You can’t laugh away your votes against the promises our nation has made to Michiganders anymore, Rep. Walberg I’m worried about Rep. Tim Walberg’s wife. At a recent “Coffee Hour” in Dexter conveniently held during conventional business hours when most people were at work, the following exchange happened as the representative of Michigan’s 7th Congressional District had an aide ask […]

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides. It has been going on for a long time in our country — not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. It has been going on for a long, long time. It has no place in America.” — President Donald Trump […]

In George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, documents that contradicted Big Brother’s enforced worldview were burned by sending them down the Memory Hole by the Ministry of Truth. It’s a frightening concept really, that the government could control our thoughts and memories by eradicating any it doesn’t like. That is no longer a concept, it’s being put into practice by the […]

If you’ve been watching the ever-increasing demonization of teachers in Michigan over the past decade, you probably have asked yourself at one time or another, “Why the hell would ANYONE want to be a teacher in Michigan?” It’s a fair question. Republicans in our state legislature have cut their benefits, based their advancement on student progress when much of what […]

The horrors of what the GOP almost pulled off reveal both the historic effectiveness of the Resistance and how tenuous the victory over Trumpcare may be What else is Mike Pence going to say? Can he admit that “the dawn of a new unified Republican government” has led to no significant legislative achievements in six months, highlighted by a complete […]

I’m often asked why we focus on Michigan so much at Eclectablog. The easy answer, of course, is that all of us live here and care about our state deeply. The less obvious answer is that Michigan has become the beta testing ground for some of the most egregious Republican overreach you’ll find in the USA. In our statewide elections, […]

I hate writing fundraising pleas. You hate reading them. Those are facts. Also a fact: We’re all in this together. I just finished a Powerpoint presentation I am giving at Netroots Nation this week in Atlanta where I’m on a panel sponsored by the Center for Media & Democracy titled “Dismantling the Corporate Influence Machine in the States”. As I […]

A jointly-authored article from Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and State Superintendent of Schools Brian Whiston appeared recently in The Detroit News. The article was supposed to be a defense of the state’s school reform agenda–which has been, shall we say…underwhelming…in terms of actually…you know…uh…reforming our state’s schools. The overarching theme of the article, such as it was, was that greater […]

Let’s face it, progressive blogs, especially here in Michigan, are becoming more and more rare. In our state, there were once two major progressive political blogs: Michigan Liberal and Blogging for Michigan. Neither of these websites exists today. In fact, Eclectablog is one of the only progressive sites in the state still bringing you news and commentary about what’s happening […]

The following guest post was written by Friend of the Blog Barb Byrum (D-Onondaga). Barb is currently serving her second term as the Ingham County Clerk. Before that, Clerk Byrum served in the Michigan House of Representatives for six years. She currently serves as the Co-Chair of the Legislative Committee of the Michigan Association of County Clerks (MACC) and also […]

It’s becoming an all too familiar news story in Michigan these days: A “failing” public school system faces “competition” from a charter school that sucks even more resources and students away from the traditional schools and then, when they can’t make enough money, the charter school closes and things are worse off than they were before. For example, it happened […]