Stephen Tuttle | Author

Assault on the First Amendment

Jan. 3, 2026

Back in the 1950s, it was Minnesota Senator Joseph McCarthy and his supporters who decided the First Amendment could simply be ignored. He—and his attorney and eventual Donald Trump mentor Roy Cohn—found communists in every part of the government, including the military, and lur… Read More >>

Christmas Survives Another Year

Dec. 20, 2025

It’s about that time when a certain president will declare he has once again saved Christmas. Actually, Christmas hasn’t needed saving since the mid-1600s when the Puritans banned it in Boston because it was not mentioned in the Bible. Since then, Christmas has been on a pretty … Read More >>

Of Airports and Gravel

Dec. 13, 2025

No doubt the entire Grand Traverse region is popular with visitors and prospective new residents. Additionally, people already here travel more, and some now telework from home but have to zoom off to meetings someplace other than their home office. The result is our little airport just kee… Read More >>

Pardon Me

Dec. 6, 2025

A president’s constitutional power to offer clemency to prisoners, or soon-to-be prisoners, by way of pardon or commutation for federal crimes is absolute with the exception of impeachment. A pardon totally erases a conviction and immediately ends penalties associated with it and clea… Read More >>

Not Quite Peacemaking

Nov. 29, 2025

Our president continues to insist he is deserving of some sort of peace prize and claims he’s stopped eight wars in his 11 months in office. Now might be a good time to check up on all of that as we enter the season celebrating the actual Prince of Peace.

Let’s start wit… Read More >>

Thankful for Much

Nov. 22, 2025

For many of us, Thanksgiving is the best of holidays. No gifts are required, there is good food and good company available in abundance, and distant relatives, long-forgotten friends, and stragglers with no other place to go can all find a welcoming place at the table. Lively conversation w… Read More >>

Warmer, Wetter and Windier

Nov. 15, 2025

Bill Gates has almost given up on the idea that we can slow down, much less stop, climate change. He thinks we should pivot our thinking to how best we can deal with the inevitable climate and weather changes headed our way.

He isn’t alone in his pessimism, as homeowners in se… Read More >>

Distracting Us

Nov. 8, 2025

This is not how you win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Having apparently grown tired of unnecessarily deploying federal troops into American cities like Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Portland and threatening others, Donald Trump seems to have paused that nonsense. He seems done with Gaza, … Read More >>

Shutdown Collateral Damage

Nov. 1, 2025

On and on it drags, a shutdown of the government because we no longer have a functioning government. Congress needed to pass a budget extension no later than October 1, but they did not. Instead, we have a seemingly intractable argument over federally funded healthcare.

In the backg… Read More >>

Halftime Halfwits

Oct. 25, 2025

Some of you might remember when there were two competing professional football leagues, the National Football League (NFL), which had been around since its founding in Canton, Ohio, in 1920, and the upstart American Football League (AFL) which started playing in 1960. The leagues technicall… Read More >>

Antifa Doesn't Exist

Oct. 18, 2025

On September 22, in one of the 209 Executive Orders he’s issued just this year, Donald Trump declared “Antifa” (his capitalization) a “domestic terrorist organization” and ordered that they be investigated, disrupted, and dismantled. We'll discuss how comically… Read More >>

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 >>

Protection Lost

Sept. 27, 2025

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 >>