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Join us for the Free Press Second Saturday Cyber-Salon on Zoom.
Facebook Event

night from 7-9pm on Zoom.

Join Zoom Meeting: https://zoom.us/j/222255972
Meeting ID: 222 255 972

Presentations by Bob Fitrakis on elections, Esther Flores on her nonprofit 1DivineLive4Health and Torin Jacobs on helping our neighbors in need.

For Donald Trump’s GOP followers, the real issue in the 2020 election is democracy itself.

They want it abolished. 

Their primary allies are the Coronavirus, state legislatures like those in Ohio and Wisconsin, and the US Supreme Court. 

The campaign just hit a new level in Wisconsin. Using the Pandemic, its gerrymandered GOP legislature made voting in the April 7 primary as dangerous as possible. The US Supreme Court, with its usual 5-4 death hammer, has backed them up.

That 5-4 margin selected George W. Bush (Bush v. Gore) in 2000, and cemented the corporate purchase of our elections with Citizens United (2010), Arizona Clean Elections (2011), Shelby County (2013) and McCutcheon (2014). 

No one needs to tell the Freep how bad some Ohio State off-campus landlords can get. Their uncaring and second-class treatment of students and non-students alike has been well-documented for decades.                    

So, it’s no surprise one of the biggest off-campus property managers and owners sent out the following email late last month to hundreds of tenants:

“We understand that some of our tenants have lost hours at work due to working on campus. However, rent is still expected by the 1st of every month and late fees will still apply. Please do not call the office or email us about this since everyone is still expected to pay rent in a timely fashion.

PS. Please refrain from flushing any items other than toilet paper.”

The Freep would like to name the off-campus property management team that sent this to their tenants, but according to its owner they have been receiving death threats.

Most Americans have spent the past couple weeks focused on staying safe and protecting their families. President Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency, on the other hand, has been working with fossil fuel companies to relax the regulations that protect the air we breathe and the planet we share. Last week, EPA announced it would not enforce pollution regulations for fossil fuel plants and other facilities indefinitely, effectively giving polluters a free pass.

I grew up the youngest of six children in a home where LGBTQ people and issues were not discussed, except for the occasional derogatory comment. I knew from a young age that I was gay but I kept it to myself for many years out of fear of rejection.

At 17, I met a boy and we began dating. He told his parents about our relationship and they responded with acceptance and love. So I found the courage to come out to my parents. It was a very different experience. They kicked me out of the house and didn't speak to me for many years.

I finished high school and took a job as an executive assistant at an advertising firm. I loved that job. One day, when my boss and I were talking, she asked me about my weekend. I told her I spent time with my boyfriend. She said, “You’re gay?” I said yes. Then she fired me and said I should be out by the end of the day.

Many people may not realize that it is still legal in 30 states to fire someone for being gay. I can tell you discrimination is alive and well, I’ve lived it not just at home, but at work.

Joe Biden must step aside. NOW!!!

Someone else must be the Democratic Party’s nominee to run against Donald Trump.

As Trump lies to the world, day after day, and puts his ghastly son-in-law in charge of dragging us all into the morass of a lethal pandemic and a catastrophic economic crash, we hear virtually nothing from the presumptive opposition. 

Once again, the corporate Democrats have done all they can to crush a youthful, vibrant grassroots Sandernista movement for real social change while serving up a weak, unexciting moderate sure to lose to a beatable Republican. 

As Trump twists and stumbles and makes a fool of himself and the rest of us, Joe Biden is utterly absent, showing every sign of dementia-driven un-electability a GOP strategist could ever lust for. 

And now, to top it all off:  no less than eight women have accused Biden of sexual imposition. At least one has accused him of forcible digital entry. Her description of the alleged event is gruesome, grotesque and extremely damning.

Floridians are calling on Governor Ron DeSantis to immediately take all the possible steps, along with the local and federal government, to protect farmworkers in Immokalee from the COVID-19 pandemic, starting with the following urgent measures:  

Unless these measures are taken, Immokalee will become an epicenter of contagion with grave consequences not only for the agricultural community of Immokalee but also for the agricultural industry of Florida and the food supply chain of the entire United States. 

Make no mistake: Immokalee is like dry tinder in the path of a wildfire.  

“420 in 2020. The classic cannaholiday is April 20th, which as the 4th month of the year, is abbreviated 4/20. In 2020, that makes every day in April 4/20! Thus, April 20th specifically becomes 4/20/20, or 4/20/2020. Further, twenty minutes after 4 o’clock that day – 4:20 am or 4:20 pm – will be 4:20 on 4/20 in 4/20 or 4:20 on 4/20/2020.” Mary Jane’s Guide, January 2020

The cannaholiday 420 was to have been so special this year. After all, this is 2020, and during April as the fourth month, every day is 4/20. That includes the infamous 20th day, aka 4/20.  There will be no similar date configuration any time soon. 4/20/2021? No. Or 4/20/2120? Not quite. Or 4/20/4200? Closer.

You can see 4/20/20 in the dreamer’s eye. Celebrations in 100 cities worldwide. Thousands gathered on college campuses, by city squares and in public parks. Smoke wafts above the crowds, banners unfurl in the wind and music fills the air. Revelers are extolling the herb, while speakers are demanding social justice. Keep that memory in your heart.

Since the movie Twelve Years a Slave came out in 2013, there have been a number of excellent books published that focus on slavery outside of the south, and how tenuous freedom was for free born or manumitted blacks. Both categories of books force us to grapple with two issues rarely taught school children. The students in my African American History Before Emancipation class are always shocked to learn that slavery existed all over the United States and being free with the documents to prove it did not necessarily keep blacks from b eing forced into slavery through a variety of nefarious schemes. To be black and free in the north was like skating on incredibly thin ice. And thus, we come to the story of Henrietta Wood.

Who’s worse than an OSU campus slumlord?

Any OSU campus slumlord demanding rent be paid April 1st, and also threatening to raise rents because they fear a large number of their tenants will be unable to pay.

A “Rent Strike” for the forthcoming months is looming at home and abroad.

Rightfully so, our government has sent us home and shuttered many places of employment. The state’s unemployment website keeps crashing on many applicants.

In Columbus, where so many jobs barely pay the bills month-to-month, many local tenants simply won’t have the funds to pay their rent. A disaster in the making – as if we need to tell you what the skipping record keeps repeating.

Even if a surge of homelessness is staring our community in the face, Columbus tenants posting on the Rent Strike Ohio Facebook pageare saying many local landlords have made it abundantly clear in letters: Rent will be due on April 1st or face eviction when courts re-open.