Editorial
This article first appeared on Ohio Capitol Journal
In August 2023, Ohio voters sent a clear message when they overwhelmingly rejected the legislature’s blatant attempt to undermine our citizen-initiative process. But instead of listening, politicians in Columbus doubled down. Their new targets? Everyday Ohioans who dare to collect signatures, knock on doors, and exercise their constitutional right to direct democracy.
Ohio Senate Bill 153 and Ohio House Bill 233 are the latest attempts to dismantle the people’s power. While headlines may focus on disingenuous provisions about voter registration and drop boxes, buried deep in these 204-page monstrosities are provisions specifically designed to intimidate, harass, and shut down grassroots campaigns before they ever reach the ballot.
Let’s be clear: these bills are an attack on the People’s Process — on your voice, your rights, your power.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how the Trump administration has been using television, social media, and AI-generated digital graphics to advance its policies. This particular thought experiment started when my friend and I were watching the evening news. There was Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem prancing triumphantly in front of detainees in the CECOT concentration camp in El Salvador where Venezuelan immigrants had been deported. Noem was dressed to kill for the occasion with a designer outfit and a $50,000 Rolex watch. The dynamics of the event were telling. She scolded the detainees like they were 10-year olds caught smoking and, curiously, she did not target gang activity but rather illegal immigration as the cause of their plight.
Original Sin How About Original Spin? WOW!!! There are no words- Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson you had one job!! In a time when 64% of Americans report having "not very much" or "no trust at all" in the media according to the Pew Research Center. You two so-called “journalists” and the media outlets that pay you, put the cherry on the sundae. Collectively you all chose to sit on critical information about the unraveling of American democracy until it could be packaged, bound, and sold at Barnes & Noble.
The so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” as Harry from Resident Alien would say, is some bullshit. And this is some bullshit.
First, it’s projected to add nearly $4 trillion to our debt, but that is a very conservative estimate. Even some Republicans believe it’ll add more than $10 trillion. I have a question that’s harder than defining Habeas Corpus. How do you reduce the deficit by adding $4 trillion to it? And don’t give me that DOGE bullshit as it’s not even going to cut $1 trillion from our debt, which is currently around $36 trillion, partly thanks to Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which just got extended as part of this huge bill.
Yeah, that’s right. Trump’s 2017 tax cuts added trillions to our debt, which they extended last night shortly after Trump pronounced himself a “deficit hawk.” He’s more of a hawker of cheap goods made in China, like his shitty shoes, shitty caps, shitty guitars, etc, etc.
Below we suggest three options for getting out of the Russia-Ukraine stalemate and in the process review briefly the relevant history. It’s time to up the ante. We write this exploration in the form of a hypothetical letter President Donald Trump might send to President Vladimir Putin.
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Dear Vladimir,
Russia continues to resist entering into peace talks with Ukraine or even to consider a ceasefire and, instead, insists on continuing hostilities, aimed primarily at civilians. This was yet again evident from your absence at direct talks with President Zelensky (and me) in Istambul, Turkey, last Thursday (5/15/25), even though you yourself called for these face-to-face negotiations. This was also evident from your massive drone attack ahead of our today's (5/19/25) telephone call on ending the war.
The embarrassing Health & Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr. joined with the TV Doctor Oz who is now heading CMS, which runs Medicaid and Medicare, the Secretary of Agriculture, and the head of HUD, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, in a joint op-ed jeremiad demanding that as the headline roared: “If You Want Welfare, and Can Work, You Must.”
This must be the triumphant pinnacle of what we have long opposed as “workfare,” but it’s worse than that. Their joint fabrication is a less than subtle effort to rebrand all parts of the US safety net as “welfare,” a freighted term that has been made into the equivalent of a hex on any social programs. The fact that this is transparent doesn’t disguise its pernicious callousness.
The Ohio House of Representatives has introduced a bill that would commit $10 million in taxpayer funds “to create the Ohio Israel Trade and Innovation Partnership.” House Bill 188 (H.B. 188) as introduced would create a “partnership” of 14 members who would seek to advance:
In commemoration of the May 4, 1970 killings of students on the Kent State University campus this is an encore presentation of a Free Press article written on May 6, 2007.
The 1970 killings by National Guardsmen of four students during a peaceful anti-war demonstration at Kent State University have now been shown to be cold-blooded, premeditated official murder. But the definitive proof of this monumental historic reality is not, apparently, worthy of significant analysis or comment in today’s mainstream media.
After 37 years of official denial and cover-up, tape-recorded evidence, that has existed for decades and has been in the possession of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), has finally been made public.
It proves what “conspiracy theorists” have argued since 1970—that there was a direct military order leading to the unprovoked assassination of unarmed students. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) documents show collusion between Ohio Governor James A. Rhodes and the FBI that aimed to terrorize anti-war demonstrators and their protests that were raging throughout the nation.
May 6, 2007
The 1970 killings by National Guardsmen of four students during a peaceful anti-war demonstration at Kent State University have now been shown to be cold-blooded, premeditated official murder. But the definitive proof of this monumental historic reality is not, apparently, worthy of significant analysis or comment in today’s mainstream media.
After 37 years of official denial and cover-up, tape-recorded evidence, that has existed for decades and has been in the possession of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), has finally been made public.
It proves what “conspiracy theorists” have argued since 1970—that there was a direct military order leading to the unprovoked assassination of unarmed students. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) documents show collusion between Ohio Governor James A. Rhodes and the FBI that aimed to terrorize anti-war demonstrators and their protests that were raging throughout the nation.