Editorial

Health care is big business in the United States. So big it can be hard to wrap your head around.

America’s largest health care company, the UnitedHealth Group, pulled in over $100 billion in revenue in just the fourth quarter of 2024 alone. For the full year, the giant’s insurance division, UnitedHealthcare, just reported record revenue of $298.2 billion.

These staggering revenue totals actually fell below investor expectations. Right after the announcement, UnitedHealth Group shares slipped 6 percent on the New York Stock Exchange.

That tells you a lot about what’s important in the healthcare industry: profit, not care. Health insurance companies in particular can only profit by paying out less in claims than they collect in premiums. And that means denying patients coverage for the care they need.

President Trump made illegal immigration a major issue during during his campaign in 2024. But is it really as bad as he claims? He acted as though the INS, ICE, and the border patrol weren't doing their jobs, but is that really true? 

The facts are that there are lower crime rates among the immigrant population than among Americans as a whole. The facts are that more people were deported under Biden than during Trump's first term. The president often uses hate, fear, and outright racism to promote his false claims. He said these statements to energize his far right base to get elected and his lies apparently worked.

Many immigrants have legitimate reasons for fleeing for their home countries. Most of them are not drug mules, rapists, or murderers as the president falsely claims. Many of them don't even come because of employment opportunities, although many of them do menial work that no American would want to do.  

The dominant self-conception of the Jewish story is innocence, repeated persecutions, and then redemption by creation of the Jewish nationalist State of Israel.

This narrative is critically examined in Peter Beinart's new book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning.

Beinart's book says the maudlin story we Jews tell ourselves of our virtue and heroic endurance inoculates Jews from seeing Israel's agency in creating the resistance it faces:

“We must now tell a new story to answer the horror that a Jewish country has perpetrated… We are not history’s permanent virtuous victims.”

Beinart, former editor of The New Republic, is now an editor-at-large of Jewish Currents, and a New York Times contributor.

He has been in a 20-year progression of seeing, more and more sharply, the “Jewish and democratic” state of Israel as anti-democratic and incompatible with Jewish tradition.

He writes that support for a Jewish state has become “idolatry,” permitting endless killing, torture and oppression of Palestinians:

Why Franklin County Must Divest from Israeli Bonds Now

Franklin County, Ohio, has invested $33 million in Israeli Bonds, with plans to add another $5 million on February 1, 2025. These investments are financially reckless, ethically questionable, and deeply misaligned with the values of our diverse community. It is time to confront the uncomfortable truth about these investments and demand immediate divestment.

Several times during his confirmation hearings this week, Pete Hegseth invoked his “lord and savior, Jesus.” Yet he employed the reference more as a shield or lifeline than an indication of Christian humility or kindness. A big part of what made Hegseth so objectionable was his utter lack of humility; throughout, he exhibited the bravado and smug self-satisfaction of a schoolyard bully. His target was anything that could be described as “left-wing woke.” The irony is that if Jesus were alive today, He would be “woke.” 

What exactly are Republicans afraid of? What are they critical of when they smear someone (or something) as “woke”? 

The Columbus Dispatch reported (City finances purchase of Idea Foundry and Gravity Experience Park in Franklinton January 13, 2025) that the City of Columbus has purchased The Idea Foundry and Gravity Experience Park for $7.5 million. The purchase was made with taxpayer grant agreements made out to Columbus Next Generation which is the City’s non-profit development arm. Next Generation Executive Director Boyce Safford, who is a former City of Columbus Development Director has served in his role since 2013 and is paid $168,062 annually. Some may recall that Director Safford told a group of minority business contractors at an April 2009 meeting that “they need to contribute to Columbus officials’ political campaigns if they expect to win contracts from City Hall” (Columbus Dispatch City officials advice upsets contractors, April 11, 2009.)

Is there any way Kamala Harris could have won the 2024 election? Certainly. If a series of circumstances beyond her control had occurred, she might have become president.  If Biden had died in February 2021, she would have served out most of his term.  If Biden had died in October 2024, the outpouring of sympathy votes might have been enough to help her win the election in November.  If Biden had become seriously ill and resigned in October 2024, that also might have given her a boost. Also, Biden might have resigned after Harris lost the election to let her be president and make history even if she didn't serve long.

However, none of these events happened. We can only imagine what having a woman as president might have been like because now that possibility has passed and there may never be a situation where a woman could be president again.

President Trump may commute the sentences or pardon convicted criminals who have broken the law for him.  Anyone involved in the January 6, 2021 attack on the capital may get these considerations. Rudolph Giuliani may get a pardon so he won't have to pay out any of the millions of dollars of claims against him. The president may even pardon himself and other close friends and relatives for crimes they may have committed. He might not even reveal these pardons publicly until they are needed like having a "Get out of jail free" card. As a result, he might not have to pay E. Jean Carroll anything or anyone else who has ever had a judgement against him. We may only be able to call him a "former" 34-time convicted felon.

Many farmers who supported Trump may be surprised when he helps put them out of business. New INS raids will deplete fields of migrant workers who do agricultural labor that no American would do. Many of these farmers may also be arrested for trying to help poor people support their families. Expect food prices to skyrocket.

This article first appeared on the Buckeye Flame

Let’s face it: 2024 ended pretty terribly for LGBTQ+ Ohioans. 

On December 19, Ohio’s Republican lawmakers passed a bill that will force teachers and school staff to out LGBTQ+ youth and limit the mentions of LGBTQ+ identity in school curricula. 

This 11th-hour blitz capped off a two-year legislative session that saw Republican lawmakers advance a national trend to restrict the lived experience of LGBTQ+ individuals, and specifically transgender youth. Bills passed into law included:

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The first installment (“I’m just a consumer”) closed with two admonitions. One said we should value people instead of tossing them aside as “mere hands,” and the other is confident we can cast aside propaganda that justifies inequity by the age old trick of blaming the victim. This installment scrutinizes a couple of those victim-blaming urban legends that twist our outlook to see our colleagues as disposable implements.

Like that previous piece, this one springs from reflections on chapters 15 and 16 of Beyond Capital by István Mészáros. I encourage you to read them for yourself to make up your own mind.

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