Editorial

My neighbor thinks I hate Columbus City Council; that’s just not true.

Look at the recent ordinance passed December 2025 to regulate submetering companies in Columbus.

Submetering is out of control in Ohio and there are two bills in the state house to provide better regulation, but neither is going anywhere. While our state government does nothing some submetering companies are over-charging renters for electricity.

But Columbus City Council wasn’t going to ignore this challenge. Instead of waiting, they went to work and passed a new ordinance to:

1. Prohibit submetering companies from charging a tenant more than what is charged by a utility provider.

2. Cap administrative fees at $8 per billing cycle.

3. Prohibits late fees that are more than what a utility provider is charging, and

The anti-ICE protestor who was arrested by Columbus police believes an obstructing official business charge was filed separately after the night of the incident.

He’s also been offered a plea deal. Prosecutors will drop the initial charges filed against him if he pleads guilty to obstructing official business, according to his public defender.  

Kevin Logan, a northwest side activist and former foster kid, was arrested by Columbus police at the hotel ICE was staying at in the days leading up to Christmas.

What makes the obstruction of official business charge alarming is it could be based on how he was protesting ICE – very vociferously and enthusiastically to say the least. He utilized a bullhorn on the first two nights protesting.

Amid widespread revulsion at the behavior of the second Trump administration and its Republican loyalists, there is a curious tendency to blame Democrats for the slide of the United States toward fascism. As one enraged commentator put it recently, “the Democrats” have “let us down day by day by day.”

But, in fact, “the Democrats”―at the grassroots and at the federal government level―have repeatedly displayed overwhelming opposition to the rightwing Republican onslaught. By contrast, Republicans have almost uniformly backed Trump’s priorities. Indeed, the gap between the two parties on most key issues has been enormous.

There is an undeclared civil war in America now. Trump and his administration have weaponized and mobilized the federal government in one initiative after another against people in the United States. Seeing himself as having unlimited powers and enabling his administration to ignore the law and deal brutally with opponents, whether protestors, citizen observers, or immigrants. It feels unbelievable to say this, but in the wake of one episode after another in Minneapolis, it is impossible to ignore that the administration is starting a civil war.

The equal time provisions under decades of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) actions have largely been eroded and haphazardly enforced, if all. Ostensibly, provisions still exist on the books as statute and via FCC regulations. “Under section 315, if a broadcast station permits any legally qualified candidate for public office to use its facilities, it shall provide an equal opportunity to all other legally qualified candidates for that office.”

This article first appeared on Substack

I started working on this cartoon before the events unfolded in Minnesota today. In case you haven't heard yet, ICE has shot a third person today. This is another fatal shooting.

I did not get to dive into the story until after I had completed this cartoon. I had something else occupying my time today as well. When I was finally able to look up, I watched the video.

I saw the video after hearing that the man who was shot had a weapon. At the start of the video, it resembled the Rodney King beating, except Rodney King wasn't shot at the end. It looked like a gang of ICE thugs was holding the man down and beating him. At the end, while still being held down, one of the agents shoots the guy.

This article first appeared on Substack

I do not know why, but this one makes me laugh.

Trump lived up to his reputation of chickening out after threatening to raise tariffs on a nation. It is the reason for the TACO acronym: Trump Always Chickens Out.

Trump threatened to raise tariffs on eight NATO nations unless they would allow Denmark to sell Greenland to him. Never mind that seven of these nations don't have any say in what Denmark does with Greenland, he's gonna punish them anyway. If you ever figure out Trump logic, let me know.

But yesterday, after giving that horrible speech at Davos and proclaiming time and time again that he would settle for nothing less than absolute and outright ownership of Greenland, Donald Trump caved. He lifted the tariffs on the eight nations, saying there is a framework of a deal involving Greenland.

Irony is lost on President Trump but is a necessity for the rest of us. Today’s headlines feature yet another grievance from Trump about his failure to win a Nobel Prize in 2025 for his totally false claim of having ended eight wars around the globe. He now claims that his obsession with Greenland is less about Greenland than pushing back on his pique about the Nobel. We gain this insight into his thinking thanks to a tweet he sent to the prime minister of Norway holding him somehow responsible for not muscling up on the Nobel committee in his country. You can’t make this up, but I wish this was all made up.

Last summer my wife and I attended an outdoor art festival in Westerville. Lots of people and there were police at all of the entry points. It felt safe.

In the evening as we were walking back to our car we heard a humming sound.

We couldn’t figure out where it was coming from until I looked up. A few hundred feet above flew a Westerville Police drone. Now, Columbus has jumped on the trend to limit your privacy in public for the sake of safety.

On November 18, the Columbus Police rolled out their new drone program with 14 pilots passing the FAA required certification. Seems like a logical step to better keep us safe from hurting each other, but remember that there is a price.

Our world is moving away from privacy at an alarming pace. The use of drones is just one symptom of the end of privacy as we know it.

There is a widening gap today between global possibilities and global realities.

The possibilities are enormous, for―thanks to a variety of factors, ranging from increases in knowledge to advances in economic productivity―it’s finally feasible for all of humanity to lead decent and fulfilling lives.

No longer is poverty necessary, for the enormous global economy can produce adequate food, goods, and services for all the world’s people.

Human health and longevity can be improved substantially, thanks to breakthroughs in science and medicine.

Education, communications, transportation, and culture have made huge strides toward enriching human existence and could finally be made available to all.

Meanwhile, the rise of the United Nations and of international law holds the promise of moving beyond the violent, bloodstained past and securing peace, human rights, and justice on the international level.

And yet, current realities fall far short of these possibilities.