Editorial

There is no shortage of good journalism even in the profession's weakened state.

There is a shortage of people paying careful attention to what is happening around them and of people making intelligent, fact-based, well-reasoned decisions based on the news and information they consume.

And there is a shortage of those who can tell fact from fiction and who can process lies, exaggeration and opinion without being unduly swayed by them.

If everybody subscribed to the New York Times and looked at its print front page or its web home page on Saturday March 21 -- and took it seriously -- we would be well on our way to getting out from under the grip of the coronavirus pandemic.

A paid subscription was not necessary to read the Times's coverage online because the paper has made it free as a public service.

The Times published on page one in print and at the top of its news feed online three color-coded maps of the United States based on information supplied by two Columbus University researchers, Sen Pei and Jeffrey Shaman.

“Waiting is full.” That’s what my husband Eric says: waiting is full, of whatever you do with that time. It could be irritation, anxiety or anger or it could be meditation, for example.

We are all in a waiting game here. Waiting to see what’s going to happen next. Hour by hour things are changing and evolving, the outcome uncertain.

Not only are we waiting, we are being asked/ordered to do it inside, away form others, to “shelter in place.” We’re told to stay home, keep a safe distance from others. For most of us, our jobs are on hold or worse, gone! For most that is a very scary thing. So, there’s fear in the waiting.

But you know what else there is in there? So much love! It’s everywhere from the balconies of Italy to our own communities. People are loving on each other via social media, on TV and by reaching out to friends and family. Through podcasts and reporting from their living rooms, talk show hosts and reporters are letting us into their homes like family. It’s personal. Because we ARE all in this together. all humans are susceptible to this bug.

Nothing like an impending apocalypse to let us know what’s truly important to our politicians. We commend Gov. Mike DeWine for his much-needed actions fighting the coronavirus, but he hasn’t forced the closure of the state’s casinos, which, as we all know, are a hotbed for seniors.

“I am surprised the state hasn’t closed casinos if the City of Columbus has closed the libraries,” says Eddie Hamilton, who’s running a Franklin County Democratic Party Central Committee seat this Tuesday in Ward 29, an area roughly from South High to Lockbourne, and along Rt. 104. “There are hundreds of people in a casino at any given time and they don’t clean the machines thoroughly.”

Freep tried to reach out to the Governor’s Office but did not hear back. However, the Governor’s Office on Thursday said they could enforce their ban on “public gatherings” of more than 100 people, and casinos are not exempt.

Friday morning we spoke to a representative at Hollywood Casino and they said at this time their casino is exempt from the 100 people ban, and thus their doors are open.

Well, the Democratic Party machine in Franklin County is delivering the primary vote this year as if it was Tammany Hall. Instead of the mantra “Vote early – vote often” it’s “Vote early – and vote our sample ballot.”

I got a call from a Bernie Sanders field rep who witnessed Somalians being disenfranchised at the Franklin County Board of Elections during the first week of early voting. He said the poll workers weren’t letting elderly Somali women vote. Their big sin seemed to be they refused the sample ballot.

Despite their names being in the poll book, the Somali women were told they couldn’t vote unless they pronounced their address correctly in perfect English. The Bernie rep had noticed that all the Somali voters in question had rejected to take the sample ballot a Democratic operative tried to hand to them on their way in. The Bernie rep had asked the poll workers if there were translators present and was told they could help translate at the voting machines but not at the poll book area. The three Somali women were turned away.

The Democratic Party calls itself the "party of the people" and labels the Republican Party the "party of money."

Republican Mitt Romney's candidacy for president in 2012 against Barack Obama was skillfully derailed by Democrats attacking his enormous wealth and lack of sensitivity toward common people.

Democrats are not immune to rich standard-bearers. President John F. Kennedy was and is a hero of mine, but without daddy Joseph P. Kennedy's millions he probably would not have made it to the White House.

Howard Metzenbaum was and is a hero of mine, but his millions gave him a leg up on becoming a U.S. Senator from Ohio.

Enter Michael Bloomberg, worth $60 billion. He is vying for the Democratic nomination for president and has been attacked by fellow Democrats for trying to buy the nomination.

The former New York City mayor had dropped $500 million on television and social media ads by late February, vaulting him into or near the lead in public opinion polls in the 12 Super Tuesday (March 3) states and earning him a spot on the debate stage February 19.

Recently, I was shadowing some of our organizing committee members when they hit the doors in the Mountjoy-Dorset neighborhood of Dublin as they ventured forward to build the first community organization in ACORN’s newest affiliate in Ireland. In the first ten doors we hit, two of them claimed that they had been door knocked the previous weekend. That was awkward. One was clearly engaged, but the other was as clearly, brushing us off as she ran out the door. All of this underlined the simple lesson that as hard as it is to organize a community, we need to do everything we can to make it easier on the people doing the work. Stressing the importance of clear lists and, as critically, counting all the doors that are knocked, not just the ones that were home, is a fundamental.

If the Columbus Dispatch could be trusted to report accurately and fairly about itself, readers would be more likely to trust its coverage of other matters and the paper's circulation and readership might stop hemorrhaging.

Alas, the newspaper and website could not bring itself to write the following lead a few weeks ago when it announced the closing of its Columbus print site and loss of 188 jobs:

“In bad news for the local economy, the Dispatch, that is controlled by the Japanese hedge fund SoftBank, announced the closing of a major local manufacturing facility, its west side print site, and the layoff of 188 employees.”

“This represents an estimated loss of $9,000,000 of annual wage and benefit payments to local residents and a significant loss of municipal and state income tax collection as well as potential property tax losses if the plant remains idle or is reborn with tax abatements.”

There has been an increase in the things that have separated us as Americans in our nation these past three years. We have been separated by hate. In 2018, the FBI reported that 16,039 law enforcement agencies submitted hate crime reports totaling 7,120 incidents. Of those hate crimes reported 59.6 percent were based on problems related to race, ethnicity, ancestry or bias. 

We have been separated by religion. The recent anti-Semitic attacks that occurred in New York and Jersey City – where five victims were stabbed during a Hanukkah celebration, four killed while shopping and one physically attacked while out with her child – has brought attention to the public that anti-Semitic hate crimes continue to plague our cities. There have been shootings in black and white churches last year.

A sign at the Columbus’ December 17 Impeach and Remove rally joked: “Impeachment: It’s not just for blow jobs any more.” As funny as this saying is, the reality of what prompted the current impeachment process and society’s response is an atrocious state of affairs.

Even though Christianity Today (CT) came out for impeachment before Christmas, Trump’s die-hard MAGA fanatical white evangelical Christian base still seems to support him. ‘Tis the season for hypocrisy.

Perhaps they believed Trump when he promised during his campaign: "I’m going to be the greatest president God ever created.”

In 1998 CT, a leading voice in the evangelical movement had called for the removal of President Bill Clinton from office. CT argued that Clinton had to go because “unsavory dealings and immoral acts by the President and those close to him have rendered this administration morally unable to lead.”

During the impeachment vote on CNN, there is plenty of the standard mainstream corporate media pablum arguing that an election is being overturned. – stating that the will of the people is being subverted by impeaching Trump.

The exact opposite is true. In the 2016 presidential election, Trump lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes. Three Million Votes. He only became president because of the historically racist electoral college which favors white rural America.

Also, the only reason Trump won with the electoral college was the mass purging of black, Latino. and poor voters in urban areas (read: Democratic strongholds).

Trump’s “victories” in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania were contradicted by the best evidence supplied by the exit polls.

The U.S. House of Representatives is embracing the will of the majority, as opposed to an authoritarian oligarch pandering to white supremacy and extreme nationalism.

The chart above shows the margin that Trump lost the popular vote compared to other presidents who lost the popular vote but won the electoral college vote.