Keith Schneider | ModeShift

In 2026 Election Benzie County Gets More Blue

by Keith SchneiderNovember 5, 2026November 5, 20260

Intriguing 2026 election results in Benzie County, my home in northern Michigan. Races for prominent state and federal offices were really close, decided by a few hundred votes in a county where just over 11,000 votes were cast. Based on current returns from the Michigan Secretary of State office Benzie voted blue for Gov.-elect Jocelyn Benson, who beat John James by 198 votes here for governor. Similarly Democrat Garlin Gilchirst narrowly beat Anthony Forlini in …

A Blue Wave Wipeout in 2026. God Bless America.

by Keith SchneiderNovember 4, 2026November 4, 20260

God Bless America! Our big, pluralistic, complex multi-dimensional nation showed yesterday what kind of character and intelligence it really has. I am so proud of our country. What a sweeping blue victory wave for the public interest. What a blast furnace of hot red rebuke for Donald Trump and his politics of cruelty, incompetence, and corruption. We gathered here in northern Michigan for an election night party. Our close friends from this community of doers …

Haley Stevens’ Petulance Revealed

by Keith SchneiderNovember 2, 2026November 4, 20260

Two thoughts on Rep. Haley Stevens, who once called Mike Rogers “just the latest MAGA grifter in politics for a paycheck.” First about her: Haley Stevens is perfectly cast for her new MAGA role. Insincere. Petulant. Immature. Dishonest. Her insipid betrayal is almost a carbon copy of what J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, and Lindsey Graham did with Trump. Those three tried to slay Trump with their razor like criticism. We won’t ever forget that Vance …

Temporary Election Respite In Canada

by Keith SchneiderOctober 26, 2026October 26, 20260

“On behalf of the United States we’d like to apologize for our behavior.” During four days of travel across Ontario and Quebec, that was our message to Canadians last week. Two Americans temporarily escaping the pressure of a seminal election by crossing the border to a democracy that is still sturdy. We talked to shopkeepers, a teacher, and various other people. Their responses in almost every instance: “Oh, no need,” they’d say. “We understand your …

Election 2026: Sanity Prevails

by Keith SchneiderOctober 18, 2026November 4, 20261

Who knows how the November 3rd election turns out. Don’t pay the polls much mind. They’ve been wrong too many times. Don’t for a minute consider the White House is going to treat polling stations or the results with the necessary weight and respect. Try to do this: Understand that the United States is a very big, exceptionally complex, and quite sturdy nation. Americans have shown ourselves capable of making the right decisions at the …

Iowa Campaigns Pivot on Farming Perils

by Keith SchneiderOctober 15, 2026October 15, 20260

TIPTON, Iowa – Democrats filed into the Cedar County party headquarters late last month to hear Chris Jones, the Democratic candidate for state agriculture secretary, propose the most aggressive agenda for curbing pollution and human disease from the crop and livestock sectors ever uttered by a candidate running for a statewide office in Iowa. In order to sharply reduce the billions of pounds of nutrients causing Iowa’s worst-in-the-nation water quality, and address the fastest-in-the-nation increase …

Wendell Berry’s Water Intelligence

by Keith SchneiderOctober 5, 2026October 5, 20260

In the shadow of wooded hills near the confluence of the Kentucky and Ohio rivers is Lanes Landing, the 125-acre farm where Wendell Berry tended the land and published the most trenchant appeals in American letters to tame the damage from industrial agriculture. “No amount of fiddling with capitalism to regulate and humanize it can, for long, disguise its failure to conserve the wealth and health of nature, eroded, wasted, or degraded soils, damaged or …

Kansas Prairie Festival Celebrates Agriculture That Protects Soil, Water, and Communities

by Keith SchneiderOctober 5, 2026October 5, 20260

SALINA, Kan. – In 1976, Wes and Dana Jackson launched The Land Institute as a nonprofit school to teach a small group of students ways to grow food that respected nature, conserved energy and water, and managed wastes. As one of the nation’s first regional nonprofit environmental and farm research organizations devoted to land stewardship, the Institute set sail in the powerful current of alternative ideas and new organizations in that era that were determined …

Chippewa Falls Developed Its Clean Water for Beer — Now It’s Keeping Cancer-Causing Nitrates Out of the Tap

by Keith SchneiderAugust 21, 2026August 21, 20260

Ever since Jacob Leinenkugel discovered spring waters here that were pure enough to brew his famous beer, this small Wisconsin city’s devotion to clean water has been paramount. That’s why in 1997, when Chippewa Falls utility managers detected potentially dangerous concentrations of nitrates in a well supplying city water, officials acted. They installed new filtration equipment in their treatment system and drilled deeper wells into cleaner aquifers to ensure the water delivered to the city’s …

Jim Olson Led Michigan’s Embrace Of Public Trust Doctrine To Protect Great Lakes Waters

by Keith SchneiderAugust 5, 2026October 30, 20260

I met environmental attorney Jim Olson 35 years ago, just as he was developing uncommon expertise in Michigan law and exhibiting an appealing measure of courtroom flair, both of which make him a towering figure in Great Lakes resource protection. At the time he was defending the shoreline of the Crystal River in Leelanau County from being damaged by a golf course development proposed by Bob Kuras, owner of the Homestead Resort. I was a …