Auchtoon!

Perhaps as Michiganders we are a bit more sensitive to drinking water issues than most Americans. What with our 11,000 lakes (Great and otherwise) we are constantly reminder our this precious natural resource. Add to this the recent disasters of the Flint water crisis and discoveries of PFAS contamination, and, well, you could say there is ample reason for our heightened interest.

So I was naturally drawn to the recent news of the US House passing a bill to require the EPA to set limits for PFAS content in drinking water. The EPA has been to a certain extent already in the process of doing this, but the bill is intended to expedite the process. All good and seemingly straightforward. But this was swiftly followed by a threat from the White House that the president would veto the bill (assuming it passes the Senate). I paraphrased in the cartoon, but the actual quote was this:

“The regulatory process works best when EPA and other agencies are free to devise regulations based on the best available science and careful consideration of all the relevant facts.”

This struck me as quite an audacious statement. For several reasons. First, the endorsement of the regulatory process. Up to this point, the current administration has made it pretty clear their position on regulation in general (against). But to suddenly align themselves with “the best available science” and “careful consideration of facts”? Oh my gosh, who wrote this?!

I can’t tell whether the statement is actually earnest or if it was written to mess with us. But if it’s the latter, it reminded me of a lyric from a recent Ben Folds song:

They say it [truth] dies in the dark
Right now, they’re trying to kill it in broad daylight

I certainly don’t agree with those who deny the existence of climate change, but I can relate to the mindset. I’m a natural born contrarian, so I get the impulse to resist consensus, especially if people are telling me I have to accept it.

When I was nine year-old my family moved to Michigan. It was made clear to me soon after that the University of Michigan had the best college football team, Bob Seger was the best rock singer, and Vernors was the best ginger ale. I immediately began to root for Ohio State, actively shun Bob Seger, and insist that Vernors wasn’t even real ginger ale. (I know, what a jerk.)

I eventually came around on some of it. I gave up on Ohio State after Woody Hayes demonstrated what a terrible person he could be by punching an opposing player during a bowl game. I still don’t care much for Seger, but I will acknowledge his talent and skill. (Ted Nugent remains, as always, objectively awful.) And, yeah, Vernors is more ginger ale than most sodas with “ginger ale” in their names.

So c’mon now fellow contrarians, it’s well past time for you to come around on climate change. And it’s not just the massive erosion of the Lake Michigan shoreline that has caused houses to start falling into the water. Or even the disastrous scale of those horrible Australian bushfires. It’s the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community.

Why? Because they are the biggest bunch of contrarians around. There is nothing more coveted in the scientific community than being able to disprove the findings of another scientist. But they have to do it with facts, not feelings. It’s time for us to give up on our feelings and go with the facts.

Do me a favor. Open up Google Earth and go to Hamtramck, Michigan. (Go ahead — if you’re working, it’s still basically the holidays, so your boss won’t mind a quick diversion.) Notice the tightly packed rows of homes. Now go south past the GM plant (Poletown). Notice the immense space, the only occasional batch of houses, the vast emptiness. Zooming in to both places tells even more of the story: Hamtramck is a viable community, Poletown is not.

What happened? Well, lots of things. But the obvious difference maker is that in Hamtramck as most of its original population of Polish immigrants moved on, new immigrants moved in. In Poletown residents moved on and nobody replaced them, so it died.

Michigan Radio had a story this week about the state’s population growth in the past decade. We did grow, but only slightly and not nearly at the rate of most other states. This is a problem. As the article states:

“Population determines Michigan’s political representation in Congress (the state is virtually guaranteed to lose another U.S. House seat after the next census), the amount of federal dollars the state gets for vital services, and leaves the state with an aging workforce and a dwindling number of working-age adults to support them and drive the state’s economy.”

Now of course it’s an oversimplification to say immigration is the sole solution. But a brief look at Michigan history will tell you that immigration has paid our state exponential dividends, despite immigrants themselves often being feared and scapegoated. We have the opportunity in this first year of the new decade to reconsider the benefits of encouraging immigration.

The President expresses himself in superlatives: The transcript was perfect, I am the chosen one, I have the best words, and so on. It’s an effective rhetorical device. The absolute certainty projects a pseudo-strength that many find very appealing. And the ridiculousness always offers a backdoor escape — if it is received as too over-the-top, supporters can always say, “it was a joke” or “he didn’t mean it literally. Duh!”

Trump has done this his whole public life, and he will continue to do so as he clings to the presidency, so it’s not a surprise. But it is upsetting — one of the things that triggers people. (Quick aside: This whole celebrating “triggering” people is like a schoolyard bully faking a punch to your face, exclaiming, “You flinched!,” and then taking two free shots to your arm as a reward. OF COURSE you’re gonna flinch! In what stupid world is pulling back to protect your face the wrong move?)

But what can you do? Well as with any bully, persevere. Persevere by continuing to hold the bully accountable and not be overwhelmed by the sheer volume. So in among the fountain of recent rants, Trump has been selling hard the idea that all (superlative) Congresspeople voting for the impeachment articles are hopeless leftists. This is simply not true, and Michigan offers three of the best examples of why: Justin Amash from the 3rd district, Elissa Slotkin from the 8th, and Haley Stevens from the 11th.

The toughest part is that there will never be tangible evidence that calling out his lies and exaggerations has done any good. Of all of Trump’s moral deficiencies, the worst (and arguably the least Christian) may be his utter lack of humility. There never is a moment of self-reflection, so he will never apologize or ask forgiveness. He will not — and seemingly cannot — admit to an error. This is especially apparent in this season of Advent when Christians prepare themselves for Christmas. (Publicly insulting the recently deceased to trigger a widow is generally not how this is done.)

First, let’s acknowledge that the Dr. Seuss’s book How the Grinch Stole Christmas is perfection. And his collaboration with the great Chuck Jones on the animated special somehow took the story up another level to pure genius. But the Jim Carrey movie and everything after is an abomination. We good? All right. Let’s move on then.

NPR broke a story this week on Michigan’s Betsy DeVos. From the very beginning of her tenure as U.S Education Secretary, DeVos has been in battle with her own department over what to do about the more than 200,000 students defrauded by for-profit colleges in recent years. You should read the article for details, but the short story is this:

The department’s Borrower Defense Unit recommends full loan forgiveness for defrauded students. DeVos does not recommend that. It’s hard to say exactly what she wants (probably by design), but the idea is to provide only partial relief to those who deserve it under the guise of fiscal responsibility. The NPR report demonstrates clearly that DeVos has been willing make up lies and make them up quick to get her way.

DeVos testified before the House education committee Thursday, which is after I drew the cartoon and wrote this. Perhaps she was able to explain her side to some satisfaction. But given the convoluted (and probably illegal) bureaucratic mess of a plan she’s been peddling so far, I doubt it.

Every once is a while I come up with a cartoon that says all I have to say about a topic, so I don’t really have any backstory or additional commentary. I’m just truly mystified why this is the way it is.

So you’re vacationing with a large group, and you’re hungry. You’ve rolled up to, through, and now well past dinner time. Several plans have been suggested and (you thought) agreed to, but never quite executed for reasons that run the gamut from passive-aggressiveness (“Oh, I guess seafood is fine. I usually break out in hives and my throat closes, but that’s okay.”) to over-the-top rejections (“NO! Absolutely not! Applebees is dead to me! They know what they did!”)

It is at this point that somebody suggests that perhaps it’d be a good idea to consider Somali food, even though nobody has ever had it or knows where a restaurant might be. Know that hangry feeling?

That’s kinda what I felt like when I read that the Michigan Senate is proposing a study to look into whether toll roads make sense for Michigan. Seriously? You’ve been supposedly working on a long-term plan for our infrastructure, and you’re just now floating this idea? I mean, I’ve got nothing against considering tolls (or Somali food), but isn’t it a bit late in the game? Good heavens, what else don’t you have figured out? 

It’s not that there wasn’t anything going on in Michigan this week. There was plenty. And there always is plenty for an editorial cartoonist to pick from. It’s just that, when there are active impeachment hearings implicating the President of the United States, it was awfully difficult to concentrate on anything else.

I have a day job that requires me to actually pay attention to it, so I haven’t been able to see much of the hearings live. It’s been killing me. I feel like I’m derelict in not only my editorial cartooning duty but also in my duty as a US citizen. I mean, I’ve been listening to and reading reports from a pretty wide variety of news sources, but that’s still not the same as first-hand and real-time.

Sure, a slight advantage of missing the live experience is not suffering through all the posturing. But the antics of Devin Nunes and Jim Jordan notwithstanding, it’s still incredibly important to experience. The leader of the Executive Branch is being called to defend his extraordinary behavior. And it’s not being done with pitch forks or tanks, but with rules and constitutional processes. This is remarkable! Human history shows us that this uniquely American approach is definitely the exception rather than the rule.

You may or may not be happy about this. Your politics may or may not align with the eventual outcomes. But we all should at the very least keep informed as best we can.

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Who knows? By the time this cartoon is published, maybe Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and Governor Gretchen Whitmer will have worked out the state budget for 2020. But I doubt it. For the very reasons why the budget was not really done on the October 1st due date: Political posturing has priority over actual work. The pollsters, the advisors, the party insiders are making the decisions.

Let’s not be naive — these folks have always been part of the process. It’s politics, after all, right? And it’s not necessarily dirty politics. Partisans gonna partisan. They are going to advocate hard for their sides and they won’t have any problem stepping over (or even slowing down for) lines that divide civility from zealotry. It’s just that, ideally, the shouldn’t be in charge.

And over the past decade, they have not only been put in charge, they’ve been supercharged. It’s been a deeply cynical, highly orchestrated national phenomenon, and Michigan is taking cues. Party over country. Bias over law. Campaigning over legislating. Control over constitution. Special interests over general good. And without exception, the end justifying the means.

I don’t think there is a term for this. But my suggestion is that henceforth we refer to it as McConnellism. What do you think? Credit where credit is due.

I was at a training conference this week for my day job. It was about the future of communications (specifically public relations and marketing communication), and while I would say that it was definitely worthwhile and I learned a lot, the best conversations I had weren’t about the conference topics. That seems often to be the case with me — what I find most enjoyable is not what I’m actually supposed to be doing.

But let’s leave my flaws there for now and move on to why I bring this up. One of the people I met was a former Michigan Wolverine football player. He is a relatively recent graduate, so in the course of conversation I asked about the new California law aimed at compensating college athletes, particularly those in high-profile, high-revenue sports like football. (This week two Michigan lawmakers introduced a similar law for our state.)

He had a number of very interesting insights and was able to speak with firsthand experience about the intensity of playing on a Division 1 team. He had concerns about how exactly athletes would be compensated and when. One method he pitched was to award a lump sum of money at the end of a collegiate career based on the amount of time spent in the system. Sort of a profit-sharing thing. It would include counseling on what to do with the money (with an emphasis on saving some for future health issues).

Interesting. I’m not sure whether that’s the best way to go, but my opinion really doesn’t matter. What mattered was to listen. Maybe I did learn something at the communication conference.