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I do not have personal knowledge of the facts regarding an “alliance” between Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan on trade issues. Since I don’t have anything to offer on the facts of this matter, I won’t try to dispute whether such an alleged alliance actually existed. Even if the “alliance” Mr. Bellow alleges did exist, I offer some thoughts to balance the issue.

Seattle was over a year ago. Since then, Mr. Nader and the Green Party mounted the most-effective third-party campaign for President in the 2000 Campaign. This effort successfully marginalized Mr. Buchanan’s own efforts and prevented him from gaining any kind of media attention for this race. This was the most important anti-Buchanan action of the past year. If Mr. Bellow doubts Ralph Nader’s credentials on “inclusiveness” he should read Nader’s speech to the NAACP from earlier this year - it was an incredible moment.

After a so-called moderate administration that is responsible for incarcerating the highest amount of marijuana offenders in history, averaging one arrest every 30 seconds, a complete right wing administration takes its place. So, when Bill Clinton made the sweet gesture declaring that marijuana should be decriminalized during his last weeks in office, it was a little too late to get thanks from the movement. Bye Bye Bill, “Exhale to the Chief.” It is unclear how much worse the attack on marijuana and marijuana users can get. Bush and his “Persian Gulf Syndrome” cabinet inheriting the Clinton ground war in Columbia is a definite worry. Their plan is to reduce tons of marijuana imported from Columbia to merely pounds and to contaminate or kill marijuana with new eco destroying biological fungicides and herbicides recently laboratory developed in Montana. The new chemicals are much worse than the paraquat of the 1970’s. With this, domestic production will increase and so will arrests and the amount of prisons. One must wonder (sarcastically) if Bush will deploy thousands of snitch subversives into metro areas or begin smart-bombing grow houses and head shops.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Day Three of the Bush Restoration, and the lights are going out in California. Naturally, the Blame Game is afoot, and many and varied are those who are getting the blame dumped on them for this lollapalooza of a mess. "A stupid bureaucratic decision," one Californian told The New York Times, which is really unfair.

"The idiots in the legislature," said another, which is only partly true.

The right wing already has a nominee for blame: the NIMBY forces -- folks who say "not in my backyard" when their friendly neighborhood power company wants to put a new plant next door. Of course, right-wingers don't like power plants in their neighborhoods either, so this is weak stuff. Their alternative is to blame "the environmentalists," apparently for having opposed building a nuclear power plant on the San Andreas Fault.

Actually, if you would like to get a firm grip on this issue, notice who spent millions and millions of dollars to lobby for utilities deregulation, not only through the California Legislature but around the country. It was -- tah-dah! -- the utilities themselves, of course.

We have just witnessed, in the United States, the massive and wholesale theft of the presidency. Yet the fraudulent political dynamics that propelled loser George W. Bush into the White House have happened before. A political philosopher once observed that history always repeats itself twice—the first time as tragedy, and the second time as farce. The seeds of the current electoral debacle are found in the past.

Back in 1876, the Civil War had been over for only eleven years. Black men had finally won the right to vote, but Southern whites were vigorously attempting to regain their power over their state legislatures. Deep sectional antagonisms still divided the nation, with the industrial and commercial North mostly supporting Republicans, and the White South supporting the Democrats. The Republican presidential candidate in 1876 was Rutherford B. Hayes, the governor of Ohio. Hayes was widely viewed as being handicapped by the governmental scandals and corruption during the administration of two-term President Ulysses S. Grant.

To ring in the new year on Tuesday, January 2, five members of the Columbus School Board passed a New Year’s resolution: to destroy the tradition of free speech at school board meetings. The long-standing practice of open public comments at the board meeting is gone; equally shameful is moving the starting time of the meeting from the traditional 5pm to 3pm to block access by working parents. This same board majority ended the practice of weekly board meetings last year at the insistence of the malevolent and wholly unqualified ex-jock new board member Stephanie Hightower. After $130,000 poured into her school board campaign from Chamber of Commerce types, she’s now assumed the board presidency in her second year.

Bill Moss’ comment that Hightower “doesn’t know goose shit from wild honey” is too generous on her educational insights.

Woe is Gore and Lieberman. Woe on Bush and Cheney. Woe for America and its systems of checks and balances, the electoral process, litigation and finally woe for the Jewish community. What the Hell is going on? Can’t any upstanding Republican admit that the fix was in, in Florida? Come on….old machines that require routine cleaning, that hadn’t been cleaned for three years. Butterfly ballots being used in selected counties. State police blocking the single road to the polls from a Black community. Voter intimidation and further, voting tests, Blacks being required to provide two forms of picture identification in some counties. Whoa!

Did anybody seem to notice that the only place the exit polls were wrong is Florida? Did you notice a kind of self assured cockiness in the voice of guvnah’ Bush when it was suggested that the exit polls had given Gore the state? The guvnah’ stated in clear terms that he “rejects the information provided by the networks because he’d been provided other information that he had or will win the state.” Could George W. be sooo stupid that he tipped his hand?

As we were laying out the Free Press this holiday season, we were shocked by the sudden and untimely death of one-time Free Press writer, advertiser and friend, Joanna Demas-Way. Our condolences go to her husband, UFO bassist Pete Way, a staunch Free Press supporter who headlined our recent 30th Anniversary bash.

Dr. Demas-Way, a graduate of University of Miami Medical School was one of the few doctors willing to write about the medical use of marijuana (see our Winter 2000 issue, “Relief in a Leaf”).

Joanna was not only a gifted writer, but a kind and caring physician. She often volunteered her medical services to poor and underserved patients. She prided herself on spending time with getting to know each patient’s needs. Her compassion extended to all of Earth’s creatures, great and small. One of our fondest memories of Joanna is when the Free Press editor found an abandoned newborn baby possum, which Joanna insisted on nurturing, hand-feeding and loving for a few weeks before its inevitable death.

The debate about the issues of race continues. Recently we have witnessed what a shocked America will do when confronted with the evidence of a people who decide to stand up for themselves and be counted…and (in Florida) recounted and then counted again. In Columbus I find it conspicuous that so many people want to dismiss the argument of race and the inherent inequities and disparities. To many, the problems don’t really exist. After all, Columbus IS America.

Columbus (the great testing center) represents the quintessential cross-section of America….in other words if it can’t happen here it can’t happen anywhere, right?

When it comes to proficiency tests, nothing is real. According to just some of the propaganda: schools are “failing”; we have (and need) these tests to “improve” education; the tests were created by educators; the tests are on the 4th, 6th, and 8th grade “levels”; if teachers and schools did things properly, every kid would pass every test; and over time the tests will make our schools “successful.” It’s all malarkey!

Schools are not “failing.” Schools are doing a better job than ever before, helping more kids with more problems. Over the years schools have gotten better and better. That is not to say that schools are perfect, that they provide everything certain interest groups demand, that they provide enough of what actually is needed, or that they shouldn’t be asked to do even more. Still, schools are not failing.

House Bill 578 (Rep. Dale Miller) would extend time limits for welfare recipients from three years to five years. Current time limits are sending people out into the workforce before completing education and job training necessary to support a family. Especially devastated are new immigrants, who face cultural, language and educational barriers to employment.

Status: Sponsor testimony took place on November 28, 2000. Direct correspondence on the bill to members of the Finance and Appropriations committee, especially vice-chair, Rep. E.J. Thomas.

A $647 million shortfall in the state’s Medicaid budget is raising concerns among advocates about needed health care spending in the next budget. Roughly $250 million of the shortfall comes from state funds; the rest is federal matching funds. The state has sought additional funds from both the Controlling Board and legislature.

Governor Taft has asked all state agencies to maintain current funding levels. That will be tough, in light of increased Medicaid costs. Medicaid covers both aged, blind and disabled (ABD) people, as well as low-income children and families.