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How do we make sense of the current battles within the Democratic Party? Hillary vs. Bernie – and grassroots progressives vs. Boss Bill Anthony, Franklin County Democratic Party Chair, and the corrupt one-party machine in Columbus?

In the case of Sanders, we’re witnessing a critical juncture in U.S. history. Sanders and his followers are single-handedly destroying “American Exceptionalism” – the fact that there is no mass socialist/labor movement defending the rights of working people. The U.S. is now ruled by a corporate capitalist kleptocracy (rule by thieves). Sanders and his activist cohorts are out to stop the looting. Hillary is running as the “realist” candidate who will negotiate with her corporate donors to steal less.

Columbus mirrors the battleover corruption in the national Democratic Party. As Jon Beard, currently running for the Franklin County Democratic Central Committee, puts it: “This Columbus area corruption is like an onion: keep peeling the layers back and it gets more and more stinky. This is what happens when a small group of people sees political power as “theirs” for the exploiting, and not the people’s for serving.”

How do we make sense of the current battles within the Democratic Party? Hillary vs. Bernie – and grassroots progressives vs. Boss Bill Anthony, Franklin County Democratic Party Chair, and the corrupt one-party machine in Columbus?

In the case of Sanders, we’re witnessing a critical juncture in U.S. history. Sanders and his followers are single-handedly destroying “American Exceptionalism” – the fact that there is no mass socialist/labor movement defending the rights of working people. The U.S. is now ruled by a corporate capitalist kleptocracy (rule by thieves). Sanders and his activist cohorts are out to stop the looting. Hillary is running as the “realist” candidate who will negotiate with her corporate donors to steal less.

Columbus mirrors the battleover corruption in the national Democratic Party. As Jon Beard, currently running for the Franklin County Democratic Central Committee, puts it: “This Columbus area corruption is like an onion: keep peeling the layers back and it gets more and more stinky. This is what happens when a small group of people sees political power as “theirs” for the exploiting, and not the people’s for serving.”

Gov. John Kasich's bid for the Republican presidential nomination already appears to have cost Ohio taxpayers $1 million.
 

The governor has refused to release the cost of security and transportation, among other items, citing exemptions to Ohio public records laws. Hence, taxpayers cannot learn the expenses incurred by the Ohio Department of Public Safety in protecting and providing transportation for Kasich and his family while Ohio's first family campaigns out of state.
 

The following is a breakdown of the $1 million that the Kasich campaign apparently has cost Ohioans so far:
 

First, there is the cost of Kasich's salary and benefits while he is campaigning out of state and not doing the state's business he was elected twice to do.

In round numbers, his annual salary is $150,000 with another $50,000 in fringe benefits and retirement contributions. That's $200,000. Kasich was campaigning for president out of state about half the time during 2015.
 

Mark the cost to Ohio taxpayers as $100,000.
 

March 15, 2016 is the Ohio Primary Election and time for the people of certain districts to vote for their House Representative. One of those districts is the 25th district, a “whistle blower” is running for that spot, and her name is Bernadine Kent.
 

Kent has been a teacher and vice principal for the Columbus City Schools and runs the nonprofit advocacy group PASS – Parent Advocates for Students in School. Kent was responsible for blowing the whistle on the Columbus City Schools for theft and fraud in No Child Left Behind (NCLB) funds. When the Columbus Police Department didn’t listen to her, or shall I say, follow up with her complaint, Kent didn’t just say “OK, I tried to tell them what’s going on” and then give up. No, she blew her whistle even louder and in the direction of the FBI, which in turn sparked their investigation into the situation and found that the Columbus School’s tutoring program was not functioning as it should and in fact, fraud had been committed. Kent also helped expose the data

Ten years ago, then-26-year-old songwriter John Rohrer, troubled about loss of a recent job, was experiencing a delayed reaction to a street hallucinogen he had tried. Dazed, he went to visit a friend but entered the wrong house to wait for her. When the true owner returned to the unlocked house, he was not sympathetic as Rohrer tried to explain his confusion and leave.
Rohrer waited while police were called to arrest him. Ross County prosecutors soon swung into action, charging Rohrer with felony burglary, although no offense had been committed other than the entry. For some two years Ross County prosecutors pushed for incarceration for this first offense.

In June 2008, with no one understanding at the time that the offense was drug related, Rohrer was persuaded to enter a plea of NGRI – “not guilty by reason of insanity.” To Rohrer, who was terrified of the penitentiary, it seemed the only way. Ten years later he understands how this became his initiation into indefinite psychiatric lockup.

Back in 2008, when the Ohio State University began to rumble that sophomores would be required to live on campus, eight of the largest off-campus landlords commissioned a study to assess what could happen to their rental market.  The study hypothesized if OSU were to pull the trigger it could lead to a “long-term collapse of the area,” and result in a “doomsday scenario.”

The landlords were talking about their own rental properties. And the trigger has indeed been pulled as starting next school year OSU is requiring all sophomores to live on-campus.

What the landlords and others didn’t see coming was that running parallel to the sophomore requirement is seismic change off-campus. Changes initiated over two decades ago by the city and university partnership that is Campus Partners, which redeveloped south campus by turning it into South Campus Gateway.

Columbus lost two prominent local business leaders last year, each embodying one of the three basic principles of environmentalism: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Championing the recycling movement, there was Dan Weisenbach, 53-year-old owner and President of Weisenbach Recycled Products. And, not often thought of as an environmentally-friendly business, but clearly advancing the re-use of items in the spirit of “one man’s trash is another’s treasure,” was Gary Chasin, of Uncle Sam’s Pawn Shop.

Dan Weisenbach, Recycling Superhero

Weisenbach pioneered the production of eco-friendly promotional products made of recycled scrap materials. “Everyone knows Dan was a dogged champion of recycling since he was a teen and convinced the family to create Weisenbach Recycled products,” said Chuck Lynd of Simply Living.

Black Americans spend over $1.2 trillion dollars every year – making Black America one of the largest economies in the world. Out 196 countries, Black America would rank 15th. However, currently only 3-5% of Black dollars are spent with Black businesses. This revelation is stated on the blackoutcoalition.org, a website promoting the new Black Power movement as an “economic revolution.”

There’s a resurgence of Black rights movements some of the largest and most militant since the 60s-70s? Proclaiming that Black lives matter is not only a demand for justice following police abuse and murders of Black citizens, but a call to the general society for economic justice in the Black community.

My wonderful, wonderful mother died on November 30, 2013, after a long battle with leukemia. One of the things I miss the most is her voice, which was melodious and cheerful. I had purchased a recordable book a year before her death, but I kept putting off having her read it. In my mind I always thought “Maybe she’ll feel better tomorrow.” That never came and I will kick myself the rest of my days.  Steel tells a similar story about the loss of her paternal grandmother in 1994. She has, however, found a way to fill the void in her heart and mind by photographing and recording women of her grandmother’s generation in her adopted state of Mississippi. She calls these women Delta Jewels.

“The billionaire class and their representatives in Washington are so powerful that the best president in the world cannot defeat them alone,” said Bernie Sanders at a rally in Minneapolis last June. “We need a mass movement of millions of people.”

Taking their cue from the presidential candidate, on January 23 many thousands of supporters turned out for a #March4Bernie in more than 35 U.S. cities.

In Chicago, where much of the outrage against corporate-backed  Democrats has been focused on Mayor Rahm Emanuel, more than 2,000 Sanders supporters marched from Daley Plaza to the Chicago Board of Trade. Many of the marchers carried signs demanding Emanuel's resignation. Activists have alleged a city-wide cover-up of the police killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.