Stephen Tuttle | Author

Ignoring the New Normal

Oct. 19, 2024

It seems no event, natural or human-caused, can escape the vivid imaginations of the conspiracy fans anxious to find wrongdoers lurking everywhere. Now it’s hurricanes and their aftermaths that have become the targets of the feeble minded and political grandstanders who want us to bel… Read More >>

Tariffs = Taxes

Oct. 12, 2024

When he isn’t telling outrageous lies about the Hurricane Helene relief efforts, and we’ll have an aside about that later, Donald Trump likes to brag about his tariffs. At one point, he even said he’s the only president to have ever put a tariff on imported Chinese goods, … Read More >>

Tiff over TIFs

Oct. 5, 2024

The voting has begun and, if you’d like to ignore the blizzard of nonsensical and accusatory campaign advertisements—hey, already voted, quit sending me your crap—the next month is little more than something to be endured or muted or thrown away.

Others, hardier so… Read More >>

Partisan Nonsense

Sept. 28, 2024

According to Ballotpedia, there were 161.4 million registered voters as of the 2022 midterm elections. There are now 30 U.S. states that allow or require people to declare a party preference when registering to vote. In those states, 38.3 percent registered as Democrats, 30.3 percent as Rep… Read More >>

A Policy Nightmare

Sept. 21, 2024

Had enough? No, seriously, do you wish the 2024 election cycle was either over or would just go away? The campaigns get longer, uglier, and more vapid with each election.

Early voting, a benefit for most of us, has unfortunately created a month-long election day and even longer than… Read More >>

Children Criminals

Sept. 14, 2024

English common law, which we sometimes loosely follow, has decided children as young as seven have the “moral intelligence and maturity” to tell right from wrong and should be held legally responsible for their actions. Most any parent will tell you, however, seven-year olds don… Read More >>

Never Forget the Heroes

Sept. 7, 2024

Every year about this time we remind ourselves of the horrors of September 11, 2001. We’ll again see images of the planes hitting the twin towers of the World Trade Center and their subsequent agonizing collapse. We’ll also be reminded of the plane tragically slamming into the P… Read More >>

Buses, Statues, Theaters, and Condos

Aug. 31, 2024

It is again the time of year when those giant yellow school buses will be on the road mornings and afternoons. And once again there will be unthinking, uncaring people driving by stopped school buses endangering our children.

According to the National Safety Council, there were more… Read More >>

Those Medals Aren't Equal

Aug. 24, 2024

Donald Trump has never demonstrated much respect for the military, but his latest denigration is outlandish even by his standards.

Trump, during a rambling campaign event at his golf club in New Jersey, said he thought the Presidential Medal of Freedom was equal to the Congressional… Read More >>

Racist and Dishonest Attacks

Aug. 17, 2024

The Trump/Vance team is having some difficulty settling on a plan of attack. What they’ve been trying so far does not seem to have gained much traction.

This is important for that campaign since they have little by way of actual policy to offer, and what they have offered is n… Read More >>

Controversy They Didn't Create

Aug. 10, 2024

There is no such thing as an Olympics without controversy, and it usually starts outside the arena of competition…though not always.

In the past, we have had significant doping scandals when old Soviet Bloc countries, particularly East Germany, ran full-blown, state-sponsored… Read More >>

Toasting Local Issues

Aug. 3, 2024

Time for a shallow dive into the still frigid waters of some local issues. Our county Republican party can’t seem to do anything without squabbling. Elk Rapids actually considered, briefly, an ordinance that referenced half parking spaces. Garfield Township and Traverse City have an i… Read More >>

Our Climate Is Still Changing

July 27, 2024

Time for our regularly irregular check on how the environment is doing and if we’ve fixed everything (or anything) yet…oh, dear.

The Florida Museum of Natural History reports what is likely the first species of plant or animal to become extinct in the continental U.S. d… Read More >>

We Shoot Presidents

July 20, 2024

Statistically, it is the most dangerous job in the world.

We’ve had 45 presidents, and five have been shot at and missed, three have been shot at and hit (including two former presidents seeking another term), and four have been shot and killed. That is an amazingly violent re… Read More >>

A Knife in the Back

July 13, 2024

National Democrats should be ashamed of themselves.

Democrats have always been experts at devouring their own, masters of the fine art of political cannibalism. Their willingness to so quickly turn on their own incumbent president is extreme even by their low standards. Blind loyalt… Read More >>

Let's Look at the Numbers

July 6, 2024

Some themes have now emerged from the 2024 presidential campaign, and much of it has been consistently inaccurate.

For example, Republicans tell us Joe Biden has rigged the judicial system, weaponized the government, ruined the economy, allowed crime to run rampant over American cit… Read More >>

Indoctrinating Schoolchildren

June 29, 2024

The Louisiana Legislature, with both feet firmly planted in the past, has mandated that every public K-12 school, community college, and university shall prominently display the Ten Commandments in every classroom. They claim it is “a foundational document of our country.”

Justifiable Recognition

June 22, 2024

What did Socrates, Michelangelo, Emily Dickinson, Alexander the Great, Leonardo da Vinci, Richard the Lionheart, and Joan of Arc all have in common? They all may have been gay. (At least as historians can best guess.)

This comes to mind as we near the end of Pride Month, first offic… Read More >>

The Downtown Debate

June 15, 2024

In 1978, Traverse City established a Downtown Development Authority (DDA) in accordance with a Michigan statute passed in 1975. The DDA is a component of the city government and is primarily financed by tax increment financing (TIF) districts, in which baseline property tax values are estab… Read More >>

Rule of Law for Everyone

June 8, 2024

Republican Larry Hogan is the former governor of Maryland now running for the U.S. Senate. Commenting on the Donald Trump trial, he asked Americans of all stripes to “... respect the verdict and the legal process... We must reaffirm what made this nation great: the rule of law.”… Read More >>