From AFSC: Our immigration system should strengthen our communities, not tear them apart. But today, almost 11 million immigrants face threats of detention, deportation, and racial profiling every day. Temporary protections, like DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and TPS (Temporary Protected Status), are not enough.

These programs are vulnerable to the courts and do not provide stability for our communities and families. That has been demonstrated by the Fifth Circuit’s recent ruling against DACA—as well as multiple attempts to end both DACA and TPS over the years.   

It’s time that we recognize immigrants as vital members of our community—and create a pathway to citizenship for all. Tell your elected officials: Support a pathway to citizenship for all immigrants!  

Sunday, October 9, 2022, 4:00 PM
When a news publisher in Arkansas, an attorney in Arizona, and a speech therapist in Texas are told they must choose between their jobs and their political beliefs, they launch legal battles that expose an attack on freedom of speech across 33 states in America.  

BOYCOTT traces the impact of state legislation designed to penalize individuals and companies that choose to boycott Israel due to its human rights record. A legal thriller with “accidental plaintiffs” at the center of the story, Boycott is a bracing look at the far-reaching implications of anti-boycott legislation and an inspiring tale of everyday Americans standing up to protect our rights in an age of shifting politics and threats to freedom of speech.  

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.

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.

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