Local
Thursday, February 5, 5pm
Columbus Liberation Center, 1004 Parsons Ave.
Help build for the February 7 protests to demand ICE out of Ohio! Defend and expand protected status!
On Sunday, February 1 there were two vigils for Alex Pretti, Renee Good and other victims of ICE terror -- one at Weinland Park and one at the VA hospital in Columbus.
Wednesday, February 4, 12-1pm
Ohio Statehouse Rotunda, 1 Capitol Square
There will be a litany, prayers, and songs. Participants’ thoughts, poems, prayers, and songs welcome. General and handicapped parking may be available under the statehouse. Even when the sign says FULL, there may handicapped parking available; please ask attendants.
On a bitter cold street corner nurses, union workers, musicians, and other folks gathered to remember the life of Veterans Administration (VA) Intensive Care Unit nurse and American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 3669 Union member Alex Pretti and mother of three, writer, and musician Renee Good.
Pretti and Good were murdered in separate incidents by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis last month. Both were participating in peaceful protests against ICE violence in the city at the time of their murders.
In response, the Ohio AFL-CIO organized a vigil across from the Chalmers P. Wylie Ambulatory Care VA hospital in Whitehall.
Jason Perlman, Political Director of the Ohio AFL-CIO was among those who spoke: “Tonight, we honor the lives of our union brother, Alex Pretti, Renee Good, Keith Porter, Jr. and the countless names we don’t know who have died in these for-profit, so-called detention centers. Columbus, do we believe our own eyes? Do we know what we saw? Two citizens were gunned down because they chose love over fear.”
In facing off against repression and standing firm against growing autocracy in one place or another, there’s a weird and powerful de facto alliance taking shape that’s worth learning more about: Boomers and Gen Z are at the frontlines.
With the caveat that any survey that is more self-selected than random, The Economist reported a scholarly effort by several researchers at the American University on protestors. They polled 7500 “people who signed up for the ‘Free America Walkout,’ a national protest that took place on January 20th.” Here’s what they found:
“…84 percent of respondents were female, three-quarters were college-educated, and that the media age was 71. Some 99 percent of these aging boomers, said they were supporting nonviolent civil disobedience, and 65 percent of them said they would be willing to take part themselves.”
This conservative journal notes that Republicans have absolutely noticed this phenomenon. They have a name for it: AWFULS, for affluent white female urban liberals.
DHS Secretary Noem announced that federal agents in Minnesota will begin wearing body cameras. This comes after the world has been outraged about their behavior in U.S. communities — behavior that resulted in death and serious bodily injury.
Tuesday, February 3, 2026 8:30 PM - 9:30 PM ET
On Tuesday, Feb. 3. at 11:59 pm, 15,000 Haitian immigrants are set to lose their "Temporary Protected Status" in Springfield, Ohio (population 60,000). Local residents are preparing for a 30-day ICE surge - even though conditions in Haiti are more dangerous than ever, thousands of children could be separated from their parents, and the Haitian community has helped fuel the small town's economic comeback. We stood up for Springfield, Ohio, when JD Vance and Donald Trump lied about Haitians who live and work there during the 2024 campaign, and we're doing it again now. Join us to hear from local residents and legal experts, help raise funds for local groups providing direct support to Haitian families in Springfield, and take action, no matter where you live.
See you there! https://redwine-blue.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_BgPz8QNES5y9Bws4PL3O1w
As ICE and the Border Patrol threaten to surge in Ohio, people around the state and country are wondering what they can do.
Amid widespread revulsion at the behavior of the second Trump administration and its Republican loyalists, there is a curious tendency to blame Democrats for the slide of the United States toward fascism. As one enraged commentator put it recently, “the Democrats” have “let us down day by day by day.”
But, in fact, “the Democrats”―at the grassroots and at the federal government level―have repeatedly displayed overwhelming opposition to the rightwing Republican onslaught. By contrast, Republicans have almost uniformly backed Trump’s priorities. Indeed, the gap between the two parties on most key issues has been enormous.
