Stephen Tuttle | Author

The Ugly Side of Unregulated STR

Oct. 23, 2021

We've traveled this road before and found it bumpy and uninviting. Now the Michigan legislature wants to drag us down the same route.

Thanks to recent reporting by Craig Manning in The Ticker, we know House Bill 4722 and Senate Bill 0446 would prevent cities and towns from regulat... Read More >>

The Democrat Dilemma

Oct. 16, 2021

The Democrats' two big legislative initiatives, the infrastructure bill and the budget reconciliation bill, have stalled. They have no one to blame but themselves.

President Biden initially said there would be no connection between the two massive bits of spending; that they were ... Read More >>

A Theory In Need Of Replacement

Oct. 9, 2021

Thank goodness we have yet another conspiracy theory afloat among the far right. They like to call this one the Great Replacement Theory, allegedly being promulgated by the usual suspects: progressives, the Clintons, the Obamas and the omnipresent George Soros.

Replacement theory ... Read More >>

Enough!

Oct. 2, 2021

It should have put to rest the nonsensical fabrications of a failed president and his delusional acolytes. It did not.

After 10 months and $6 million, the Great Maricopa County Election Audit in Arizona was finally completed. It was conducted by an outfit from Florida calling itse... Read More >>

Same As We Were Before

Sept. 25, 2021

Despite some rather dramatic headlines, America is not awash in crime nor has the pandemic increased most crime categories. 

According to FBI statistics, crime overall in our 25 largest cities was down nearly 30 percent in 2020 from 2019. As might be expected, because far mor... Read More >>

The Unfriendly Skies

Sept. 18, 2021

A woman on a Southwest Airlines flight refuses to fasten her seat belt or put on her mask. The video, taken by another passenger, shows her standing and repeatedly striking a flight attendant until another passenger intervenes. The flight attendant has a tooth knocked out, three others cr... Read More >>

Northern Death

Sept. 11, 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic marches inexorably toward ignominious Milestones of Death here in the United States. 

We've now eased past 650,000 COVID deaths here. Soon enough we will surge past the estimated 675,000 Americans who died in the 1918–19 flu pandemic, and this coro... Read More >>

Heroes

Sept. 4, 2021

It has been two full decades since we were attacked by crazed murderers hijacking planes and using them as weapons. Calling them “terrorists” affords them more credit than they deserve, a kind of cachet that somehow elevates them beyond what they actually were. We will once ag... Read More >>

County Knowledge and City Plans

Aug. 28, 2021

Those of us living in Grand Traverse County are incredibly lucky; the Republicans on our county board of commissioners are just about the smartest people alive, and their wisdom extends to subjects far and wide.

A previous board's expertise on energy distribution — specifica... Read More >>

A Basket Full of Troubles

Aug. 21, 2021

President Joe Biden has a basket full of troubles. Some inherited, some the responsibility of multiple people and some of his own doing. They all promise to be rich fodder for attack politics during the 2022 midterm elections.    

Afghanistan
Read More >>

Not Good at All

Aug. 14, 2021

This is not good at all. With the COVID-19 Delta variant surging, too many are still stuck in a world of make-believe, unwilling to acknowledge science or protect themselves and the rest of us.

About 80 percent of all new covid cases are of the delta variant, a mutated and more tr... Read More >>

Where are the Workers?

Aug. 7, 2021

Where are they? Where did all the employees go? 

These days it is unusual to pass a business — almost any business — that hasn't posted a “Now Hiring” or “Help Wanted” sign of some kind. Others are posting their vacancies on various online ... Read More >>

Teaching our Real History

July 31, 2021

The Washington Post got it partially right: racism is a divisive issue in Traverse City. The “tearing the city apart” component was more than a little hyperbolic.

Their recent article connected the appalling “slave trading” on social media undertak... Read More >>

Livin', Smokin', Drinkin' and Fishin'

July 24, 2021

The country seems to be devolving into near insanity with election deniers trying to delude us and anti-vaxxers trying to sicken us. It might be safer to look at things a little closer to home.

Kudos to the Traverse City Housing Commission (TCHC) for their plan to help build 210 a... Read More >>

Another Depressing Campaign

July 17, 2021

The Republican campaign strategies for the 2022 midterm and 2024 presidential elections are now coming into sharper focus. They will push the notion that Democrats are in thrall to the extreme left and here, they say, is the proof:

Democrats support CRT – Cr... Read More >>

Will This Bubble Burst?

July 10, 2021

 

There is a housing shortage, at all price points, locally and nationally. Materials needed to build housing are also in short supply, as are capable, skilled trades workers, a product of shutdowns during the height of the pandemic. With supply and demand in play, prices hav... Read More >>

Dishonoring our Country

July 3, 2021

 

We like to celebrate the Fourth of July though we typically do so superficially. We've all been taught the basics: unfair taxation from an oppressive absentee government, the Boston Tea Party, the Boston Massacre, Paul Revere, Lexington and Concord, Washington's ultimate vi... Read More >>

Still Asleep

June 26, 2021

Are you woke? Are you part of the woke culture? Do you know what that's actually supposed to mean?

In its simplest definition, to be woke is to be aware of social injustice, and to be part of the so-called woke culture is to somehow act to remove that social injustice.

One... Read More >>

Long-term Headache

June 19, 2021

The Michigan Legislature is contemplating yet another bad decision. This time they'd like to strip away the right of local communities to regulate short-term residential rental properties. It is, they say, all about private property rights. 

It would mean Traverse City's some... Read More >>

Ending the Filibuster

June 12, 2021

 

The filibuster, much in the news lately, has an interesting if not usually glorious history.

From the French word filibustier, it was first used as a negative descriptor of pirates marauding French colonies in the Caribbean in the early 17th Century. It wou... Read More >>