The deal is done, but no word yet on the fate of reproductive health and other care standards Catholic-run hospitals are allowed to ignore. As reported in Crain’s Detroit Business on Monday, Crittenton Hospital in Rochester is now officially part of Ascension Health Michigan. Ascension Health is the largest nonprofit health system in the U.S. — and a Catholic-affiliated health […]

This story arrived in my email inbox today from the most excellent group Local Harvest. It’s an important story about how our food supply cycles and our food demand cycles can be out of sync to the point where we literally throw away delicious, healthy, nutritious food and import the same food from other countries. In this case, the supply […]

“Obamacare savings may be short-lived”! shouts the headline of an editorial in today’s edition of The Detroit News. They are referring to Medicaid expansion in our state, a program that is fully funded by the federal government until 2017 and funded at a level of 90% after that, all while giving an additional 600,000 working poor Michiganders health care coverage […]

Governor Snyder persists in his feelgood announcements about Michigan job growth, but he does hedge his enthusiasm because too many of us observe the realities of what is now passing as “job growth.” Yes, reality rains on Snyder’s parade every time. Most of those non-automotive jobs are low paying part time jobs that keep people zigzagging back and forth across […]

Call Ari Berman the Paul Revere of voting rights. “In 2011 and 2012, 180 new voting restrictions were introduced in forty-one states, with twenty-seven new laws taking effect in nineteen states, nearly all of them controlled by Republicans,” Berman writes in his new book Give Us The Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America. This wasn’t some freak […]

The following guest post is from my dear friend Wally Welch. In it, he compares and contrasts former President Jimmy Carter (a personal hero of mine who is battling brain cancer) and Donald Trump (not a hero of mine who is battling xenophobia, racism, and sexism.) Enjoy Jimmy Carter, 91, in typically cheerful, humble, and matter-of-fact fashion, recently announced he […]

Michigan House speaker Kevin Cotter (R) Mt. Pleasant is a real piece of work. Bear with me here. The amount of time the Republican-controlled State House has spent this summer working on issues that matter to most taxpayers has been scant with relatively little to show for it, and it has happened without direction and leadership. Cotter’s regrettable remark about […]

Michigan Republicans have long been known for as being ultra-friendly to our major utility companies. The most recent evidence of that comes from legislation that will end what’s known as “net metering”. With net metering, homeowners who install solar installations that produce more energy than they use can send the bonus electricity back to the grid and receive a credit […]

It’s interesting asking for donations. Even under the veil of a blog post, some believe that it is hard to do this, and it is. As a former candidate, and I will forever be a former candidate, I know how difficult a task this is. Whether it’s asking for money to run a campaign, or to keep my show on […]

I have to admit that, after months of writing about Cindy Gamrat and Todd Courser, I’m sick of them. I’m sick of their judgemental, anti-LGBT hypocrisy. I’m sick of their narcissism. I’m sick of THEM. Unfortunately, now that they are in the ditch they seem to be pushing the accelerator pedal to the floor. First we have Gamrat’s teary-eyed apology […]

… make a donation to Eclectablog and feel good about yourself. Yeah, I know, it’s a cheap way to get your attention. But now that you’re here, I’ll cut right to the chase. You are a reader of Eclectablog, maybe every day or just every once in a while. But the point is, you are here. You’re reading these words, […]