The final big legislative achievement of 2021 was a bill authorizing $768 billion in military spending for the next fiscal year. President Biden signed it two days after the Christmas holiday glorifying the Prince of Peace.

Dollar figures can look abstract on a screen, but they indicate the extent of the mania. Biden had asked for “only” $12 billion more than President Trump’s bloated military budget of the previous year -- but that wasn’t enough for the bipartisan hawkery in the House and Senate, which provided a boost of $37 billion instead.

Overall, military spending accounts for about half of the federal government’s total discretionary spending -- while programs for helping instead of killing are on short rations at many local, state, and national government agencies. It’s a nonstop trend of reinforcing the warfare state in sync with warped neoliberal priorities. While outsized profits keep benefiting the upper class and enriching the already obscenely rich, the cascading effects of extreme income inequality are drowning the hopes of the many.

Monday, January 17
Free breakfast (pick up) 8-10am, First AME Zion Church, 873 Bryden Rd
Virtual broadcast, keynote: Paster Eldren D. Morrisen - Facebook @Famezco

As soon as media reports emerged regarding a deal between Palestinian prisoner, Hisham Abu Hawash and the Israeli prison authorities, Israeli extremists, led by Knesset member Itamar Ben-Gvir, angrily

The Constitution begins, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Prosperity.” All states endorse this “founding,” if aspirational, text. American history, even before 1776 and 1787 and long after those dates, has been devoted to making those aspirations a reality for all Americans.

A dominating conception of “the public” is central to the U.S. in theory and centuries-long struggles. Today represents an extraordinary retreat, especially for people other than white males. For the partly empowered peoples from 1863-65 “emancipations” through women’s suffrage in1920 and civil and voting rights legislation in 1965, an inclusive public has always been contested. The battle increases anew with the combined and interconnected assaults on public health, public education, public safety, genuine choice and freedom, right to vote, right to control one’s body, right to gender determination, right to....

Several Ohio and National organizations are calling for Ohio Attorney General David Yost to begin the process of revoking the charter of FirstEnergy Corporation, a process that would dissolve the company. The request by the groups is based on the corporation’s admitted involvement in the $60 million bribery and money laundering scheme, the largest in Ohio’s history that defrauded taxpayers and threatened representative democracy. The groups who signed the letter include the Move to Amend Ohio Network, Our Revolution Ohio, Ohio Community Rights Network, National Community Rights Network, the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund and the Athens Friends Meeting.  Read the letter here.