Every time the Republicans who run Michigan do some new incredibly regressive thing, I hear it from several people: “WHY DON’T YOU JUST LEAVE?” When Republicans imposed the most draconian, anti-democratic law on our state — our infamous “Emergency Manager” Law — I heard it. When Republicans passed a huge tax cut for corporations and paid for it by raising […]

I don’t know how to describe this exactly. It may be the most insulting thing anyone in the Trump administration or campaign has done to Jewish Americans. Mike Pence invited “Rabbi” Loren Jacobs to give the invocation at his Michigan campaign stop today. Jacobs is actually a Christian who leads a group who call themselves Messianic Jews. He spent eight […]

This weekend, Michigan Republicans dutifully nominated U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ choice for Secretary of State, Mary Treder Lang. The billionaire DeVos family has already padded Lang’s campaign account with more than $40,000 so far. Republican pundit Bill Ballenger, best known for declaring the Flint water crisis to be “overblown,”* gave us some insight into another reason for Lang’s nomination […]

At some point in the ten years and one day since we began blogging under the Eclectablog banner, I had to make a decision. Was Eclectablog going to be a “state blog” or a “national blog”. If we aimed to be only a state blog, that would limit our reach because, at some point, folks outside of Michigan would just […]

Poor li’l Cameron Myers. He’s an 18-year old white “country boy” from rural Auburn, Michigan. Seems this pathetic little punk got his fee-fees hurt when somebody stole the racist Confederate flag off the back of his truck in the school parking lot. When he whined about it to school administrators, they didn’t do anything about it. He called it an […]

Most people know Tony Trupiano from his radio shows, podcast, posts here or as a Democratic activist who could always be counted on to help a candidate on the campaign trail or emcee an event. Tony was all those things. But most of all, he was just a really good man and a great friend. The world is poorer without him. He […]

At the end of January and again at the beginning of February, I spent ten days in the hospital. I took a bit of a break from my normal hyper-consumption of political news and, when I dipped my toe back in, I found that the fire hose of cacophony that I had been drinking from before my illness had only […]

Michigan politicos are once again atwitter about Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and other Democrats allegedly trying to recruit an alternative to Gretchen Whitmer for governor. That’s from a Bridge story this week following up on a Detroit News column in November. And I wrote a column for Dome Magazine back in October, going through the months-long history of the effort […]

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. quote on the King monument in Washington, D.C. Photo by Chris Savage. Many of us will celebrate Martin Luther King Day by visiting a museum, participating in a community volunteer event, or by watch a civil rights documentary. These are all, of course, perfectly appropriate ways to celebrate the life of our country’s preeminent civil […]

In a move you wouldn’t think necessary, this past week Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed legislation into law that makes it illegal for undercover police officers to have sex with prostitutes while they are at work. No, I’m not kidding: Gov. Rick Snyder on Wednesday signed legislation officially outlawing police having sex with prostitutes on duty by removing an exemption […]

 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 […]