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 recent preemption and television broadcast restoration of Jimmy Kimmel Live! on ABC should remind us to be clear-headed about our right to free speech in the United States of America in 2025, and in which sorts of media free speech is even possible. As Hamline University political science professor and author David Schultz observed, both Kimmel’s brief suspension and the imminent cancelation of The Late Show on CBS with Stephen Colbert reveal first and foremost “the overwhelming grip of corporate, for-profit media on our public life.” Much of the reporting on Kimmel’s suspension completely omits mention of a $6.2 billion merger that ABC affiliate broadcaster Nexstar plans with Tegna — a merger which requires approval from the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice. Nexstar and Sinclair Broadcasting Group, which revealed some of its own merger and acquisitions plans earlier this summer, announced Kimmel’s suspension on the stations they manage only hours ...

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...

The events in New York City on September 11, 2001, separate what came before and all that has happened since in American society. The front page of the Heralds and Independent*  all described local residents as “stunned” by the tragedy, when several commercial airplanes were hijacked and crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, causing thousands of casualties. Many first responders valiantly sacrificed their own lives in attempts to rescue those still in the towers while they were still standing, before they both collapsed. Amid the confusion and before the dust had settled, politicians initiated the most significant restructuring of the federal government in modern history, while dubbing 9/11 Patriot Day. The changes were sudden, although the preparations had been long and deliberate. The social climate that helped usher in the USA PATRIOT Act and the creation of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was one of unity and patriotism, but a unity and patriot...

Michigan’s Public Act 451 purports to require school to begin after Labor Day. Most Michigan schools do not. The law was a gift to the tourism industry lobby, passed by the state legislature in 2005. Educators were against it from the start, preferring local control. Exceptions within the law have allowed most schools that control. Current, local, prevailing wisdom on when to start the school year was not forthcoming last Friday afternoon, a few days before school started in Standish, Au Gres, West Branch and Mio and a few days after students’ first day in Fairview. Phones at administrative offices went to voicemail, sometimes without so much as a ring. The same went for the Michigan Association of School Boards. A representative of the Michigan Department of Education was careful to explain the department only issues waivers to districts that request them and that they do not analyze any resulting data. Off the record, he suggested collective bargaining contracts are influential i...

The petition to bring ranked choice voting to Michigan elections began circulating last week. Director Pat Zabawa reportedly logged his own signature as the campaign's first last Thursday. “One down, 446,197 to go,” said Zabawa. “Obviously, we have our work cut out for us: when we qualify for the ballot, it will have taken the biggest signature collection campaign in Michigan history. That might intimidate some campaigns, but it’s what this team is built for. We have thousands of volunteers who are very eager to win this with shoe leather and hard work. We’re now in the stage of the campaign where progress is measured in how much ink we put on paper and how many conversations we have with our friends and neighbors.” Conversations with our friends and neighbors indeed. Circulating petitions, and engaging with circulators when we encounter them in public, provide simple and direct opportunities to establish and reestablish community connections. Whether or not we agree or disagree...

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....

Michigan consistently has ranked at or near the bottom of U.S. states in government transparency and accountability for over a decade. Journalists and government watchdogs have been sounding alarms while statutory remedies have stalled in legislative limbo or faded entirely from view. Two policy reforms would go a long way: banning legislators receiving gifts from lobbyists and ending the total exemption from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests currently enjoyed by the office of the Governor of the State of Michigan and by members of the Michigan State Legislature. Given the incentives at play, Michigan residents cannot rely on representatives to enact the necessary reforms. In a response to an investigation published by the Detroit News in 2024 that revealed Lansing politicians receiving gifts from lobbyists unchecked, retired litigator Bob LaBrant said a ballot measure through a citizen-initiated petition drive may be Michigan residents’ only hope. “The December 2024 lame...

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...

Section 315 of the Federal Communications Act of 1934 is intended to give equal time to candidates on media broadcast channels. If a media broadcaster gives air time to a candidate, they must also give an equal amount of time to an opponent of that candidate, upon request. Except. Bona fide news coverage is exempt. On one hand, this would seem to protect freedom of the press. After all, if one candidate shows up in a public place and a media outlet captures the event, this should not oblige the media outlet to give time to an opponent with a campaign advertisement. But a real consequence of this policy has been a distinct narrowing of our political discourse throughout the nation. To understand how, we can look at a few case studies in one particular realm of media broadcast programming: televised political debates. Without attempting any exhaustive analysis of how the rules have evolved, let’s just look at fairly recent history. In 2008, for example, then-presidential candidate Denni...

Let’s dispense with history lessons and focus on the here and now. Are you scheduled and expected to work on Monday, Sept. 2? If so, will you receive bonus pay for it? Too many of us will answer ‘yes’ and then ‘no.’ In part this is because the United States is the only one of 38 member-countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development not to require paid leave of any kind. In a 2007 policy report, researchers Rebecca Ray and John Schmitt conclude that “the United States is in a class of its own with respect to statutory guarantees of paid time off: it is the no-vacation nation.” Most employers offer some amount of paid holiday, sick and personal leave. Indeed, media coverage on the subject tends relentlessly to emphasize this fact. Ray and Schmitt observed, however, that “one in four U.S. workers has no paid leave or public holidays at all.” What’s more, the lower the wage, the higher the ratio. That means the less money we make, the less chance we have any paid t...