Stephen Tuttle | Author

Incompetence in a Losing Game

Oct. 11, 2025

We don’t care who’s to blame for the government shutdown. That politicians think we do is just more evidence of their remarkable incompetence.

The federal government has shut down 10 times since 1980, and each time it was because one party or the other believed punishing… Read More >>

Around Town in October

Oct. 4, 2025

Let’s check in and see what’s happening locally, given how depressing national and international news has become.

In Traverse City, we’re not quite done fiddling with State Street. It was two-way, then for a long time it functioned quite nicely as a west-to-east on… Read More >>

The federal courts have always been the last line of defense for our basic rights as outlined in the U.S. Constitution. If state legislatures, Congress, or the president crossed into forbidden territory, we could count on federal appellate courts to rein them back in thereby protecting our … Read More >>

The Enemy Is Us

Sept. 20, 2025

Nothing Charlie Kirk ever said rationalizes, much less justifies, his murder. Celebrations to the contrary were, and continue to be, reprehensible if for no other reason than a three-year-old little girl and a one-year-old little boy are left without a father.

At the same time, his … Read More >>

One Race, One Religion

Sept. 13, 2025

White Christians. That is the future of America envisioned by some in the so-called MAGA movement. But you don’t have to take my word for it since they are happy to tell their own, sordid story.

First, let’s visit our old friend Ryan Walters, since 2023 the Superintenden… Read More >>

Fantasies and Delusions

Sept. 6, 2025

Every department of the federal government is led by a political appointee trying to implement, where possible, the policies of the president who appointed them. It means political shenanigans can be the norm rather than the exception. We accept those shenanigans change depending on the res… Read More >>

Union Workers and Big Yellow Buses

Aug. 30, 2025

Another Labor Day will be marginally celebrated and mostly forgotten. It’s just a meaningless day off for many people. We might as well call it No Labor Day.

The first hint of such a holiday occurred in New York in 1882, a parade specifically celebrating union workers. It beca… Read More >>

Lying About Crime

Aug. 23, 2025

First, you spend years and years denigrating and devaluing institutions on which people rely. You call the data they produce “fake news” or a “hoax” or a “scam.” When the numbers and reports do not emerge exactly the way you want, you fire whoever is repo… Read More >>

Going Backward

Aug. 16, 2025

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth isn't making our military great again but he is making it about a century old. How? No women leaders, no men of color as leaders, no hesitancy to honor traitorous generals who took up arms against this country, no room for service members whose only offense… Read More >>

Nothing Will Change

Aug. 9, 2025

On July 28, a man entered a building on Park Avenue in New York City and shot three people to death before killing himself. The same day, a man opened fire at a casino in Reno, Nevada, killing one and injuring a second person.

On July 29, a shooting at a park in Conway, Arkansas, ki… Read More >>

Third Party Futility

Aug. 2, 2025

Elon Musk says he wants to start a third political party. We’ll take a short break here until you stop giggling.

The U.S. has been basically a two-party system since the mid 1850s, though some would claim we’ve been a two-party system since 1796 when John Adams—a m… Read More >>

More Storms, Less Warning

July 26, 2025

The Big Beautiful Bill is big and it is a bill, but there is little in it or about it that is beautiful. Those of us who are not corporations or billionaires won’t find much in the legislation that will do anything but make our lives more challenging.

Let’s see…it… Read More >>

Disasters Natural and Human-Made

July 19, 2025

According to our president, it “has never happened before” and “nobody could have seen it coming.” He was talking about the recent horrific flash floods in Texas’ Hill Country. He was wrong on both counts.

There is a reason this part of Texas is called … Read More >>

Climate Conspiracies and Lies

July 12, 2025

We can’t seem to move away from magical thinking when it comes to doubting climate change reality. Never mind the overwhelming science now decades in the making, and never mind the evidence piling up before our very eyes with one catastrophic weather event after another.

Even … Read More >>

Billionaire Benefit Bill

July 5, 2025

The United States Senate has passed the so-called Big Beautiful Bill (BBB) and sent it back to the House as this is being written. Some version of this travesty may already be law by the time you read this, but it is crystal clear it isn’t going to help most of us.

The bill, a… Read More >>

Legal Protection Would Be Better

June 28, 2025

As Pride Month fades for another year, it might be wise for us to take a look at what’s happening with the LGBTQ+ community. It has not been an especially good year for their members.

According to the Center for American Progress (CAP), discrimination against this community is… Read More >>

A Tradition of Violence

June 21, 2025

There was a certain inevitability to it given the increasingly violent rhetoric spewed by our president, elected members of both political parties, and way, way too much of the general public. Now an elected political leader in Minnesota, and her husband, lie dead for no rational reason.Read More >>

Old-fashioned Term Limits

June 14, 2025

According to Pew Research, Ballotpedia, and pretty much all other public opinion research companies, the approval rating for Congress hovers right around 30 percent. So seven out of 10 adult Americans think Congress is doing a crummy job of which they disapprove. One suspects if more people… Read More >>

Selective Humanitarianism

June 7, 2025

A word first coined by a Polish author in 1944, “genocide” is defined by Amnesty International as the killing or destruction of specific ethnic, racial, national, or religious groups or nationalities with the intent of fully destroying them.

Sadly, these kinds of horrors… Read More >>

Nothing Is Better than a Tree

May 31, 2025

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

So begins Joyce Kilmer’s classic ode to our leafy friends. He’d likely be displeased if he was still alive and lived around here these days; we’ve found plenty of reasons to remove plent… Read More >>