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Julian Assange and our First Amendment Rights

Woman holding sign

The following was presented by Becca Calhoun member of the Committee to Defend Julian Assange – Ohio at the Saturday, October 8 rally and march at the Ohio Statehouse and U.S. Federal Courthoue in Columbus.

Thanks to you folks who are giving your Saturday hours on this international day to defend Julian Assange. Thousands of people have now formed a human chain around Parliament in London demanding Julian Assange’s Freedom. There is a Hands Off Assange event at the Justice Department in D.C. right now, with a list of VIP speakers and public intellectuals who are defending Julian Assange because of what his prosecution represents. We marched down to the Federal Courthouse because this is the institution that is charged to keep the government’s actions in line with the U.S. Constitution and our cherished Bill of Rights.

Rally at noon at Ohio Statehouse: International Day to Defend Julian Assange

Julian Assange

Saturday, October 8, noon
Beginning on the west steps of the Ohio Statehouse [near the McKinley statue] and later marching to the Joseph P. Kinneary U.S. Courthouse, 85 Marconi Blvd.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is facing up to 175 years in prison for publishing truthful information about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States has hit Assange with an unprecedented espionage Act indictment and has asked that he be extradited from London.

Extraditing Assange to the United States would have disastrous consequences for the freedom of the press and our democracy. Countless journalists, legal scholars, and human rights groups have condemned the politically-motivated U.S. efforts to prosecute Assange. If this case were to go forward, it would create a precedent that would criminalize the “lifeblood of investigative journalism” and radically change our democracy.

The First Amendment is not a partisan issue. Democrats, Republicans, and independents are joining together to demand that the administration drop its efforts to extradite Julian Assange.

The City of Columbus, Ohio and The Ohio State University: Two peas in a pod, one bigger than the other, relatively speaking, but so much the same

Harvey J Graff

Part One

The proximity of “Buckeyes” and “America’s Opportunity--for a Few--City” is partly historical accident. Although main campuses of some American state universities originated in their states’ capitals, OSU was sited outside developed Columbus on land stolen from Indigenous Peoples following passage of the segregationist agriculture, manufacturing, and mining-focused Morrill Land Grant Act.

In the twentieth century, the city steadily expanded to surround the large, rural-landscaped campus. OSU never adapted to its home town or became an urban university. It never routinized more than superficial connections with the city or pursued excellence in urban studies despite now having many uncoordinated, competing “centers,” “schools,” “colleges,” and departments. These have never been campus strengths.

The Ohio Republican Party Has Ruined Ohio

Redistricting commission

As election season arrives again, all Ohio voters need to do is look around and ask themselves –– have the last few decades of Ohio Republican Party rule been worth it? Has it been worth being an international embarrassment in headlines around the world? Has it been worth seeing “Ohio” trending on social media every time some bonkers bullshit is spouted at our Statehouse? Has it been worth being named #1 in public corruption –– according to experts –– since Larry Householder’s legislature took power? Has it been worth the pain and suffering that average and lower income Ohioans are experiencing, finding themselves on the end of our state’s senseless laws and policies? Well, I know how I feel! Traveling as much as I do, I’ve seen how Ohio has become a running joke across the nation and world.

Sold-out UFCW 1059 leadership gets their way as members ratify contract and avoid strike

Kroger worker and Kroger administrator

After voting over the previous three days Kroger members of UFCW 1059 approved and ratified their 4th contract offer with 3,546 “Yes” votes to 3,193 “No” votes.

Kroger 1059 members had previously rejected their new three-year deal three times as negotiations between UFCW 1059 and Kroger corporate have been on-and-off since late July.

Even if they had rejected their contract a fourth straight time the union would only have authorized a strike if 66 percent of members voted ‘No’ this fourth time, this according to Kroger workers to the Free Press.

For the 3rd vote, 55 percent voted “No” and 44 percent “Yes,” which would have made the 66 percent threshold an uphill battle for the 12,000-plus Kroger members of UFCW 1059.

Worse, say Kroger workers, is how they previously voted to authorize a strike in the 3rd vote, but the union instead went back to the bargaining table.

As word spread last night that the contract had passed, stunned Kroger workers turned to social media to express their frustration.

“Why now and not the other times?” wrote one worker on a Kroger online forum. “It was the same contract!! Let the job search begin.”

The Supreme Court Rapes America

Sign saying we won't go back

A supermoon, sun of the night, isn’t always a sure thing. There is no safe trip 
Going back
Going limp
Going slack
With the weight of your simple message
that I am just a crack
In that veneer of faith wallpapered over the
faith you lack
There aren’t enough daydreams to buoy this
There aren’t enough churches to bury this
There aren’t enough lies to stack
While me and my body are lost to
echoes of the last frontal attack;
While me and my sisters are broken in half
While me and my daughters are soaked in the black of coat hanger deaths and still born baths

And if you think
We’re going back
To those days
When the world felt like it was on track
because you were born with a cock and a sack
and you could keep your bitch on a leash in the back
When we bred your heirs with a smile and a knack
For obedient care,
With a stepford stare under a pink pretty wrap
When we held our tongues and bent like sap
When we baked you a pie
with your heel on our backs

Debunking the Latest 2020 Conspiracy Theory from a Leading Trump Election Denier

One of the most conspiracy-minded “con artists” who sought to elevate and enrich himself by posing as a technical expert during the Arizona Senate GOP’s flawed review of the 2020 presidential election is returning to Maricopa County on October 1, where he is pushing a new – and easily-debunked – conspiracy theory about how 2020 votes were forged.

Joe Motil: Free Press Hero and Community Activist of the Year

Joe Motil

The Free Press is pleased to announce that we will honor Joe Motil with our 2022 “Libby” award for Lifetime Achievement in Community Activism. Each year, the board of the Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism (CICJ), the nonprofit organization that publishes the Columbus Free Press, chooses a local activist for the award.

We will honor Joe at the Free Press October Second Saturday Salon and Award event this Saturday, October 8 between 6:30-8:30pm at Mozart’s Café party room in Clintonville, 4784 N. High Street. The event is free and open to the public.

The CICJ board chose Joe for his dedication to social justice, in the spirit of the award’s namesake, Libby Gregory. Libby was a former Free Press editor, local entrepreneur, and activist for peace, women’s issues and human rights. Joe is a courageous and tenacious advocate for affordable housing, livable wages, public health issues, green space, mass transit, and democracy.

Transcending the Morality Police

I’ve been haunted by a phrase for almost a month now: “morality police.”

The news has been global. A 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, was arrested as she was leaving a subway station in Tehran on September 13 by an Iranian police unit known as the Islamic guidance patrol, a.k.a., the morality police, because she was an inappropriately dressed female. Maybe her hair was showing. Who knows?

Hidden Motives: Why Lapid is Not Serious about a Palestinian State

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid threw a wrench into the works when he declared from the United Nations General Assembly podium: “An agreement with the Palestinians, based on two states for two peoples, is the right thing for Israel’s security, for Israel’s economy and for the future of our children.”

 The statement took many by surprise, including the Palestinian leadership. 

 Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has been addressing the UNGA every September, every year, recycling the same speech about how he has fulfilled his commitments to peace and that it is Israel that needs to engage in serious negotiations toward a two-state solution. 

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