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1 week ago | 
northernexpress.com | Stephen Tuttle |Craig Manning |Ross Boissoneau |Karl Klockars
Spectator By Stephen Tuttle | May 3, 2025 As always, there is plenty of activity in Traverse City. Issues pop up like trilliums this time of year. Some are old and reliably and perpetually unsolved, like affordable housing or what to do with the homeless population, and some show up uninvited, like how to make up for cuts in federal funding to programs.
Let’s take a look at three current issues that were neither surprises nor crisis-level impossible.
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2 weeks ago | 
northernexpress.com | Stephen Tuttle |Abby McKiernan |Matt Dursum |Art Bukowski
Spectator By Stephen Tuttle | April 26, 2025 There is not a section, paragraph, sentence, or word in the United States Constitution that says the Legislative and Judicial branches of the government are subservient to the Executive branch. Not one. The Founders conceived of three equal branches of government checking and balancing each other.
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1 month ago | 
northernexpress.com | Stephen Tuttle |Art Bukowski |Molly Cox |Ren Brabenec
Spectator By Stephen Tuttle | April 12, 2025 The Hands Off! protests of a couple weeks ago were impressive in their size and scope. According to various media reports, gatherings took place in some 1,400 American communities with nearly 600,000 people signing up in advance (per CNN), and even more participating.
Locally in Traverse City, 4,000 people reportedly showed up to express their displeasure with a variety of issues.
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1 month ago | 
northernexpress.com | Stephen Tuttle |Todd VanSickle |Abby McKiernan |Art Bukowski
Spectator By Stephen Tuttle | March 22, 2025 In an essay in The Wall Street Journal, he said he wants to “... drive a dagger through the heart of climate change religion and usher in America’s Golden Age...”
Of course, that was a CEO of a fossil fuel or petrochemical conglomerate, right? No, that was Lee Zeldin, the new Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and he made those comments after he accepted the position.
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2 months ago | 
northernexpress.com | Stephen Tuttle |Anna Faller |Rachel Pasche |Art Bukowski
Spectator By Stephen Tuttle | March 8, 2025 The United States has been a beacon of hope for much of the world for eight decades. It took Donald Trump a month to turn off that light.
This becomes obvious as we betray Ukraine, turn our backs on our NATO allies, and inflict punitive tariffs on our best trading partners. The intentionally public Oval Office ambush of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy should have told our skeptical friends all they needed to know.
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2 months ago | 
northernexpress.com | Stephen Tuttle |Victor Skinner |Anna Faller |Molly Cox
Spectator By Stephen Tuttle | Feb. 22, 2025 College athletics has become fully professionalized. Amateurism and education are no longer front and center; pay-to-play is the new order of the day.
Many would argue this is only fair. College athletics is not some minor-league enterprise, it’s a full-blown industry with full-blown industrial-size money.
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2 months ago | 
northernexpress.com | Stephen Tuttle |Art Bukowski |Karl Klockars |Geri Dietze
Spectator By Stephen Tuttle | Feb. 15, 2025 Black History Month is not quite dead. President Trump signed a declaration announcing it and he mentioned several Black people from our history, perhaps the only such folks whose names he knows.
But the Trump ban on all things DEI (diversity, equality, inclusion) was more important to some government departments than was the Trump declaration.
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Feb 8, 2025 | 
northernexpress.com | Stephen Tuttle |Rachel Pasche |Jillian Manning |Matt Dursum
Spectator By Stephen Tuttle | Feb. 8, 2025 It isn’t clear how much longer the current government will be producing data regarding climate, as they are already in the process of removing references to climate change online and in printed informational material.
The operative philosophy seems to be if we don’t talk about climate change, then maybe it doesn’t really exist. And, if it doesn’t exist, then we can increase the activities that “didn’t” cause it in the first place.
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Feb 1, 2025 | 
northernexpress.com | Stephen Tuttle |Kierstin Gunsberg |Ross Boissoneau |Brighid Driscoll
Spectator By Stephen Tuttle | Feb. 1, 2025 Presidents have near absolute power to issue pardons or commutations for those convicted of federal crimes. Actually, they can issue such clemency for those already convicted of crimes, those currently on trial, or even preemptively for future crimes.
Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 of our constitution spells out this power clearly with exemptions for impeachment, state crimes, and civil actions.
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Jan 25, 2025 | 
northernexpress.com | Stephen Tuttle |Art Bukowski |Greg Tasker |Anna Faller
Spectator By Stephen Tuttle | Jan. 25, 2025 It would seem our Constitution is somewhat at risk as our new president, and at least some of his supporters, don’t care for parts they find inconvenient. The president has actually said he believes he can find ways to circumvent some sections through Executive Orders and other parts he might simply ignore.
