After a very wet spring followed by a very dry early summer, lower Michigan has been unseasonably wet for the past month. A couple of weeks ago we got 12 inches of rain in two days and then several more inches two days later. The result has been a massive spike in mosquito populations unlike anything I have ever seen. […]

Yesterday, John Waltz, former Executive Director of Heartland Revolution, filed papers with the FEC to run against Fred Upton in Michigan’s 6th Congressional District in the 2012 election. Waltz is no stranger to running for Congress. In 2010, he ran an unsuccessful campaign in Kentucky’s 4th District where he was outspent by a 3-to-1 margin by his Republican opponent. Since […]

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UPDATE: The full LOLGOP/Eclectablog interview can now be found HERE. My piece this week at A2Politico is a don’t-miss interview with “Pete Nicely”, the man behind LOLGOP. I won’t ruin the experience by putting much here but you really owe it to yourself to click through and read the whole thing. This. Dude. Is. Funny! In Ann Arbor, a man […]

Last night’s election results in Wisconsin should serve as a highly motivating and energizing event for Democratic organizers and activists in Michigan. Although they did not succeed in flipping the Wisconsin Senate to blue, they did make shift the balance by four and, with several more moderate Republicans on board, this could dramatically influence any future legislative initiatives in their […]

Today, Susan Demas at MLive.com regurgitated a blog post I wrote yesterday (the Blogging for Michigan version, that is, and without attribution to me, of course) where I took the Michigan Democratic Party (MDP) to task for supporting the recalls in Wisconsin but not those in Michigan. She did reach out to MDP Chair Mark Brewer to confirm and he […]

The original deadline for the petition drive to put the recall of Michigan governor Rick Snyder expired. However, recall organizers have elected to continue their effort. From my latest piece at A2Politico: Perhaps the biggest challenge for the recall organizers has been the extremely short period of time Michigan laws allow for the collection of petition signatures. The petition language […]

You may have noticed that I added some new functionality to Eclectablog last week. It’s a plugin called SendLove.to. The idea of SendLove.to is that you can rate famous people that are mentioned in any particular blog entry. There are two ways you can do this. The first is that you will see famous people’s names show up in pink […]

Last month, I wrote about how the Northville School District was using the threat of an Emergency Manager to strong arm concessions from teachers in their contract negotiations. Snyder’s budget strips away money from the schools. The schools are forced into a bankruptcy situation. They turn to their employees and teachers for drastic concessions (a nearly 10% pay cut and […]

My latest piece at A2Politico gives an illuminating look at the number two administrator in the Snyder administration in charge of our state’s Emergency Managers. His name is Roger Fraser and, until earlier he was the City Administrator for Ann Arbor, Michigan’s sixth largest city, a position he held for nine years. He currently has the position of Deputy State […]

You know how bald long-haired hippy freak Democrats like me are always saying, “Republicans would vote against their own mother if they thought President Obama was for her”? Rachel Maddow has gleefully gone after the GOP for changing their position as soon as the president voices support. Even President Obama himself talks about it. Well, today, Speaker John Boehner confirmed […]