In what can only be described as some of the best news I have heard this year, particularly regarding Michigan, a three-judge federal panel declared many of Michigan’s Congressional, State House, and State Senate districts to be unconstitutional. Their decision (which you can read HERE) was unanimous: The “predominate purpose” of the redistricting plan approved by the GOP-led Legislature in […]

For those of us following the news, each new day brings a bevy of unbelievable and shocking stories… Reports of Russian election meddling! A national emergency (that’s not a national emergency)! Cabinet secretaries wreaking havoc on the environment, education, and human rights! Kids in cages at the border! The Mueller Report! And in the middle of each of these stories? […]

In times like these, it’s… Screw it. There have never been “times like these” in American history. Yes, we’ve had presidents who were incompetent or narcissistic and who surrounded themselves with like-minded, power-hungry sycophants. And we’ve had Congresses that have abdicated their duty to hold our leadership accountable. But we have never had the sort of confluence of all of […]

Michiganders tried. We REALLY did. We TRIED to warn America about Betsy DeVos. We tried to tell the country that she is the epitome of everything that is wrong about the corporatist and dominionist approach to the destruction of public education. And nobody was more outspoken about her and her horrid goals than the writers here at Eclectablog. We’ve written […]

America is in big trouble these days. It’s not just that we have a narcissistic liar “leading” the country. It’s that our elected officials are unwilling to hold Donald Trump and his band of merry grifters accountable for their un-American policies and actions. Accountability. That’s the foundation upon which our republic is built. Elected officials and other leaders must be […]

Most Americans are happy with their current insurance, but they may have no idea what it is costing them Let me start with some truisms. America cannot go on being the only rich country on earth that lets tens of millions of its citizens go without insurance or enough health insurance. We cannot go on spending more on health care […]

It’s taken years of concerted effort but, at long last, Betsy DeVos and the Koch brothers can finally claim victory: Teachers in Michigan are now paid less today in both real and corrected-for-inflations dollars. In 2009, the average teacher salary in our state was $63,025. In 2017, the most recent year for which we have data, the average was only […]

The New York Post recently published an eye-catching headline (“Case closed: Charter schools deliver more education ‘bang’ for the buck“) about a new “research study” (more on that in a bit…) from Corey DeAngelis and Patrick Wolf, from the Walton Family Foundation-funded “Department of Education Reform”, not to be confused with an actual school or college of education, that…you know…prepares […]

There they go again. This important essay was written by Mike Jackson, executive secretary treasurer of the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters and Millwrights union. Please contact your state legislator and ask them to vote NO on House Bill 4406. The Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), an anti-union organization, is hoping taxpayers further subsidize their failed training programs. This time, […]

INSERT PAINFUL EYEROLL HERE… The Republican Speaker of the House in Michigan’s legislature is Lee Chatfield, a 30-year old father of five and graduate of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University who attempted to bring a loaded handgun onto a commercial flight last summer. In a recent interview, Chatfield characterized Attorney General Dana Nessel and Governor Gretchen Whitmer as “driven purely by […]

Yes, our political opponents are worse. But we have to be better than THIS. In May of 2015, Sarah Studley was hired by the Michigan Senate Democrats into the position of Counsel and Senior Policy Adviser. For the first year, she loved the job and found it professionally fulfilling. A year later, however, that changed. After Andy Leavitt left as […]