If you’re looking for a window into 2018 in Michigan, the most important race took place last night in the western Upper Peninsula. On first blush, it looks like a pretty routine result in the special election for the 109th state House District: Democrat Sara Cambensy held a seat that’s been blue for more than a half-century. The district has a […]

This is a disgusting story. It’s disgusting because it involves maggots in the food served to human beings. But mostly it’s disgusting because it is further proof that privatizing critical government services to a for-profit company inevitably results in cutting corners and inhumane conditions, this time for prisoners. Officials found maggots in food in three separate incidents at a Jackson-area […]

It’s refreshing to see journalists explaining the motivations of Republicans in clear terms. That happened this morning in an article in the The Detroit News titled “GOP to fight anti-gerrymandering ballot proposal” where Jonathan Oosting puts it bluntly: Republicans who have dominated recent state and federal elections are mobilizing in opposition as a grassroots group nears its signature goal for […]

Republicans determined to punish Americans for not picking wealthy parents 1. The bottom 35 percent of America — the Americans who are struggling most — will see NO benefit from these tax breaks. 2. The richest 1 percent of Americans get most of the benefits. 3. The middle class gets far less or NOTHING from these cuts. But we will […]

The only thing Jane Lumm is ‘independent’ of is Ann Arbor’s values Jane Lumm, incumbent candidate for Ann Arbor’s city council in the 2nd Ward, ran as a Republican from 1993 until 2011. Tuesday, she’ll be on the ballot as an “independent.” You may not have believed Maya Angelou when she said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them […]

Don’t let attempts at sabotage make you miss out. Get smart about getting covered. Donald Trump and company don’t want you to know this, but you can sign up for 2018 health insurance from November 1 through December 15, 2017. Try as they might to sabotage the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare (which I wrote about HERE), the fact […]

Remember when U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos scrapped the Obama administration’s guidelines on campus sexual assault because they were “confusing“? Remember how some Very Serious People, even liberals, praised this as a good-faith effort? (Some folks seem to believe that there’s an epidemic of really good guys being falsely accused of rape and this is the worst thing in the […]

The most lawless, homophobic politician in America v. a man who took on the KKK and won, twice A choice has rarely been starker. In one corner, we have Doug Jones. From Mother Jones‘ Pema Levy: The cases for which Jones is most famous were his successful 2001 and 2002 prosecutions of two Ku Klux Klan members who had bombed […]

On October 16th, Donald Trump declared Obamacare dead. “Obamacare is finished,” he proclaimed. “It’s dead. It’s gone. You shouldn’t even mention it. It’s gone. There is no such thing as Obamacare anymore.” And he’s basically right: The Affordable Care Act as it was passed and originally implemented is a thing of the past. It didn’t take the passage of a […]

Despite being in “regular phone contact” with Kid Rock, former President Stephen Bannon had his hopes for a “Senator Rock” dashed this morning when Robert Richie, known to his fans as “Kid Rock”, told Howard Stern, “Fuck no, I’m not running for Senate!” Ritchie, who strangely called Stabenow a racist in his profanity-laced rant, seems to have had the last […]

When I woke up Saturday morning, it was Day Six of our 4th Quarter fundraiser here at Eclectablog and we hadn’t received a single donation. It was pretty demoralizing. We’ve had slow weeks in the past but nothing quite this slow. I generally hope to get enough in donations each quarter to pay for at least two months. Our annual […]