While the mainstream media debates whether the President was misinforming, exaggerating or misleading the U.S. public, they miss the bigger story – their obvious complicity with the Bush administration’s Nazi-style propaganda prior to the war.

George W. Bush and his administration deliberately undertook a massive campaign to wage illegal and aggressive war against the people of Iraq. The narrow focus on one fraudulent claim in the State of the Union address regarding Iraq buying uranium from Africa ignores the much broader campaign of falsification used to whip the people into a war frenzy.

Columbus Free Press Editor Bob Fitrakis received 8042 votes, more than 6% of the votes cast in a 10-person field for Columbus City Council in the May 6 primary. Fitrakis came within less than 2% of the votes needed to knock off the endorsed Republican candidate John Jones. In modern Columbus history, the Free Press could not find any third-party candidate who has come as close to unseating an endorsed major party candidate. Fitrakis was endorsed by the Central Ohio Green Party and came in 9th, although only the top 8 candidates advanced to the fall election.

The mainstream media did not present the results from the perspective of a third party candidate nearly toppling an endorsed candidate of the Franklin County Republican Party, the Columbus Dispatch did provide straightforward coverage of Fitrakis’ policies as a Green Party candidate. The Alive provided the best in-depth coverage of the campaign. Both This Week and the Messenger publications provided fair and accurate coverage of the Green Party campaign.

In case anyone in central Ohio didn’t know, the movement for marijuana law reform is alive and well. Two major cannabis liberation events happen this spring in Columbus, the Global March for Cannabis liberation and the 16th annual Hempfest. Both events were organized by The Ohio State University chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy. The May 4th march saw two hundred people turn out on a rainy afternoon to rally at 15th Ave and High and then proceed down High to Goodale Park for a bonafide smokeout. A month later, on June 7th, over ten thousand festivalgoers flooded the South Oval for a day of political speakers and regional musical acts.

Progress with Economic and Environmental Responsibility, Inc. (PEER) announced that it will lead an Initiative Petition Drive to amend the Columbus City Charter. The Initiative will allow voters to elect an as yet undetermined number of district or ward representatives in addition to the current seven at-large council members. The goal of the Initiative Petition Drive is to ensure comprehensive representation for all of the neighborhoods within the City.

PEER supports a public policy agenda featuring truly representative government and efficient planning for Columbus and Central Ohio. PEER thus supports growth policies which allow for commercial and residential development but which also promote the reuse and redevelopment of the central city while preserving key environmental assets in the area.

The legalization of medical marijuana is an issue that is gaining momentum on a grass roots and national level. I turned into a supporter after watching what the radiation and other drugs did to my grandfather Fred Luffman as he battled both cancer and the ‘medication’ he was given. The ‘medication’ along with the cancer robbed him of his ability to sleep and of his appetite. If you take sleep and food away from the human body it really cannot even fight more mundane illnesses such as the flu with much vigor, not to mention a disease as powerful and ravaging as cancer. Fred, in an effort to gain some appetite, sleep, and ward off the pain of his disease turned to medical marijuana. If John Ashcroft and President Bush had their way my grandfather would have spent his dying months in a penitentiary instead of with his family. While real life stories like these are compelling, every movement needs someone to stick their neck out. They need a person who is willing to call upon the powers that be and tell them to look at the issue from another perspective. That person, in the case of medical marijuana, is Ed Rosenthal.