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Opinion

Primary voting options abound

Editorial

At a time when voting by mail has been increasingly challenged — President Donald Trump has repeatedly leveled unfounded claims of fraud against absentee ballots, including in his prime-time speech a week ago in which he called them "inherently corrupt" — state election officials this week said more Michigan voters are opting to use this method this summer. With two weeks left before the Aug. 4 primary election, 572,553 Michigan voters had already cast their ballot, according to data publicly available on the relaunched Michigan Voting Dashboard, mi.gov/votingdashboard. Voter ...

Blame climate change

Letters To The Editor

To the Journal editor: Blowing smoke recently, four Republican Politicians, John James, Jack Bergman, John Moolenaar and Lisa McClain, expressed disappointment in the National Government of Canada for not doing more about the smoke from Canadian wildfires riding the winds to Michigan. I find it disturbing that these four politicians cannot remember their high school geography or science. Canada is the second-largest country in the world, with a boreal forest spanning well over a million square miles. The forest is made up primarily of spruce, larch, fir, pine and birch. I fought fires ...

Socialists v. the Senate

Columns

Political parties tend to harshly reject the idea that they are a threat to the constitutional order, but the Democratic Socialists of America are making it part of their brand. The DSA has released a new program that, besides contemplating the advent of a classless society, calls for ...

The American presidency and perpetual war

Columns

One of the defining failures of modern American government has been the steady erosion of Congress's constitutional authority over war. The Constitution grants Congress — not the president — the power to declare war. Congress decides to go to war. The president wages it. Over the past ...

Bergman, Canadian forest fires 

Letters To The Editor

To the Journal editor: U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Watersmeet, writes that he has lost patience with Canada for allowing wildfire smoke to cross the border. Perhaps it is time he attended the Marquette Farmers Market on Saturdays to talk to his constituents about what all we are losing patience with. Those of us who actually live in northern Michigan have an affinity for our Canadian neighbors. I’ve traveled there, had a family member educated at a university there and have a Canadian in the family. Trust me, Rep. Bergman, they are not burning down their forests to aggravate you. The ...

Lots more than books at the library

Editorial

Libraries play key roles in the communities that host them. Far more than simply a venue that stores books and recordings, the typical public library these days has become something of a community crossroads for all kinds of "unlibrary-like" activities. Arts and culture, nutrition, recreation and employment are just random examples of the kinds of services even smaller libraries offer. The lists can get quite long. The Peter White Public Library in Marquette gets a lot of ink here and attention elsewhere for the programs it offers, and rightly so. Even a brief scan of its website ...