Even in the age of Trump, there are wins. Chief Wahoo, the Cleveland Indians’ longtime mascot, is finally heading for the showers.

For decades my indigenous buddy Mark Welch trekked up from Columbus, Ohio to opening day at the Indians Major League Baseball stadium in Cleveland. He and fellow activists—indigenous and otherwise—would stand outside the gates of Progressive Field with signs demanding the team get rid of its god-awful, cringe-worthy, ridiculously offensive logo. The damn thing is a big-nosed, buck-toothed, feather-headed idiot grinning about something that made no sense.

The team hasn’t won a World Series since 1948, when it adopted a previous, even more offensive version of that logo.

The broken promises of ECOT that threaten to cost Ohio taxpayers more than $80 million were never better exposed than by the comments of Sandy Theis on the Face The State television program Jan. 21.

Theis, Executive Director of ProgressOhio, told moderator Scott Light of Channel 10 that when the Republicans nearly two decades ago passed the charter school measure that created ECOT, they guaranteed that "less regulation and more competition" would provide "better schools with more accountability."

"Instead, the schools got worse," Theis, a statehouse newspaper reporter at the time, said.

Theis blamed much of the negative outcome on the subsequent elimination of the education watchdog agency.

She added that millions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted on the likes of the now apparently closed ECOT -- that so far owes the state upwards of $80 million and may owe way more than that in the final accounting.

Worst of all, Theis said, many children were hurt from receiving a deficient education.

I am an attorney and guardian ad litem (GAL) in Columbus, Franklin County, Ohio. An important part of my job is protecting the rights of adults and minors who live in Ohio, and in my city.  Every day I strive to advocate for the best interest of children, and protect the Constitutional rights of parents and children in Ohio.  

My work is not easy and it does not pay well. I do not have benefits, and for many years I could not even get health coverage. I am not really complaining; I love my work as well as my freedom and independence. I love representing everyday people from my city. As a GAL and defense attorney I see people on the worst days of their lives and try to give them hope that things are going to get better. They often do. I visit my clients in prison, jail, mental institutions, and in their homes. My clients are babies, school aged kids, teenagers, trafficking victims, parents, adults with misdemeanor and felony cases.

JP Morgan Chase is one of Central Ohio’s largest private employers with over 20,000 workers, and several told the Free Press they’ve been told to expect raises and a one-time cash bonus this year as a result of the tax bill corporate giveaway. Fifth Third Bank and Wells Fargo have also promised to boost salaries and issue bonuses, and even Walmart has said it will increase its starting hourly wage from $9 to $11, which as far as the Free Press is concerned, is still peanuts.

Nevertheless, it’s a start. But other industries have been deafeningly silent about raising pay, such as the fast-food industry. There are nearly four million fast-food workers nationally, and in Columbus they account for about seven percent of the employment or about 80,000 workers, this according to the progressive non-profit Policy Matters Ohio.
 

Do some people deserve to be locked in cages? According to the Ohio Organizing Collaborative the answer is yes. Their multi-million dollar “Neighborhood Safety, Drug Treatment, and Rehabilitation Amendment” ballot initiative, or NSDTRA, aims to liberate prisoners convicted of non-violent drug-related charges and prisoners who participate in prison programs at the expense of criminalizing those who fall outside these narrow parameters.

Proponents claim its necessary to build power and secure a win for activists who have been demoralized after failed attempts to hold corrupt public officials accountable. To achieve this, they plan to sacrifice many prisoners at the voting bloc.

The logic used to justify NSDTRA is that prisoners convicted of non-violent drug-related offenses are low-hanging fruit, activists aren’t competent enough to effectively advocate on behalf of prisoners convicted of violent or non-drug related charges and the general public lacks the creative imagination to envision a world without police or prisons.