Citizen Writers Fighting Censorship by Helping Americans Understand Issues Affecting the Republic.
Michigan resident Sean Lechner and Iron Pig Smokehouse owner Ian Murphy discuss the weight their gubernatorial and Senate elections hold on ‘The Bottom Line.’
In 1844, the U.S. Army sent a West Point graduate and a couple companies of infantry to the very tip of Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula to keep order during America’s first great copper rush. Captain Robert Emmet Clary and his soldiers arrived in the wilderness, built most of a fort in five months, and then watched history move somewhere else when war with Mexico began. But Clary’s story gets even better: his West Point classmate—and reportedly his wedding best man—was Jefferson Davis. Three decades later, Davis headed the Confederacy while Clary remained loyal to the Union and earned brevet promotion to brigadier general for his Civil War service. Fort Wilkins is a wonderfully obscure reminder that long before Gettysburg, some remarkably tough Americans were already busy building this amazing country.
‘The Big Weekend Show’ co-host Joey Jones analyzes how Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed uses radical streamer Hasan Piker to appeal to primary voters while hiding extreme policy positions for the general election.
There are places where the water is warm, the reefs are colorful, and every dive feels familiar. Then there’s Thunder Bay. Hidden beneath the cold, crystal-clear waters of Lake Huron lies one of North America’s greatest collections of preserved shipwrecks, where history is measured not in museums, but in feet of depth. From the beginner-friendly “Oscar T. Flint” at 33 feet, to the towering machinery of the “Montana” at 63 feet, and finally the legendary “Grecian” resting around 100 feet below the surface, few places offer such a perfect progression for recreational divers. The only catch? You have to embrace the cold—but those who do are rewarded with an underwater time capsule unlike anywhere else in the world.
I learned something while sitting on a Michigan jury that sent me down one hell of a rabbit hole: Michigan can separately criminalize using a computer to commit a crime. In 2026, when your phone, truck, watch, bank, doorbell and possibly your toaster are computers, that starts sounding suspiciously like an enhancement for breathing oxygen while committing a crime.
In 1763, Fort Michilimackinac fell without an artillery barrage, a breached wall, or a prolonged siege. The Ojibwe used something far more effective: deception, surprise, a lacrosse game—and a British commander who ignored warnings that an attack was coming. What followed was one of the most audacious actions in Michigan history, preserved for us through the eyewitness account of a fur trader who somehow survived it.
Rep. Tom Barrett, R-Mich., discusses Canada launching retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. and the potential for President Donald Trump to reach a deal with Canada on ‘The Bottom Line.’
American pundits are predicting a new civil war between the red states and the blue states. That’s cute but the nation is already under a two-headed attack by Marxists and Muslims. We should worry about that because if they win, the battle royale will be between Red China and Iran over who gets to rule the scraps that are left of a once mighty American empire that fed the world.
In 2022, during the peak of America’s DEI-driven renaming campaign, Washington quietly rewrote more than 650 historic geographic names with the stroke of a pen. No vote in Alpena County. No referendum in Michigan. No debate in Congress. Just appointed federal officials deciding what generations of local residents should call their own landmarks. Whether you believe the name should stay or go isn’t the only question. The bigger one is this: Who gets to decide? If local history can be edited from a desk in Washington today, what piece of your community’s heritage gets rewritten tomorrow? It’s time to restore local control, preserve historical context, and remind the federal government that not every issue belongs in Washington.
As the British would say, the Democrat Party is about to give Graham Platner the Spanish archer, aka, the El-Bow. The Nazi-tattooed misogynist mess who raises oysters for his mommy’s restaurant has begun to slip in the polls made public—an indication that Democrats are horrified by the results of their more accurate internal polling.
On Monday, he suspended his campaign, which paves the way for replacing him before the weekend deadline.
Most people spend their lives dreaming about freedom while signing another payment, another contract, another obligation. Then along comes Captain Steve and the Neverlanding—a homemade houseboat built from lumber, blue barrels, grit, and a stubborn refusal to accept that life must be lived according to someone else’s blueprint. Drifting across the Great Lakes with his dog and a floating front porch, Steve accidentally became a symbol of something modern society desperately misses: adventure, self-reliance, and the courage to untie the dock lines. The Neverlanding isn’t just a boat—it’s a reminder that sometimes the richest life isn’t found in what you own, but in what you’re willing to leave behind.
Every spring in Michigan, the forests erupt into a full-scale fungal gold rush. Pickup trucks jam two-tracks. Facebook groups trade morel coordinates like cartel smugglers swapping contraband routes. Grown adults crawl through the woods in camouflage carrying mesh bags full of mushrooms worth more per pound than some cuts of steak. And through all of it, the State of Michigan collects exactly zero dollars from one of the largest seasonal harvest activities on public land.
Stand on the bank of the Au Sable River at sunrise and it’s all mist, pine trees, and trout quietly minding their business. Feels like the kind of place that’s always been this way—stable, predictable, friendly. It hasn’t. Michigan is what happens when the earth tries to tear itself apart, fails, gets buried, frozen, crushed, flooded, and then—only after all that—decides to look nice about it.
Systech Environmental—pitched a brilliant idea: instead of burning traditional fuels, why not torch hazardous waste in the kiln? Tires, solvents, industrial byproducts—if it could burn, it could earn. Companies paid to get rid of their waste, Lafarge saved on fuel, and everyone shook hands like they’d just invented fire. The pitch was wrapped in the kind of language only a regulatory lawyer could love: “resource recovery,” “alternative fuels,” “energy efficiency.” What it meant in plain English was this: Alpena became a destination for waste that nobody else wanted, cooked at 2,500 degrees and released into the same air the locals were breathing.
In the aftermath of the recent ice storm that hammered northern Michigan, we saw a familiar pattern unfold: widespread power outages, flooded basements, disabled heating systems—and a rapid outcry for government aid.