Franklin County Board of Elections Certifies Joe Motil for November Mayoral General Election

Joe Motil

Former Columbus City Council candidate and long-time community advocate Joe Motil’s Declaration of Candidacy petitions for Mayor of Columbus  were certified this afternoon by the Franklin County Board of Elections. Mr. Motil and current Mayor Andrew Ginther will face off in the November 7,2023 General Election.   

As a community leader and advocate for fairness, opportunity, equality, and justice, Mr. Motil has been involved with city government for 37 years in numerous capacities. His advocacy and commitment is well known and respected throughout Columbus’ neighborhoods. He is recognized especially for his fights against the city’s tax abatement policies, proposing solutions for truly affordable housing, advocating for the unsheltered, exposing corruption and the unethical conduct of city officials, police reform, and advancing the rights for all Columbus citizens voices to be heard.       

“The Whole Damn System. . ..”

David Harewood

On Sunday, February 5 at about 4pm, I get a phone call from a friend who has access to police scanners and phone calls. He tells me there’s been an officer-involved shooting and have I heard anything about it?

A few minutes before hand, I’d mostly ignored a Facebook Live feed an organizer friend of mine had started regarding the same incident: it wasn’t that I dismissed this organizer’s work; it was that, ten years into my own work, I have come to realize that personalizing every tragedy in this city wears on a person’s mental health and physical well-being. I’m in my early 40s. Too many of my friends and comrades have either taken their own lives or lost them “accidentally” for me to be less than cautious about such happenings.

Death Penalty Action: Free Kevin Keith

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We're now in the FIFTH week since Kevin Keith's freedom was put squarely in the hands of one person - Ohio Governor Mike DeWine. We've been delivering petition signatures to the governor on an almost daily basis and over 200 people have used the letter-writing tool to send him an email. We still need those actions, but it's time to get on the phone.

Please make a quick, POLITE and supportive phone call to Governor DeWine today at 614-644-4357. If it is busy or you get voicemail that is full, that means we're doing our job. Please make a note to try again later, and each day this week.

The message:

"I live in [City in Ohio] and I am calling to ask you to let Governor DeWine to know that he has my support to grant clemency to Kevin Keith and free him today. Please share this message with him."

To be sure, Governor DeWine is hearing messages from selected Ohio leaders and at least one famous celebrity, but it is equally important that every day Ohioans also weigh in. Please do so now.

Book Review: Coup in Dallas

“Coup in Dallas” by Hank Albarelli Jr (coauthors Leslie Sharp and Alan Kent) is both the most important and the most difficult book I have read in my 68 years on this planet. The genius of the book is that it investigates the true plotters of the assassination, which occurred at a very high level. Having finished reading it for the second time, I find reviewing it to be as difficult as reading it. Although I have read hundreds of books on the assassination of President John F Kennedy by the National Security State, there are many researchers who have read so many more. For example, Hank Albarelli, who has tied various people and events together in a comprehensive way in this book. He has left no stone unturned, as they say, yet is very careful in his analysis.

A Month’s Notice: Why Burkina Faso Ordered French Troops out of the Country

Though it was clear that Burkina Faso was eventually going to follow in the footsteps of Mali and the Central African Republic (CAR), Ouagadougou’s decision to break military ties with France was not as simple as media sound bites want us to believe. 

 The conventional wisdom is that these countries are walking away from their former colonial master, France, to forge alternative alliances with a new ally, Russia. These convenient analyses are largely shaped by the geopolitical tug-of-war between old and new superpowers: The US and its NATO allies on the one hand, and Russia and China on the other. 

CALL ME ELIZABETH Theater Review

Writer/performer Kayla Boyle nails this role as the title character in her one-woman show, Call Me Elizabeth, as – who else? – none other than the legendary Elizabeth Taylor. The one-acter takes place in 1961 in a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel where the superstar unspools her personal and professional saga through the plot device of revealing details about her tumultuous life and loves to journalist Max Lerner. He is taping her confessions for a planned biography about the actress who’d go on to depict Katharina in Franco Zeffirelli’s 1967 screen adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew (one of only three movies Taylor ever produced, although she appeared in about 75 silver screen productions).

 

Through Cold and Snow, and Unarmed, People Try to Keep Their Mountain Out of War

When I tell some people that the inhabitants of certain mountains in Montenegro are trying to protect their home from being turned into a giant military training ground by NATO, they inform me that the training ground (which, up until that monent, they’d never heard of) in Montenegro (which they’d never heard of) is absolutely required because of Putin.

Needless to say, I think that Putin (and every living U.S. president, and quite a number of other world “leaders”) should be prosecuted for their crimes. But are we supposed to imagine Putin as the enemy of mindless support for militarism we know nothing about? I thought he was supposed to be the enemy of democracy.

What happened at the February Free Press Cyber Salon

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Free Press Board member Mark Stansbery facilitated the February salon on Zoom. The theme was “Listen to voices of peace in the world of conflict.”

Watch salon video here.

First, he introduced Yurii Sheliazhenko of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement who was tuning in to speak with us live from Kyiv, Ukraine at 2am in the morning. It is close to a year from the anniversary of the Ukraine war. His group provides legal aid for war resisters. He spoke about the universal unjust system of militarism – blaming or conquering the enemy just foments more violence. He opposes the war and has been threatened. The hope is for a ceasefire

He noted that officially they say over 7000 civilians have been killed, which is a conservative estimate, and could be 40,000. Counting soldiers, the number could be 100,000 on each side. He pointed out how there have been war crimes on both sides, using people as human shields and setting landmines.

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