Politics
As soon as the federal government shut down for the first time in nearly a decade, a surreal disquiet settled over the D.C. area. For political junkies inside the beltway the whole scene leading up to the shutdown was actually something of a spectacle. With countdown clocks, last minute deals, and dramatic speeches on the house and senate floors, this was political theatre at its finest. But as soon as October 1 came the hype started to fizzle and a harsh reality set in.
More than 800,000 federal workers were sent home without pay. Funding for national science programs all but completely came to a halt. National parks closed their access to the public. Cuts to the Head Start program were amplified, although the shutdown is only an additional burden to the across-the-board sequester cuts that affected Head Start in March.
More than 800,000 federal workers were sent home without pay. Funding for national science programs all but completely came to a halt. National parks closed their access to the public. Cuts to the Head Start program were amplified, although the shutdown is only an additional burden to the across-the-board sequester cuts that affected Head Start in March.
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By Bob Fitrakis and Jonathan Beard
Hockey season starts this week. Fans cheering for the Blue Jackets in Nationwide Arena and those outside unable to afford tickets, are likely unaware that their tax money bailed out four of the wealthiest families in the city for their losing investment in the team.
Despite voting not to subsidize the Arena or our hockey team, Columbus taxpayers are being duped by a convoluted financing scheme that publicly subsidizes the Arena.
Whose Arena – Your Arena!
Despite voting NO in May 1997 – citizens of Columbus, Ohio, helped purchase and now subsidize the Nationwide Arena. The Columbus City Council decided to defer to Mayor Michael Coleman and purchase Nationwide Arena, pledging future casino tax revenue funds – already promised to the taxpayers of Columbus as the way to make our city, and particularly the west side, a better place to live. Oddly, the Columbus Dispatch reported that “the vote authorized the administration of Mayor Michael B.Image
Ohio Republican Senator Bill Seitz (District 8) is at it again. His Senate Bill 193 is out to purge Ohio minor parties from the ballot.
On Friday, September 20, former Ohio State Representative Charlie Earl announced that he is running for governor as a Libertarian candidate next year. By Tuesday, Seitz was holding hearings on his new bill that would make it difficult for Earl to stay on the ballot.
Earl ran as the Libertarian candidate for Ohio Secretary of State in 2010 and received nearly 5 percent of the vote. In his announcement, Earl claimed he had “Tea Party support.”
The bill requires minor parties to get 3 percent of the presidential vote in order for their party to stay officially on the Ohio ballot. Essentially, minor parties will be removed from the 2014 ballot on the grounds that they did not pass a vote test – that was not in existence in 2012.
It's 10:15 AM on September 25th, and Ted Cruz is still talking, and though in the process of watching him intermittently I have pantomimed or actually thrown things at the screen approximately 8 times (I was almost done with his ass after the “Everyone in this country has ancestors who know what it means to risk everything for freedom,” but sometimes having the abyss gaze back is fun), I have to say, he has the whole populism thing down. As he read tweets aloud on the Senate floor for the fourth time, asserting in the way that so many of those with no real understanding of people power do, that Twitter's “trending topic” algorithms determine the will of the American people, I was a tenth of the way toward believing him. But of course, the actual “will of the people” is impossible to determine in today's postmodern politics which function as a reality show/pyramid scheme, of which Ted Cruz is a perfect distillation.
Obamacare loves insurance companies that's its f**kin' problem, though it also has many others of the more celibate variety. These problems are not apocalyptic, but they are real, and in a perverse way gratifying.
The sickening terrorist attack carried out in Nairobi is a reminder of one thing among several others; talking points will not suffice when such devastation needs to be properly explained to the public. As Americans are once again forced to brush away the dust atop their maps they hurry to locate Kenya. Yet, as this story has unfolded, Kenya has proven to be just the tip of the iceberg. In order to gain a richer understanding of the terrorist attack in Kenya and its explicit motivations one must dig deeper into an older conflict involving the immediate region’s key player, Somalia.
Without a constant national government from 1991 to 2006, Somalia was essentially a modern day example of a stateless society. Between rampant crime and poverty throughout Somalia, chaos became the norm. To correct this nebulous conception of rule the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) was created in the middle of 2004. Designed to impose order and crack down on the escalating crime rates and warlord-style governance, the ICU had another crucial element which cannot go overlooked; it meant to enforce Islamic law on the areas that it controlled.
Without a constant national government from 1991 to 2006, Somalia was essentially a modern day example of a stateless society. Between rampant crime and poverty throughout Somalia, chaos became the norm. To correct this nebulous conception of rule the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) was created in the middle of 2004. Designed to impose order and crack down on the escalating crime rates and warlord-style governance, the ICU had another crucial element which cannot go overlooked; it meant to enforce Islamic law on the areas that it controlled.
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Top Muslim leaders in the Council of Muftis of
Russia warned President Vladimir Putin it was wrong and dangerous for
a court to order the banning and destruction of a Russian translation
of the Koran, and compared it to "crazy American pastor" Terry Jones's
Koran burning.
The Koran is available in several Russian translations but a court ruled on Sept. 17 "that the translation by Elmir Kuliyev, published in Saudi Arabia in 2002, violated federal law banning extremist materials," Associated Press reported.
"Russian Muslims were appalled by the neglect of law shown by the court" in the southern Black Sea port of Novorossiysk said Ravil Gainutdin, head of the Council of Muftis of Russia, in an open letter to Putin on Sept. 20.
Gainutdin "said the court's order to destroy the Muslim holy book was particularly outrageous," AP reported.
Muslims perceive the Koran as God's words transmitted in Arabic through the Prophet Muhammad, and forbid the intentional destruction of the holy book, including translations.
The Koran is available in several Russian translations but a court ruled on Sept. 17 "that the translation by Elmir Kuliyev, published in Saudi Arabia in 2002, violated federal law banning extremist materials," Associated Press reported.
"Russian Muslims were appalled by the neglect of law shown by the court" in the southern Black Sea port of Novorossiysk said Ravil Gainutdin, head of the Council of Muftis of Russia, in an open letter to Putin on Sept. 20.
Gainutdin "said the court's order to destroy the Muslim holy book was particularly outrageous," AP reported.
Muslims perceive the Koran as God's words transmitted in Arabic through the Prophet Muhammad, and forbid the intentional destruction of the holy book, including translations.
Ohio Republican Senator Bill Seitz (District 8) is at it again. His Senate Bill 193 is out to purge Ohio minor parties from the ballot.
On Friday, September 20, former Ohio State Representative Charlie Earl announced that he is running for governor as a Libertarian candidate next year. By Tuesday, Seitz was holding hearings on his new bill that would make it difficult for Earl to stay on the ballot.
Earl ran as the Libertarian candidate for Ohio Secretary of State in 2010 and received nearly 5% of the vote. In his announcement, Earl claimed he had “Tea Party support.”
The bill requires minor parties to get 3% of the presidential vote in order for their party to stay officially on the Ohio ballot. Essentially, minor parties will be removed from the 2014 ballot on the grounds that they did not pass a vote test – that was not in existence – in 2012. Seitz’s bill appears to violate due process by requiring minor parties to undergo this process in 2014. The Ohio Green Party planned to run a gubernatorial candidate in 2014 as well.
On Friday, September 20, former Ohio State Representative Charlie Earl announced that he is running for governor as a Libertarian candidate next year. By Tuesday, Seitz was holding hearings on his new bill that would make it difficult for Earl to stay on the ballot.
Earl ran as the Libertarian candidate for Ohio Secretary of State in 2010 and received nearly 5% of the vote. In his announcement, Earl claimed he had “Tea Party support.”
The bill requires minor parties to get 3% of the presidential vote in order for their party to stay officially on the Ohio ballot. Essentially, minor parties will be removed from the 2014 ballot on the grounds that they did not pass a vote test – that was not in existence – in 2012. Seitz’s bill appears to violate due process by requiring minor parties to undergo this process in 2014. The Ohio Green Party planned to run a gubernatorial candidate in 2014 as well.
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Early voting for the November 5th General Election starts on October 1st, so it is time for The Columbus Free Press to issue its recommendations on key contested elections and issues facing voters of Columbus. To frame our endorsements, let’s start by reiterating our Mission Statement (see below). If you agree with our mission, then we would ask that you consider following our political endorsements.
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If there is one thing Democrats and Republicans in Congress can agree upon, it’s ending the epidemic of rape against female soldiers now. Sadly and painfully, it took the rape and murder of female soldiers from Ohio to finally convince Congress to act. But whether the rapes – along with sexual harassment and mysterious deaths – of female soldiers actually end, is left to be seen.
In my last column, I panned the U.S. Justice Department’s memos that attempted to clarify its clarifications concerning marijuana enforcement in the states where the plant enjoys a legal framework. It seemed like business as usual. Arrest. Prosecution. Jail.
This column is a different matter. I laud Attorney General Eric Holder and the Obama Administration for steering the country in the right direction when it comes to mandatory minimum sentencing and consequent drug policy in general.
On August 12, 2013, AG Holder delivered remarks at the Annual Meeting of the American Bar Association, sounding more like Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance than the top U.S. cop. The speech concerned mandatory minimum sentencing laws that require binding prison terms of defined lengths for individuals convicted of certain federal and state crimes.