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President Donald Trump’s efforts to impose fascism exploded to the surface with the realization that his war on non-white people has escalated with his version of the Nazi SS – the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) – separating children from their parents. Trump’s government has created “Tender Age” detention centers, in other words, prisons. The government has released video of the caged warehouses housing male children, but they have not, as of this writing, released pictures or definitively confirmed the location of the female children. Imagine turning over your teenage daughter over to ICE.
Amazingly, many Americans still support Trump and his racist policies. It appears that the American citizenry is experiencing the same creeping fascism as did Germany in the pre-war years. Children in prison. But not white children. Are gas chambers in our future?
The public outcry, possibly with a little help from the two women in his life, caused Trump to sign an unnecessary executive order to undo what did not require an executive order to create. However, he retained the right to hold immigrant families indefinitely.
Wednesday, July 4, 1pm, beginning at Goodale Park [Park St. side], 120 W. Goodale St.
Celebrate Liberty and Lunacy and the freedom of speech, through humor with a range of off-the-wall mischiefs, grounded super-heroes, political debacles, homegrown satirists, and the other bohemian frolickers winding through the Short North. Political Satire at Its Worst!
See you on July 4. The Parade will start immediately after everyone stands and belts out the National Anthem at 1pm. Set your clock’s reminders now.
Parade route: north on Park St. to Buttles Ave.; west on Buttles Ave. to Dennison Ave.; south on Dennison Ave. to Collins Ave.; west on Collins Ave. to Neil Ave.; north on Neil Ave. to W. Second Ave.; east on W. Second Ave. to N. High St.; south on N. High St. to Russell St. Parade ends at N. High St. and Russell St.
Line-up begins somewhere around 12noon.
Rain date: July 3.
Block Party: 10am-7pm, Buttles Ave. between N. High St. and Park St.
What’s a black female police officer to do when her fellow white male police officer talks about blowing up Black Lives Matter protestors? Any words of caution may be interpreted as anti-police rhetoric. This is the case of Police Lieutenant Melissa McFadden.
Racial discrimination
Police Lieutenant Melissa McFadden filed a civil rights lawsuit against the City of Columbus June 4. McFadden charges, among other things, that she was “retaliated and discriminated against” for “assisting a fellow officer in drafting and filing a claim of race based discrimination….” McFadden and one other female lieutenant are the highest-ranking minority women on the Columbus police force.
The charges in McFadden’s complaint are explosive. She alleges that after accompanying an “African-American female officer” to the city’s Human Resources department to file a complaint she was targeted by the white officers at the highest level of the department.
Institutionalized racism
Mark McKinnon, a former political consultant and co-host of the Showtime documentary The Circus, famously said that losing an election is a soul-crushing experience. He said he quit because the defeats were damaging his psyche.
The negative effects of losing two elections on the same day appear to have gotten to Melanie Leneghan, who finished a close second in Republican primaries for the unexpired term and new 2-year term as 12th District Congressperson on May 8.
Rather than accept defeat at the hands of State Sen. Troy Balderson, Melanie turned into a "sore loser" and has filed a legal challenge to the results in Troy's home county of Muskingum, whose county seat is Zanesville.
District 12 is a GOP gerrymander of three counties (Delaware, Licking and Morrow) and parts of four counties (Franklin, Marion, Muskingum and Richland). Most of the votes are in northern Franklin, Delaware and Licking.
Mark McKinnon, a former political consultant and co-host of the Showtime documentary The Circus, famously said that losing an election is a soul-crushing experience. He said he quit because the defeats were damaging his psyche.
The negative effects of losing two elections on the same day appear to have gotten to Melanie Leneghan, who finished a close second in Republican primaries for the unexpired term and new 2-year term as 12th District Congressperson on May 8.
Rather than accept defeat at the hands of State Sen. Troy Balderson, Melanie turned into a "sore loser" and has filed a legal challenge to the results in Troy's home county of Muskingum, whose county seat is Zanesville.
District 12 is a GOP gerrymander of three counties (Delaware, Licking and Morrow) and parts of four counties (Franklin, Marion, Muskingum and Richland). Most of the votes are in northern Franklin, Delaware and Licking.
Tuesday, July 3, 7-9pm
485 E Livingston Ave
Calling all musicians, comedians, dancers and poets! No matter your craft come and show it off at Inclusive.
Art will be for sale in the studio store which is all handmade by local artists with disabilities.
Live DJ, coloring activities and play-dough will be on deck to keep you in good spirits throughout the night.
There is a sanctuary as resistance movement across the continental United States, in Ohio and in Columbus. According to the newly emerging, Columbus Sanctuary Collective, this resistance will only Soon to be announced, a second church in Columbus will be sheltering a family into sanctuary. grow as a result of the deportation and detention machine built by former President Obama and now being exercised to its fullest by the Trump administration. With mass raids on businesses, deportations of longtime residents of Ohio and threats on legitimate green card holders, churches and organizers across the state are organizing to facilitate and initiate a sanctuary effort.
A second church in Columbus will be sheltering a Columbus resident into sanctuary in July. That will be the second case in Columbus of a person needing to be housed and protected from ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). The Columbus Sanctuary Collective asked supporters, activists and the media to show up Monday, June 2 in solidarity with Miriam Vargas, a Honduran mother, as she enters sanctuary at the First English Lutheran Church in downtown Columbus.
The joke around town about personal injury attorney Scott Schiff is, if you need to find him, just wait around any car accident. Poof, he’s going to appear out of nowhere, and if you need a chiropractor, he’s probably one of those, too.
Columbus born and raised, Schiff has made a killing off traffic accidents and slip-and-falls. He’s even become a TV personality of sorts and went into real estate 30 years ago when he started Schiff Properties, now a family-run business and one of the largest owners of commercial property around Ohio State.
He’s omnipotence continues to fester and this is no surprise. We live in an age when personal injury lawyers, real estate developers, tech gurus, CEO billionaires and healthcare executives, have too much the power and our city government, so desperate for tax revenue and campaign contributions, caves to their every whim.
Brett Burlison.
Eddie Bayard.
Roger Hines.
Shane Willis.
Alex Burgoyne.
Folks, that is how you spell ‘beauty’ in this day and age of the Beast – those five jazz-men’s names.
And boy, did I soak up these marvelous jazz players’ collective and individual beauty at their last Wednesday night residency at Dick’s Den in June. I don't mean to be inarticulate, but you're going to hear a lot of the ‘b’ word in the next few hundred words.
From my notes:
First song, Charlie Parker’s Billie’s Bounce – great opening energy...saxist Bayard firing on all valves, his weathered tenor bell blasting brash...Hines on a stool, his big ol’ violin-shaped double-bass layin’ in his lap like a French whore left over from the German occupation getting tickled high and low...Burlison chording color...Willis’s ticking, tapping and timing on the drums, cymbals and foot-pedal was precision itself...can precision be creative? Willis’s, yes.
By song’s end, I was smoking hot.
And that was just their first song!