Politics and Message

Chris Jones Campaigns For Iowa Agriculture Secretary

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 28, 2026January 28, 20260

Three years ago Chris Jones was a decorated research engineer at the University of Iowa, where he directed Iowa’s network of stream pollution monitors and published details about state water quality in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Secure in his academic perch in 110-year-0ld Trowbridge Hall, Jones also contributed to his university-sponsored blog, where he prepared aggressive, masterfully written, and widely read reports that identified agriculture as the primary source of the state’s calamitous water pollution. In …

How Crucial Was 2022 Election? Thank You Sane America

by Keith SchneiderNovember 24, 2022November 24, 20221

BENZONIA – This could have been a miserable Thanksgiving. It’s not. On November 8 sane Americans voted their disapproval for the dreadful politics of MAGA America. Never more so than in Michigan. Even in our three-county corner of the lower peninsula Democrats and sufficient numbers of disgusted Republicans voted to reject election-denying, Trump-supported candidates and re-elect the incumbent Democratic governor, attorney general, and secretary of state. Having cast off the psychic weight of election dread, …

Biden Working Hard To Sideline GOP Mash-Up Of Madness

by Keith SchneiderJune 27, 2021September 12, 20211

BENZONIA – I’ve waited for this one from the Department of Justice. It’s been coming for weeks. Attorney General Merrick Garland sued Georgia on June 25, 2021, asserting that its despicable voter suppression law passed in March is illegal. The law, like others by Republican Legislatures in 13 more states, is designed to make it much harder for people of color to vote. But under the U.S. Voting Rights Act, discriminating against groups of people …

Pandemic Breakout Tour

by Keith SchneiderMay 2, 2021May 2, 20210

NEW YORK — Thanks to the expertise and doggedness of contemporary science, which delivered a vaccine capable of warding off Covid-19, Gabrielle and I departed from our pandemic-safe home in Somerset, KY, and ventured out in April for a nine-day trip to Virginia, New Jersey, and New York. It was an adventure ripe with highlights: 1) reunions with my 91-year-old mother, my two brothers, my sister, their spouses, my nephew and niece, my sister-in-law and …

2021 Will Be Better; The 2020s Will Be Great

by Keith SchneiderDecember 27, 2020May 2, 20240

There really is not a way to hit on a word, or even an assembly of words, to adequately encompass the tough, dangerous, and ultimately exceptional year that 2020 has been. Next year will be better. And the 2020s promise to be a decade of real progess. During this decade technology and ecology will marry more firmly than ever to produce pathbreaking achievements in sectors that really matterâ€” energy, transportation, agriculture, climate, resources, and manufacturing. …

Benzie County Roads Bridge Political Fractures

by Keith SchneiderSeptember 3, 2020September 7, 20201

In Benzie County, there are 180 miles of primary roadsâ€”those with the signature signs that designate route numbers, like County Road 669. There are 138 additional miles of paved local roads, which are the two-lane thoroughfares outside the countyâ€™s seven towns that wind by lakes, over hills, past orchards, and through forests. It is easy to describe nearly every mile of these roads as scenic. They also are the countyâ€™s signature public asset. Aside from …

Bill Milliken Was A Great Leader And A Good Friend

by Keith SchneiderDecember 16, 2019May 4, 20200

William G. Milliken, the longest serving governor in Michigan’s storied history, died in October at the age of 97. One of the rare gifts of my life was knowing Bill and his wife Helen as friends and mentors. Both were terrifically helpful in getting our new northern Michigan land use policy group going in the 1990s. Helen was a board member. Bill was an active supporter. In 2000, when I stepped down as director of …

Will Americans Defend Our Democracy?

by Keith SchneiderApril 21, 2019April 21, 20192

SOMERSET, KY. — During the first week of March 2016, nine months after Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the U.S. presidency, the Russian Federationâ€™s Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff (GRU), opened their online assault on American democracy. The Russian military intelligence unit began to hack, according to Robert Mueller’s special counsel report, “the computers and email accounts of organizations, employees, and volunteers supporting the Clinton campaign, including the email account of campaign …

Half Staff America

by Keith SchneiderDecember 2, 2018December 2, 20180

SOMERSET, KY. — A chilly wind again whipped the flags flying at half staff here in central Kentucky. This time it was for George Bush, who died on Friday. Three weeks ago Jews were massacred in a Pittsburgh synagogue. Collegians were massacred in a bar and dance hall near Los Angeles. The two tragedies are linked by America’s miserable devotion to assault weapons and spilled blood. Flags flew at half staff then, too. There is …

Listen to Our Kids’ Call to Disarm America

by Keith SchneiderMarch 26, 2018March 26, 20181

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Republican right is unnerved in the days following Saturday’s March For Our Lives in Washington and hundreds of other cities across America and the world. Stricken with grief and stirred by the passions of love cut short by bullets, the students from Parkland, Florida stood up, stepped forward, and found a mass movement to end gun violence waiting for them. Hundreds of thousands of people were on Pennsylvania Avenue on Saturday, …