns with this agreement, I […]

A “low-information voter” has come to mean “anyone not smart enough to vote the way I do.” The discernment is not usually made on facts, since we all choose which facts to focus upon. Voters are not generally rational actors making perfect decisions, no matter how much we like to pretend we are. For instance, I know studies have shown […]

On Thursday, the chairman of the Republican Party — a man who presented a report that called on the GOP to take a new, less-Republican tone toward immigrants — stood on stage with Donald Trump and got him to pledge to support the Republican nominee in 2016. Meanwhile the other Republican candidates did the same thing, knowing that Trump is […]

Last month, Republicans in the U.S. Senate introduced a formal resolution of disapproval of the historic deal brokered by the Obama administration that will prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon for the forseeable future. Despite millions of dollars being spent by pro-war groups, yesterday Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) became the 34th senator to come out in support of […]

It’s easy for Democrats to hope that Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination because it’s easy to believe he can’t win. For those of us who watched in horror as George W. Bush won (twice), we know otherwise. For those who watched the Michigan state legislature be completely taken over by tea party religious zealots, we know otherwise. Trump, who […]

The Leelanau County Democratic Party up in the “pinky” of Michigan has sent a letter penned by their County Party Officers and Leadership Team, on behalf of their membership, urging Democratic Senator Gary Peters to join with Sen. Debbie Stabenow in supporting the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration (a position we have also taken here at Eclectablog.) […]

One of the worst parts about my chronicling of the Gamrat/Courser fiasco is that, as much as I’m sick of it and want to stop, I’m now all but obligated to continue writing about it as things continue to unfold unravel. Today is no exception. We now have the House Business Office (HBO) “Report on the Investigation of Alleged Misconduct […]

Chris already did an excellent job highlighting the significant shortcomings of Sunday’s Detroit News editorial, which essentially asserts that the sky is falling and we’d all better run away from Michigan’s Medicaid expansion program, the Healthy Michigan Plan. If you haven’t read Chris’ piece, you should. But there’s a sobering omission I had to weigh in on, something that’s left […]