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A host of voter suppression and voter purging strategies serendipitously put into play by Republican state super-majorities could derail any hopes of a Blue Wave.
Since 2008, 23 states passed legislation that puts tougher restrictions on voting, such as stricter voter ID laws and more aggressive voter purge requirements, this according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
We at the Free Press say these Republican strategies were inspired by their disbelief an African-American could ever (or should ever) win the White House.
In Wisconsin, for instance, a stricter voter ID law convinced thousands of urban voters to forego the 2016 election because they believed they did not have qualifying ID when in fact they did. Trump won Wisconsin by 22,000 votes.
Donald Trump is in power in large part because Democrats have repeatedly conceded elections they really won. On Tuesday, that MUST change.
Anyone deemed a close loser MUST fight. Every tally must be contested, every denial challenged, all missing ballots found, every provisional honored.
What could bury our democracy? Stripped voter rolls, erased precincts, lies about where to vote, voting stations moved out of town, intimidated voters, impossible-to-get ID, street addresses required on reservations, lies about eligibility, unsent absentee ballots, suppressed registrations, hacked electronic machines, hidden source codes, trashed provisionals. It’s all been happening since at least 2000. Highly qualified teams of election protection specialists all over the country (www.freepress.org and many more; the state and national Democratic parties have hotlines) are ready to fight.
A few dozen activists gathered at Columbus City Hall on Saturday November 3 at 1pm to Fight the Right! They called for an end to the violence and for everyone to get organized to build a better world. The reason for the rally: this past week has seen an outburst in fascist violence. From attacks on prominent politicians to the racially motivated shooting in Louisville to the largest incident of anti-Semitic violence in the country's history, the right has attempted to sow fear in the minds of the public in the hopes that we'll back down and let them continue their dangerous agenda. These are not isolated incidents. These attacks are part of a larger and growing global fascist movement, intended to isolate and intimidate.
As leftists, we're here to tell them we won't stop fighting for a better world where people of color, Muslims, Jews, women, immigrants, LGBTQIA+ folks, disabled folks, and the poor are free from oppression. We recognize any challenge to fascism must come from the bottom up in the form of mass movements that challenge their power and the economic system it stems from.
Monday, November 5, 2018, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM.
Sunday, November 4, 4pm, Boulevard Presbyterian Church, 1235 Northwest Blvd.
The Neighborhood Services, Inc. Food Pantry is excited to present its annual Church Choir Concert Fundraiser! Featuring the combined talented vocals of several Columbus-area churches, join us for an afternoon of music and community as we come together to the blessings of the Thanksgiving season.
This event is free or pay-what-you-wish so please join us in choral jubilation!
Neighborhood Services, Inc. (NSI) had been founded in 1965 by churches in the University District in response to the growing needs of nearby neighbors. From its humble beginnings, NSI has grown into one of the largest hunger assistance service providers in Columbus, Ohio. NSI primarily serves working low-income families and individuals, unemployed individuals and their families, and single heads of household with young, dependent children in the Columbus community.
Hosted by Boulevard Presbyterian Church and the Neighborhood Services, Inc. food pantry.
This essay poses reply to the polemics being waged against Ohio Issue 1, which are gaining strong momentum across media channels in the run-up to the election. These include the Issue’s rejection by judges of the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas, reported on the front page of the Dayton Daily News on Oct. 29, in lamentably one-sided coverage; State Rep. Jim Butler’s blunt stance voiced at a recent Oakwood City Council meeting; and Dayton attorney Diane DePescale’s oversimplified editorial in the Oakwood Register on Oct. 24; to name a few.
These criticisms do give voice to some nontrivial arguments and concerns inherent in an amendment initiative, and deserve our full attention. But too many of these are tableaux of selective truths designed to stoke fear or appeal to the comforts of status-quo, pass-the-buck politics. We would be served better by recommitting the conversation to honest critical debate based on facts, intellectual bona fides, and reasonable discussion of the amendment’s social-legal purposes and consequences.
Friday, November 2, 7:30pm, King Ave. United Methodist Church, 299 King Ave.
Civil Rights Sit-Ins. Bell-Bottoms. Anti-War Marches. Student Power. Afros. Mini-Skirts. Hippies. Riots. Space Flights. The Generation Gap.
Those hallmarks of the turbulent 1960s will be rekindled on Friday, November 2 at this year’s annual “Spirit of the ‘60’s Coffeehouse.”
Bill Cohen will lead a candle-lit, musical, year-by-year journey through that era, with familiar 1960s folksongs, “news reports” of sixties happenings, displays of anti-war buttons and posters, and far-out sixties fashions.
Plus, Bill will also challenge the audience with sixties trivia questions.
Proceeds from the suggested $10 donation (at the door) will go to the Mid-Ohio Food Bank. Refreshments will be available at no additional charge. Free parking will be available on the streets and in the lots just south and west of the church.
The show begins at 7:30pm in the church basement but get there early for a good seat.
This program is suitable for adults and mature teens.
One of the unrecognized benefits of music is its value as an anthropological tool. Music functions as the soundtrack of a culture, identifying norms and taboos and painting a vivid picture of the lives of its listeners. Music is also invaluable for keeping tabs on the present. For example, according to insideradio.com, there are an estimated 118 million country music fans in the United States. Other than folk legends about a place called “Tennessee” and some unpaid water bills, we know very little about these people.
In the early 70’s, anthropologists Steve Goodman and David Allen Coe performed the first real musical research on the subject, the results of which were eventually published in song format as “You Never Even Called Me by My Name.” According to Goodman and Coe, country music fans in the 70’s were a primitive culture centered around mama, trains, trucks, prison and getting drunk.
The Problem of the Borderline
In The Souls of Black Folk, W. E. B. Du Bois wrote: "The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line." Paraphrasing Du Bois, we propose that the problem of the twentieth-first century is the problem of the borderline -- above all, the borderline between the global North and the global South. As we write this, the right wing in the United States are in a frenzy of xenophobia, whipping up fear and hatred against a caravan of Honduran migrants crossing Mexico and heading toward the US border, just as their European counterparts have against migrants from Syria and Afghanistan, Kosovo and Albania, etc.
