WobblyReport

Federal incentives fuel closer ICE partnerships with police agencies Local law enforcement agreements with ICE not yet impacting operations in Michigan Originally published at  MichiganAdvance.com   /2026/01/08/federal-incentives-fuel-closer-ice-partnerships-with-michigan-police-agencies/ The fatal shooting of a Minneapolis woman by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer on Wednesday—after the agent fired through the window of her car—has renewed national scrutiny of ICE’s expanding role and the growing involvement of local law enforcement in federal immigration operations. As federal immigration enforcement expands nationwide, a growing number of local law enforcement agencies, including in Michigan, are entering formal agreements with ICE, potentially reshaping the relationship between federal and local policing. The Minneapolis shooting, reported as ICE officers were attempting to stop a vehicle, has intensified concerns among civil rights advocates about accounta...

This story might as well begin with onboarding at my most recent full-time position a little less than two years ago. Having relocated in order to accept it, I declined to enroll in the employer-offered healthcare insurance plans. I was to be our household's sole income earner until my spouse found work, and considering other more immediate costs (rent, utilities, food, etc.), none of the plans on offer would be affordable, I presumed. Then last fall, after a promotion and a raise, and after my spouse had found steady work, I sought treatment in a local emergency ward after a particularly sustained episode of uncontrollable vomiting. These episodes had been occuring sporadically for the past few years. I'd sought treatment once prior but had recovered quickly enough to be discharged with nausea medication and no specific diagnosis. Last fall, the doctor who reviewed computed tomography scans of my torso concluded that a hernia surgery almost two decades prior caused scar tiss...

We maintained a local focus at the newspapers I co-edited, reporting on what happened in and immediately around our designated coverage areas. Happenings farther off may have received mention if they had a more or less immediate impact on the aforementioned areas. To decide whether to report on activity in the state capitol or even Washington, D.C., we monitored and analyzed other media. Here are my views on some recent, trending Michigan news topics. Data centers Around the state, local residents have been responding to data center construction proposals in or near their communities. Recently in nearby Kalkaska County, residents loudly opposed plans by Rocklocker LLC to develop a data center on 1,400 acres of public land. The company ceased their pursuit of the development after numerous public fora at which residents were overwhelmingly opposed. Developers are meeting similar opposition to plans in Saline Township, Howell and Lansing. Michigan is already home to over 40 data cent...

The prognosis was a natural clearing of the obstruction or, failing that, surgical intervention. The diagnosis, following an expensive computed tomography scan, was a small bowel obstruction caused by eating too many raw vegetables. I had overdosed on salad. The scan revealed a pinch-point in the small intestine caused by scar tissue resulting from a hernia operation almost two decades ago. Too much fibrous material can stop up at this point, causing any solid or liquid material taken orally to become a ticking time-bomb—what cannot go down, must come up. In effect, this meant periods of intense abdominal pain and regurgitation. It started a couple years ago. Ascertaining the cause was a relief, although the bill for 24 hours’ observation and the CT scan will take us a year to pay, at over $400 per month. We couldn’t afford insurance when my employer offered and were not eligible to enroll when my spouse found full-time employment last spring. We’ll be able to enroll in November and...

Declaration of Independence TL;DR? Find a full transcription of the original Declaration of Independence here . Read on for a modernized and distilled version. Sometimes people reject an established political authority that they had for a time in the majority agreed to follow. Here’s why we did. Obviously human beings are created equal, inheriting unalienable rights, among them Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. People institute governments to secure those rights and produce the best chances for Safety and Happiness. Government power starts and ends with the consent of the people. If government fails in these regards, it is the Right of the People to change or abolish it and institute new forms of government. Prudence dictates that we not change or abolish long-established governments for slight or short-lived causes. Plus, people are naturally averse to change. But when a long train of abuses clearly aims to impose tyrannous rule, people have both the right and the dut...

Multiple petition drives gearing up in the Mitten Michigan’s Board of State Canvassers (est. 1850) has been busy throughout late spring reviewing numerous petition proposals that state residents are likely to see when we are out and about in public this summer. Here are a few of the petition drives being reviewed and my views on their substance. RANK MI VOTE Summary: Constitutional amendment to guarantee voters in Michigan the right to: rank candidates in order of preference in most federal, state, and certain local elections; require that candidates for major offices receive a majority of votes to be elected; receive timely notice of changes to polling places or voting procedures; cast a ballot if in line at the time polls close; use secure and accessible paper ballots in all elections, preserved for certification, recounts, and audits; vote for eligible write-in candidates not listed on the ballot; participate in primary elections held at least 140 days before the general election....

Toward the end of the 19th century, the United States of America was home to many working people’s organizations. Two such organizations, the Knights of Labor and the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (later known as the American Federation of Labor), have competing stories from 1882 about one of their chapters proposing that the first Monday of September each year be observed as Labor Day. Great battles for the eight-hour workday began two years later. The FOTLU held their national convention in Chicago and declared that “eight hours shall constitute a legal day's labor from and after May 1, 1886.” They planned and coordinated a series of demonstrations and labor strikes in order to win their demand. On May 1, 1886, an estimated 300,000 workers across the nation went on strike, affecting more than 13,000 businesses. The population of the United States at that time was between 50 and 60 million. In Chicago, where initially an estimated 40,000 workers went on strike,...

Security and stability of one’s shelter is a fluid situation, as so many Midwest residents were reminded this spring. But three months before the 2025 ice storm, in late January, nonprofit workers and volunteers in the Midwest and across the nation made efforts to contact and count people living without stable and secure housing. Known as the Point-in-Time (PIT) Count and coordinated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the goal is “a count of sheltered and unsheltered people experiencing homelessness on a single night in January.” “It’s basically like the homeless census,” said Chad Lytle, Northeast Michigan Community Service Agency (NEMCSA) Street Outreach Director. Lytle coordinates homeless prevention in Crawford, Iosco, Ogemaw, Oscoda and Roscommon counties. “During that time, we're counting those who are literally homeless,” he said. “Literally homeless has a little tighter definition than people might think.” The federal government’s definition is simple ...

Published in the March 4 edition of the Mountain Mail. To the editor of the Mountain Mail , As a blacklisted former ski patroller (looking at you, Mt. Cooper) who later covered the river raft guide wage controversy from the perspective of local guides (costing the former and possibly current publisher of this paper a bit in the way of ad revenues—sorry not sorry) as a journalist for the Chaffee County Times before being lowkey run out of town, I salute the community members and social critics who installed art on Tenderfoot Mountain in late February . Photo by Cailey McDermott for the Mountain Mail Mayor Shore wrung his hands in the fashion of a man whose salary prevents his understanding of the problem in his face. But let's not spend too much energy attempting to cast shame on the shameless. Call it vandalism or call it what you will. The writing's on the mountain and the power is at its base. If we can climb up there and put our mark on the community's most visible...

Letter to the editor, submitted to info@northernexpress.com Sunday, Sept. 10, 2023. Published in the Sept. 18 edition. Context: Workers' worth [ed. title] , published Aug. 28, 2022.

Letter to the editor, submitted to info@northernexpress.com Monday, Aug. 29, 2022. Update: published Friday, Sept. 2, 2022. "Are northern Michigan workers being paid what they're worth?" a recent Express article asks. Sources included the Networks Northwest Chief Program Officer, the CEO of Traverse Connect and the president of the Northern Lakes Economic Alliance.  Workers being paid less than we are worth are easy to find. Please talk with us for your newspaper articles. Thank you,  [WobblyReporter]

Letter to the editor, submitted to info@northernexpress.com and letters@record-eagle.com Saturday, Aug. 6, 2022. Published Aug. 12 and 14, respectively. Public discourse around abortion policy ignores the elephant in the room. To wax righteously about this inalienable right versus that moral principle is to deliberately avoid material reality. A U.S. policy regime without federal abortion protections is one in which some poor people are losing access to abortion, while no rich people are.

"Mayor Duff L--- commented that W---- and his staff had taken the prospect of running the airport at a profit from a pie-in-the-sky fantasy to a distinctly feasible horizon," said the reporter's final line at the local newspaper. Leave them wanting more, he thought. Who can possibly get enough quippy wordplay in mundane municipal board meeting stories? He took his child to say goodbye to her friends at the preschool. She played like it was any other day. The now former reporter suppressed his emotions as best he could.  A sad man casts a long shadow. When the farewells were said and the blame mislaid for a bathtub that was most certainly that same color when he had moved in, all that was left was to pack all the possessions that had accrued in the 900 square foot apartment into 360 cubic feet of rented box truck cargo space and stoically haul them down from the mountains and across the vast plains of U.S. flyover country. Boop boop be doop. During the drive his old cowork...