Politics

Can you name the President who added 10 millions jobs in his eight year term where 94% of the jobs were temporary with little to no benefits? (as per study by Harvard University L Katz and Princeton University economist A Krueger)

Can you name the President since 1980 whose administration saw the widest gap between income for black men versus white men in the USA? (as per study by University Chicago economist KK Charles and Duke University economist P Bayer)

Can you name the President since 1988 whose administration reduced the USA nuclear stockpile the least? (Pentagon figures -hint – this President has also initiated nuclear upgrades that will cost over $1 trillion dollars)

Now that the National Entertainer-In-Chief election is over, what to do?

Here's what not to do: Overanalyze.

Donald Trump won in the Electoral College. How did he do it and still lose the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by nearly three million votes? If only 80,000 votes were changed in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Blah, blah, blah.

The simple explanation is that America is tired of the Clintons, and Hillary was not an inspirational figure. Late-deciding voters did not want to face four years of  boring television and social media from the White House, so folks shifted over to TV celebrity Trump because they were choosing a National Entertainer-In-Chief, not a Commander-In-Chief.

Boredom is the mortal enemy of many of our fellow citizens, not Putin. In fact, a lot of people find Vladimir a charismatic figure like Trump.

In a another case of over studying, Washington Post and New York Times columnists recently have praised Sen. Rob Portman for a magnificent campaign. What a political genius that Portman, they wrote, citing all sorts of reasons for his rout of Ted Strickland.

The Public Safety Committee of Columbus City Council held a public budget hearing on December 7. Community members showed up to remind Council that city budget priorities have grave consequences for the citizens they represent. 

They were joined by Nia Malika King, the mother of teenager Ty’re King who was killed by Columbus police on September 14. December 7 would have been Ty’re’s 14th birthday.

“Today Ty’re King should be planning for the holidays with his family,” People’s Justice Project organizer Tammy Alsaada told City Council members. “This holiday season the King family will have their first Christmas with a big, unfillable hole in their homes. The People’s Justice Project wants to move from prisons and policing to prevention and programs.  We want to reinvest in evidence-based practices that actually keep our communities safe. Unless we change those priorities, Ty’re will not be the last child we lose.

The corporate media has been on a feeding frenzy over the assault of an anti-Trump protester on the Ohio State University campus yesterday. Sensationalism drives page hits and ad revenue, so local and national media have focused almost entirely on the violent incident. Missing from the coverage is why the protesters were there in the first place — what they were trying to accomplish politically.

The OSU Lantern broke the story with a Twitter video which described the incident as a “tackle.” It’s understandable that a student newspaper that covers the OSU Buckeyes would use a football metaphor. But CNN and many other outlets picked up the innocuous-sounding word in their headlines.

It was not a tackle. Timothy Adams (called Timothy Joseph in some reports) was not wearing protective gear. He didn’t land on grass or Astroturf. He landed face-down on hard concrete. It was a violent attack that Adams was fortunate to walk away from with only bruises.

At the same time Green Party candidate for county prosecutor Bob Fitrakis was debating Democratic candidate Zach Klein, a Columbus police officer with a history of questionable shootings killed Tyre King, a 13-year-old African American. King’s shooting occurred less than a block away from Fitrakis’s Near East home.

As a candidate for Franklin County commissioner, State Representative Kevin Boyce (D-Columbus) has questionable fitness for the position because of documents released this year concerning his 2009 to 2010 tenure as Ohio’s state treasurer. The documents include an independent investigation report on the treasurer’s office, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, and other public records.

Boyce is running against Republican Terry Boyd to be on Franklin County’s board of commissioners. The three commissioners are responsible for a $1.35 billion annual budget providing health care, public safety, economic development, human services, and other essential functions for the nation’s 30th-largest county.

While state treasurer, Boyce was in charge of the nation’s sixth-largest treasury and responsible for investing and protecting $250 billion in state assets. The documents show major failings in his job performance, resulting in the largest bribery and kickback scandal in the state government’s history.

The Mainstream Media developed some backbone since we last wrote -- after being brutally manipulated by Donald Trump -- and finally brought full-time 2020 presidential contender, and occasional governor, John Kasich down to size.

Chuck Todd, host of NBC's venerable Meet The Press, recorded an interview with Kasich on Friday Sept. 9 and posted part of it online on Sept. 10. Politico and The Columbus Dispatch reported about it and said it was broadcast on Sunday morning, Sept. 11, but it was never shown and never even mentioned during the hour-long broadcast.

I'm sure Kasich's people would blame it on the breaking news of attempted bombings in the New York City metropolitan area that was covered for a few minutes by Meet The Press, but in the two-thirds of the show devoted to politics, Kasich never came up.

On September 14, two candidates for Franklin County Prosecutor answered questions about how they would respond to officer-involved shootings, if elected. As the candidates’ forum at Mt. Olivet Baptist Church proceeded, only one mile away 13-year-old Ty’re King was pursued and shot multiple times by Columbus police. He was taken to Nationwide Children’s Hospital and pronounced dead a few minutes after the candidates’ forum ended.

Adrienne Hood spoke at the beginning of the forum. Her son Henry Green was killed by Columbus police on June 6.  “It’s unfortunate that the person who can give me the justice that my son deserves is not here,” she said, indicating the empty chair reserved for Ron O’Brien, the incumbent County Prosecutor candidate. O’Brien has not responded to demands by Green’s family to indict the officers who shot him and appoint an independent prosecutor to oversee the case.

Diversion programs

As a crowd waited for Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein to join a September 2 political rally at Capital University, local Green Party members took the podium to explain the key role of third party politics, and how Stein’s presidential bid coalesces with state and local efforts to transform the political landscape.

“Politics creates the kinds of communities that we will live in,” said Anita Rios of Toledo, who ran for Ohio Governor in 2014. “Somebody is going to make those decisions, and if it’s not somebody who understands our needs, they’re going to make decisions based on the people who give them money — decisions that simply do not work for us.”

Healing our communities requires a groundswell of Americans participating in politics at the local level, Rios said, “not just as voters, but also as candidates.” She described her Ohio gubernatorial run as a grueling effort that required great sacrifices from herself, her family, and a legion of Green Party activists.

As 96 percent of America's minds descend into election-year madness, driven there by two scoundrels in particular and many more in general, perhaps it is time to ponder the only question that matters:

What would Allen Ginsberg have thought of America 2016?
 

Back in August 1995 when I was in my prime provocateurship at The Other Paper, I decided to treat myself to a little vacation in New York City. I picked a helluva week--and on purpose: Shane McGowan of the Pogues was playing his first post-Pogues live show in America with his band The Popes, that I had to see.
 

And Ginbsberg was doing a reading at The Cooler, a music and performance space in the ultra-hip-by-its-sheer-unhipness meatpacking district in the Gnawed Apple. More than a reading, actually, avant-garde guitarist Marc Ribot would be sitting next to him supplying sounds eclectic to one of the founding freaks of the Beat Generation's words.
 

Saw Shane and Al on consecutive nights--bloody marvelous, both. And of course took in an afternoon Mets game at Shea, after walking 75 blocks through Manhattan.