Stephen Tuttle | Author
Local Trouble, Local Progress
June 1, 2019
Let's catch up with some local news.
104th District Sate Representative Larry Inman has been indicted by the feds. He's accused of soliciting a bribe, attempted extortion, and lying to FBI investigators, serious charges.
All the eviden...
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Bruising Our Shins
May 25, 2019
Let's see how that trade war thing is going.
Our Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says there is not yet evidence of any increased economic gain as a result of the tariffs we've imposed, and it appears the number of jobs gained and lost are about the same. Several compan...
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Food Lunacy
May 18, 2019
Some extreme vegans would like us to avoid California almonds and avocados. Not because they've been tainted by pesticides or other chemicals, and not because they've been adulterated with non-vegan food products.
No, it's because the bees that pollinate most of those cr...
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Nothing Unconstitutional About It
May 11, 2019
A discussion about free speech is always a good idea. Even the president is deeply concerned. Deeply. His current angst was spawned after Facebook and Instagram (Instagram is owned by Facebook) banished several darlings of the very far right.
The president has prev...
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More, Less, or Both
May 4, 2019
We don't have enough money. Not nearly enough.
Peter Gaynor, the Acting Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) recently said they simply wouldn’t be able to help everybody stricken by natural disasters. With the growing number and sev...
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After the Candlelight Vigils
April 27, 2019
Four armed men entered a schoolhouse near Greencastle, Pennsylvania, shot and killed the school headmaster, and then murdered nine children. It was July 26, 1764. We haven't stopped since.
We recently commemorated, if that's the right word, the 20thanniversary of the mas...
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Hero or Criminal
April 20, 2019
Julian Assange is either a constitutionally protected journalist exposing scoundrels and malfeasance — or a criminal computer hacker who tried to access classified Department of Defense files. Hero or criminal.
Assange, an Australian national, founded Wikilea...
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Kill Capital Punishment
April 13, 2019
We're a nation that can't quite make up its mind about capital punishment.
Three years ago the Nebraska legislature did away with the death penalty, only to have voters restore it by referendum last year. Washington, New Hampshire, Louisiana, and Utah all considered...
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Loudest and Wrong
April 6, 2019
The loudest voices on both sides were wrong: There was no sinister deep state out to take down the president. There was no treasonous conspiracy between Donald Trump and the Russians.
We have to back up to remember why there was a Mueller investigation in the first...
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Shots That Save
April 2, 2019
Apparently we need to go over this again since the anti-vaccine crowd never tires of spreading disinformation and misinformation.
Their repeatedly debunked arguments blame vaccines for autism, muscular dystrophy, any other neurological disorder ... and pretty much anythin...
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Floating Down Drunk River
March 23, 2019
The National Forest Service recently proposed an alcohol ban on stretches of the AuSable, Manistee, and Pine rivers within the Huron/Manistee National Forest. It was a response to the drunken crudity taking place there on summer weekends.
Private property, campsite...
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Coal Dust
March 16, 2019
Coal is neither beautiful nor clean. It is now and always has been the most destructive fossil fuel to extract, and the dirtiest to burn. Even with new technology that tries to scrub out pollutants, coal is still filthy.
Now, after more than two centuries of causing deat...
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The Art of the Oversell
March 9, 2019
Remember the “immediate and irretrievable denuclearization” of North Korea? That's what we were told was the result of the first meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
No such thing was likely to happen because no ...
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Slowly Green
Feb. 23, 2019
We are determined to get ourselves some “green” energy. There is legislation in Congress and in various state legislatures. Cities and states are setting goals for percentages of power generated from renewable sources by certain times.
Noble objectives all. B...
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Watching the Divide Widen
Feb. 16, 2019
There was a time when it was somewhat of a special occasion. The majority of the country gathered in front of their televisions and watched the president deliver the State of the Union Address.
If you liked the president, you thought the speech was great, and if you...
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Running, Exploring, Lurking
Feb. 9, 2019
Democrats are circling, posturing, and positioning themselves for 2020. At least 13 of them — there might be more by the time you read this — are running, exploring, or lurking about for a presidential run.
Let's start with the frontrunner in the curren...
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State of Emergency
Feb. 2, 2019
Presidents like to find ways to work around Congress, typically by issuing executive orders and hoping the courts will uphold them. President Trump, unable to build his wall via that route, is threatening to declare a national emergency and have the military do it.
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Prayers, Appointments, and More TIF
Jan. 26, 2019
It was an interesting start for the new Grand Traverse County Commission. Things will certainly get even better now that they'll begin meetings with an invocation. Some would call it a prayer.
Our Commission says, or at least the four commissioners voting in favor d...
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Windmill Tilting
Jan. 19, 2019
Modern Democrats have always been a fractious bunch more likely to coalesce against something than for anything. But we now have a small new group in the U.S. House of Representatives with big plans.
Disciples of Bernie Sanders and advocates of what some call de...
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A Monument to Ignorance
Jan. 12, 2019
The idea of walls is to either keep people in, or keep people out, or both. Almost none have ever worked.
Any wall discussion should start with the Great Wall of China. Started in the fourth century BCE, it was supposed to keep out invading “barbarians.”...
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