In keeping with a long tradition of protesting the celebration of Columbus Day, dozens of people gathered today, October 12, 2015 by the statue of Christopher Columbus at Columbus City Hall. Signs read "Columbus was a mass murderer," "Tear down this statue," "Stop Celebrating Genocide," "Abolish Columbus Day," and more. Speakers talked about how Columbus' visit to the U.S. brought oppression and death to the indigenous people and fomented racsism and homophobia. The crowd included a diverse group of people including Native American activists. A march to the OSU campus followed the rally. At the lead was a banner proclaiming today as "Indigenous People's Day." Not long ago, after many years of protest by Native Americans and supporters, the Santa Maria ship was removed from the river by City Hall, and City Council once declared the week in October that included Columbus Day "Indigenous People's Week." There was no response from City Council today except for police presence during the rally at City Hall.

A revitalized federal commission on election oversight invites public input just as a major national study predicts massive problems in 2016 because of outmoded election tabulation software.

The much-embattled and belittled U.S. Election Assistance Commission wants public comments to help guide its work following appointment in January of three commissioners and renewed funding after GOP congressional critics sought to shut it down.

Meanwhile, U.S. localities face a crisis in tabulating votes accurately and securely because many of them are using outdated software that can fail or even be hacked. That’s according to America’s Voting Technology Crisis, a study by the Brennan Center, which announced its findings last month at the National Press Cluband in an Atlantic Magazine article.

In an online discussion I asked Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International, a fairly straightforward question:

"Will Amnesty International recognize the UN Charter and the Kellogg Briand Pact and oppose war and militarism and military spending? Admirable as it is to go after many of the symptoms of militarism, your avoidance of addressing the central problem seems bizarre. The idea that you can more credibly offer opinions on the legality of constituent elements of a crime if you avoid acknowledging the criminality of the whole seems wrong. Your acceptance of drone murders as possibly legal if they are part of wars immorally and, again, bizarrely avoids the blatant illegality of the wars themselves."

“I really appreciate what you all are doing,” said death row inmate Keith LaMar on Saturday morning from the Ohio State Penitentiary, the supermax prison in Youngstown. “Keep pushing for it!”

LaMar was speaking on the phone to more than 80 death penalty opponents gathered outside Southwood Elementary School as they prepared to walk the final two miles of the Walk to Stop Executions.

A dozen of the protesters completed the entire week-long, 83-mile trek, sponsored by Ohioans to Stop Executions. They started at the death house at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville, and stopped overnight at Catholic, Protestant, and evangelical churches along the way.

“What do we want? Abolition! When do we want it? Now!” chanted the walkers as they proceeded up South High Street to the Ohio Statehouse. They gathered on the west side of the Statehouse and took turns tolling a bell to call for an end to the death penalty in Ohio. From there they walked to the Trinity Episcopal Church on the east side of the Statehouse for a rally.

Thurgood Marshall is one of the most overlooked and underappreciated freedom fighters of the twentieth century. For more than two decades he was the preeminent lawyer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); it was Marshall who founded and directed the organization’s Legal and Educational Defense Fund.
   The subject matter in which he dealt was broad: segregated schools, the rights of the accused, voting discrimination, questions on federal jurisdiction. (Not all of his legal acumen was directed at such weighty matters. A series of stern letters from Marshall to the Whitman candy company convinced them to cease selling a candy they called Chocolate Covered Pickaninny Peppermints that came in a box festooned with racist caricatures of black children.)