Auchtoon!

So now that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) has actually been defunded, many of the consequences that experts warned us about are, in fact, becoming reality. For example, the loss of CPB funding has halted distribution of critical public safety grants, jeopardizing the ability of local radio stations to serve and protect rural and disaster-prone communities.

We are blessed in Michigan to generally be better off than many other states as far as the frequency of natural disasters go. But as last year’s ice storm proved, we are certainly not immune, and the danger of a non-functioning emergency alert system is a problem for us, too.

It is possible, of course, that the Congress (remember them? the ones who constitutionally appropriate federal spending?) will find another way to budget for the emergency alert system. And maybe after a few disasters, it’ll happen. Doubtful.

Even more doubtful — the Trump Administration making it a priority. Unless they discover a grift angle. Then let’s all pray they don’t make it a priority.

Several years ago, I had a job with a parts supplier in the automotive industry (not an uncommon experience for us Michiganders). It was the early 2010s, the industry beginning to recover from the devastation of the Great Recession. I was in a conference room with some engineers with the normal pre-meeting chatter.

One guy mentioned something about a contract we had with General Motors. But then another guy jumped in to say that there shouldn’t even be a General Motors, that GM should have been allowed to go bankrupt and dispersed. And then he got very animated about free market capitalism and the slippery slope of Marxist socialism and how the federal government was generally bad if not evil. There was a brief pause (a sort of acknowledgement of a “well that escalated quickly” moment), and then the meeting got started.

I was thinking about that guy when I saw the news the other day about President Donald Trump’s desire for the U.S. government to own a piece of troubled chipmaker Intel. What would he think about that? How would he reconcile his steadfast ideology with a president (who I’m guessing he voted for) actively violating it?

And it’s not like this is a one-off violation. Two weeks ago, Trump was openly demanding that the Intel CEO be fired. Recently, he may have crossed some legal lines in a deal to charge Nvidia and AMD a fee to secure export licenses to sell AI chips to China. And of course there is the endless tariff declarations and market manipulations.

So I’m curious. But mostly, I’m glad not to be in meetings with that guy anymore.

Democrats currently hold only a one-seat majority in the State Senate with one vacant seat. For over 200 days, Governor Gretchen Whitmer hasn’t called a special election to fill the seat, and it’s not difficult to figure out why. Elections (at least in Michigan and for the moment) cannot be guaranteed. A Republican win would change the balance.

Of course, this is not how it’s supposed to work. The particular party balance of the Legislature should simply be reflective of the electorate. How those elected officials operate from that point should be in the best interest of the people they represent. And when there are conflicts and it becomes necessary for judges to make decisions, everybody involved should be compelled to abide by those decisions.

I’m not naive. It’s never actually worked exactly that way. But I feel this party-first approach to government has gotten considerably worse in the past few decades. The Gingriching, the McConnellizing of American politics.

If a judge orders Whitmer to call an election, we’ll see how she responds. She may find a workaround like Speaker Matt Hall did to prevent nine bills passed by the previous Legislature from becoming laws. Whatever happens, I won’t be surprised or even disappointed. This, apparently, is just how the game is played now.

My wife and I were on vacation in the UP last week. On Sunday, we were heading east on US-2 nearing St. Ignace. Typically on a nice summer day, it’s easy to get peaks of the bridge on the approach. But even though it wasn’t the worst of the bad air days last week, there was no sign of the Mighty Mac through the haze. A little unsettling. (But then, actually being on the bridge 200 feet above open water is also somewhat unsettling.)

What is infinitely more unsettling is the wholesale rejection of the science behind that haze. Scientists and climate experts uniformly tell us that climate change brought about by fossil fuel usage is a root cause of the Canadian wildfires. Many people — including those in leadership positions in the federal government — find this inconvenient, unacceptable, or (by their own declaration) fake news. But that doesn’t stop it from being true.

I’m on vacation this week, so I’m trying to stay focused on this beautiful (depending on your heat tolerance) Michigan summer. That’s probably just as well because the whole tariff and trade situation, particularly with the automobile industry, is so volatile and so complex, it really doesn’t lend itself to a hot take. But I do feel safe in saying that the only folks I imagine being happy about the situation are the ones receiving payments on those $1,000-per-month-for-84-months auto loans.