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Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio denounced Gov. Mike DeWine’s cuts to Medicaid as Ohio continues to grapple with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. During a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Gov. DeWine announced that more than $200 million in state budget cuts will come from Medicaid funding for the remainder of the 2020 fiscal year, while leaving the $2.7 billion rainy day fund untouched.

Statement from Iris E. Harvey, President & CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio:

“Slashing Medicaid funding at any point in time is irresponsible and dangerous. Doing so now, while many Ohioans are reeling from the effects of COVID-19 and in need of preventive health care, is heartless. This move will disproportionately impact communities that are already medically underserved, who already stand at a greater risk of harm from COVID-19, and who depend on Medicaid to access health care. We call on Gov. DeWine and the legislature to reconsider this path.”

As a provider of health care services, Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio sees over sixty thousand patients annually across its Ohio health centers, nearly 4 in 10 of whom use Medicaid.

Wednesday, May 6, 2020, 7:00 - 8:30 PM
With the COVID-19 pandemic, we are seeing an alarming increase in biased incidents and hate crimes against people of Asian descent in the United States and across the world. In response, allies to Asian Americans are called on to speak out against bigotry and racism to challenge learned prejudices. In this interactive workshop, come learn and practice ways to use your voice – don’t just be a passive bystander! Interrupting oppressive statements is one important way of intervening against racism to make sure our communities work for everyone.  Zoom Register here.

Tuesday, May 5, 2020, 8:00 PM
Addressing the Crisis of Missing Murdered Native Women:  National Lobby Training. Join us on May 5, the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Native Women and Girls, for a virtual lobby training on the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) with Kerri Colfer, FCNL’s Native American Policy Lobbyist. Register here.

Monday, May 4, 2020.  Remembering Kent State.  May 4th is the 50th Anniversary of the shootings at Kent State University.  Across Ohio we will be remembering, from home, May 4th, 1970, when Ohio Governor Rhodes called out the National Guard who fired into unarmed Anti-Vietnam War protesters killing 4 and wounding 9.   Daytonians for Peace asks you join in 4 minutes of silence at noon to remember Kent State and Jackson State and all the victims of our unjust wars. Please join online in the many efforts to end our current wars. We need to build a massive peace movement to stand up to Trump and the WAR Machine.

50th Virtual Commemoration — May 4 at 12 pm EST

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.

Ten days after Governor James A. Rhodes assumed office on January 14, 1963, a Cincinnati FBI agent wrote Director J. Edgar Hoover a memo stating: "At this moment he [Rhodes] is busier than a one-armed paper hanger . . . . Consequently, I do not plan to establish contact with him for a few months. We will have no problem with him whatsoever. He is completely controlled by an SAC [Special Agent in Charge] contact, and we have full assurances that anything we need will be made available promptly. Our experience proves this assertion."

Why would the FBI assert that the newly-inaugurated governor of Ohio is "completely controlled"? Media sources like Life magazine noted the governor’s alleged ties to organized crime and the Mafia in specific. Gov. Rhodes’ FBI file, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, suggests that it may be because of the FBI’s extensive knowledge of Rhodes’ involvement in the numbers rackets in the late 1930’s that the Bureau could count on his cooperation.

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Well, it's mostly nonsense---17 minutes of it---Bob Dylan rasping pleasingly over a simple rolling piano figure, relaxed, but often tastelessly and grotesquely describing JFK's gruesome assassination November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas.

'Murder Most Foul' could've been groundbreaking. It could've been a golden ager's autumnal 'Sympathy For The Devil.'

But instead the casualness of the rhyming patterns, the bloody references to bullets hitting the Kennedy noggin and the President slumping into Jackie's lap and THEN the autopsy at the hospital in a bit of gory detail---well, it's all a bit much.

It does get interesting when Dylan brings legendary '60s radio d.j. Wolfman Jack into the picture and then spends the last third of the song making requests for him to play a Who's Who of r'n'b and blues favorites while mention Marilyn Monroe.

Sort of Dylan's way of waxing nostalgic about the America he loved, gone and not being taught. Talk about an untapped cultural goldmine.

Back in March when The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center set up a makeshift Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) donation center to supply its frontline healthcare workers, fear swept through the hospital’s staff. Would they have enough PPE to protect themselves from the coronavirus?

“It definitely sent a shock through the hospital,” says Rick Lucas, president of the Ohio State University Nurses Organization (OSUNO), the union that represents 4,000 OSU nurses. “Things were tightening up. We were having issues getting cleaning supplies and personal protective equipment to the front-line staff.”

Lucas says management began telling staff, “we are in a really good spot and we have all these supplies on hand.” 

“Then they put out the donation request,” says Lucas, also a registered nurse at the hospital.

He says long before the pandemic, management at the Wexner Medical Center was growing “very tall” – they kept adding upper level positions, layer after layer. 

As the effects of coronavirus still ravage the globe, many people have noted that this is the fourth major crisis of the 21st century. Some even say that coronavirus is a composition of all our most recent crises combined. After all, the 2000s began with a good deal of tragedy -- 9/11 occurred only a year in and was followed by Hurricane Katrina shortly after. Both showcased a lack of preparedness by the U.S. government for such major emergencies, whether they were created by nature or man-made. Things would eventually turn for the worse economically right as the country started to recover, as the financial crisis of 2008 -- created by the pure greed and deregulation on Wall Street -- wreaked havoc across the country, more so than any natural or manufactured tragedy had up until that point.