Global
Suddenly my cynicism vanished and things started making sense . . . America started making sense, from past to present.
I was already in the process of writing this column – hey, the nation’s 250th birthday is coming up – and had never felt more lost. Where, where, where am I going with this? What am I trying to say? My words had no core, no soul. I felt like I had given myself the random rubble of a bombed-out building to write about.
Then a friend sent me a link to a New York Times opinion piece. I decided to give it a quick read. I don’t necessarily trust the Times. It can be smugly wrong. But I took a look – it was by literary critic A.O. Scott – and I couldn’t stop reading it. He had found our country, it seemed, beginning with these 35 simple words:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Recently the least popular person alive said, “I didn’t guarantee no war. Why would I have built the strongest military in the world?”
Already unpopular with kind and decent people, Trump may have — with that comment — tanked his popularity with every weapons company public relations hack on Earth. Their most deeply held pretense has always been that military spending isn’t needed for wars but rather to prevent wars.
Of course, Trump promised not to start any wars and to end existing ones easily and swiftly. Of course, one of the many reasons not to have believed him was that he wanted ever higher military spending. Of course, military spending makes the use of a military more, not less, likely.
But Trump’s current push is supposedly to take his record-breaking trillion-dollar-a-year military budget and raise it to $1.5 trillion a year. This is a lie built on a falsehood wrapped in a Truth Social post.
New York Knicked Trump with the Best Boos in History.Oh, those loud crowd boos.Those magnificent boos.Those beautiful, beautiful boos.The greatest boos. Perhaps the best boos in the history of boos.
People are saying nobody has ever been booed more magnificently. Big, strong men came up to him, tears in their eyes, and said, “Sir, those are the most incredible boos we’ve ever heard.” You’ve never heard boos like this before. The acoustics were AWESOME.
Neither Jesus nor Abraham Lincoln ever heard boos like these. Academy Award winner for most beautiful boos in the whole wide world, except for shithole countries. World-class boos. Five-star boos. Michelin-rated boos. A boopoopalooza! Sir, you knicked NEW YORK out of the park!
Said Trump after the boos died down after a half hour: They loved me so much, they couldn’t stop cheering me, your favorite president, me.”
Ohio Supreme Court reverses permit for Agrovoltaics site
The Supreme Court of Ohio has reversed a previously approved permit for Madison County's Oak Run Solar project, which would have been the largest solar installation in the history of the state and one of the largest agrivoltaics projects in the US. The 6,000-acre project would have included about 800 MW of solar generation as well as 300 MW worth of battery storage capacity.
Developers filed for approval with the Ohio Power Siting Board in 2023, claiming the project would create more than 3,000 construction jobs as well as 63 long-term operational and maintenance jobs once online. The utility-scale project would provide enough power for about 170,000 homes, and $7.2 million in tax revenue for the county over and estimated 35 years. The Siting Board approved the project in March of 2024. Opponents to the project then appealed the decision to the supreme court.
Supporters of Israel have inserted language in the current US National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would deeply intertwine the US and Israeli militaries. The language commits to bilateral research and development, co-production of weapons, joint ventures, licensing agreements and an unprecedented integration of the US and Israeli weapons industries. This was spurred by declining public support for ending US military aid to Israel due to Israeli atrocities in Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank, and the fact that the MOU for the $3.9 Billion that US provides to Israel expires in 2028.
The NDAA’s section 224, entitled “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative,” would arguably do more to intertwine the U.S. military with the Israeli military than the more than $200 billion (inflation adjusted) in military assistance Israel has received from the U.S. since its founding in 1948.
Hello, my name is Mahmoud El‑Yousseph. I am a retired U.S. Air Force veteran and a 50‑year resident of central Ohio.
I am writing to urge you — U.S. Representative Joyce Birdson Beatty and Senators Bernie Moreno and Jon Husted — to take immediate action in response to the escalating violence against Palestinians in the Israeli‑occupied West Bank.
In recent weeks, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and settlers have intensified attacks on Palestinian communities, including the killing of seven‑month‑old Sam Abu Haikal, who was shot and killed by the IDF while riding in a car with his parents near Hebron.
The Leahy Laws prohibit the U.S. government from providing military assistance to foreign security forces that are credibly implicated in gross human rights violations, including torture and extrajudicial killings. Israel meets these criteria.
Israeli Settler Violence Is Increasing in the West Bank
In memory of my late sister, Cornelia Louise Williams, a veteran of the United States Army, I write this as a call to action. We stand at a moment where the legacies of our ancestors and the rights of those currently serving are being systematically challenged. The erasure of identity is not just happening in our military; it is happening to our very history.
The Targeted Exclusion in Our Ranks
The current atmosphere in the Department of Defense is one of targeted exclusion. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been documented personally intervening to strike the names of multiple female and Black Navy officers from promotion lists, even after they were selected by senior military boards. When leadership is allowed to target officers based on identity rather than fitness to lead, it does more than just hurt careers—it tells every young Black girl aspiring to serve her country that there is no future for her in this administration. This agenda of erasure extends to the very history of our service members.
Israel’s +972 Magazine reports that the Israeli military establishment has launched a training program designed to “influence public consciousness” around the world, with courses aimed at training hundreds of operatives per year in strategies for “actively disrupting or manipulating the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of target audiences.”
Citing a leaked Defense Ministry tender, +972 reports that lecturers in the program are required to hold “doctorates and/or professorships in the fields of influence, consciousness, security and terrorism, mass communication, [or] digital and network communication,” as well as “at least four years of professional experience in the fields of influence [or] influence intelligence in various security organizations.”