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The so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” as Harry from Resident Alien would say, is some bullshit. And this is some bullshit.

First, it’s projected to add nearly $4 trillion to our debt, but that is a very conservative estimate. Even some Republicans believe it’ll add more than $10 trillion. I have a question that’s harder than defining Habeas Corpus. How do you reduce the deficit by adding $4 trillion to it? And don’t give me that DOGE bullshit as it’s not even going to cut $1 trillion from our debt, which is currently around $36 trillion, partly thanks to Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which just got extended as part of this huge bill.

Yeah, that’s right. Trump’s 2017 tax cuts added trillions to our debt, which they extended last night shortly after Trump pronounced himself a “deficit hawk.” He’s more of a hawker of cheap goods made in China, like his shitty shoes, shitty caps, shitty guitars, etc, etc.

We are at a perilous time, when our most basic freedoms are at risk.

It is vital that we not hand President Trump even more power to wreck our democracy than he already has. Among other things, that means not confirming anyone he nominates to be a federal judge.

In early May, Trump announced the first group of judicial nominations of his second term. One is for the Sixth Circuit, which covers Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee. The other four are for district courts in Missouri. Senators on the Judiciary Committee are poring over the nominees’ records in preparation for a hearing expected in early June.

Senators are right to look at a nominee’s record. But in these unprecedented times, the most important record for them to look at is that of the president making the nomination. And Donald Trump’s record shows that he’s dangerously unqualified to be appointing lifetime judges to the bench.

Fair and independent courts are a vital part of our checks and balances. And with the Republican-controlled Congress so far unwilling to stop Trump’s ongoing abuses of power, the courts are more important than ever.

12PM NOON - MAY 25, 2025

DEEDS POINT METROPARK, 510 Weber St

On May 25, people from across the country will gather in Dayton to protest NATO’s assembly and hold a counter-summit -- the People's Assembly for Peace and Justice. For over 75 years, NATO has been a dealer of destruction in places like Afghanistan and Libya and threatened the entire world with devastating global conflict. The march and counter-summit will demand that our taxpayer dollars be used to meet the needs of working people instead of lining the pockets of executives at weapons manufacturers. 

Buses and carpools are being organized from as far away as New York City along with Pittsburgh, Chicago, Cleveland, Akron, Columbus, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Toledo, and Louisville.

Right now, Congress is working on a giant, fast-track bill that would make historic cuts to basic needs programs to finance another round of tax breaks for the wealthy and big corporations.

As the Communications and Policy Director for the Rural Democracy Initiative, I’ve been hearing from rural leaders across the country about the devastating impacts this bill would have.

The good news is it’s not too late. But there’s little time to spare.

This dangerous, unpopular bill would increase costs for rural working families by thousands of dollars per year, leaving millions hungry and without health care — all to provide tax breaks and handouts to the wealthy and special interests.

Here are just six of the worst provisions.

1. It guts rural healthcare.

Has heroism died at Harvard? Could today’s students emulate what transpired at Harvard in 1938? In that year, there was an inspiring event that has been conveniently laid aside by the present faculty—and which deserves to be better known. It occurred on November 16, 1938. At noon that day, some 500 Harvard and Radcliffe students crowded into Emerson Hall to express their outrage at Hitler’s Kristallnacht.

And what was Kristallnacht? It was the Nazi “Night of Broken Glass.” Exactly a week earlier, on November 9, 1938, Hitler’s feared SS Blackshirts had launched his opening crusade against Jews in Germany, with a frightening terrorist act. Following his annexation of Austria and the Czechoslovakian Sudetenland, Hitler had organized a looting and smashing of the glass windows of Jew-owned stores in Berlin and across Germany. It included the murder of several hundred Jews. Historians view it as a prelude to the Final Solution, the genocide that would claim the lives of six million Jews.

Saturday, May 24, 11:30am
Dayton Main Library, 215 E. Third St, Dayton, OH 45402

Speakers and march starting at 1:30pm to protest the NATO Summit happening in Dayton this week. Sponsored by Veterans for Peace.

World BEYOND War has just released its 2025 edition of Mapping Militarism, which uses 24 interactive maps to highlight the state of war and peace on our planet. Each map allows the viewer to spin the globe, zoom in and out, scroll the timeline back through the years, or switch from map view to list view. Try it.

Ohio is one of three states which allows the owners of private property to do as they please with human remains if dug up during construction on their property, according to the Ohio Archeological Council. Couple that with the construction boom across Central Ohio, and Ohio-based Native American activists are increasingly worried about the continuing desecration of their ancestors.

Cranes and construction equipment these days are seemingly everywhere in Columbus and surrounding counties. Rising out of the excavated dirt are apartments, roads, data centers, and everything in between. Just east of Columbus in Licking County – home to the Native American earthworks that became Ohio’s first World Heritage site – the “Silicon Heartland” is slowly being built by Intel and others.

As the first African American woman and first public defender to sit on the United States Supreme Court, Ketanji Brown Jackson’s place in history is assured. Educated at public schools and the daughter of teachers, Jackson’s high school ambition was to graduate from law school and obtain a judicial appointment.

Like many African Americans, Jackson can document a history of slavery in her family. She also knows firsthand the sting of racism; after all, she was reared in the South and has been a Black woman in America for 54 years. Yet her immediate and extended family told her all her life that she was destined for greatness and above engaging with the prejudice that lingered even after the African American freedom movement of the 1960s. One incident during her childhood was especially distressing.    

Below we suggest three options for getting out of the Russia-Ukraine stalemate and in the process review briefly the relevant history. It’s time to up the ante. We write this exploration in the form of a hypothetical letter President Donald Trump might send to President Vladimir Putin.

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Dear Vladimir,
            Russia continues to resist entering into peace talks with Ukraine or even to consider a ceasefire and, instead, insists on continuing hostilities, aimed primarily at civilians. This was yet again evident from your absence at direct talks with President Zelensky (and me) in Istambul, Turkey, last Thursday (5/15/25), even though you yourself called for these face-to-face negotiations. This was also evident from your massive drone attack ahead of our today's (5/19/25) telephone call on ending the war.