Hopes for a robust COVID bill remain stalled, with neither side talking right now. While Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did say on November 4 that COVID relief was his top priority, he is not at the negotiating table. The situation is dire.  Millions of renters face eviction in January when the weather is cold and the pandemic is still raging. Families are struggling to put food on the table. And 11 million people remain unemployed with businesses beginning to shut down again. Congress, particularly the Senate, needs to stop telling Americans "you're on your own" and do something. Join advocates from across the country today for a national call-in day to demand Congress take action. Call your senators and representative and tell them to pass a robust COVID relief bill that includes rental and nutrition assistance. To make sure Congress gets the message, we need to generate as many calls as possible. Please forward this alert to everyone you know urging them to call too. Help us to overwhelm Congress with calls and push them into action on what Americans need now.

By all accounts, the frontrunner to be Joe Biden’s pick for Secretary of Defense is Michèle Flournoy. It’s a prospect that should do more than set off alarm bells -- it should be understood as a scenario for the president-elect to stick his middle fingers in the eyes of Americans who are fed up with endless war and ongoing militarism.

Warning and petitioningBiden to dissuade him from a Flournoy nomination probably have scant chances of success. But if Biden puts her name forward, activists should quickly launch an all-out effort to block Senate confirmation.

Antony Blinken is not the Secretary of State the United States or the world needs, and the U.S. Senate should reject his nomination. Here are 10 reasons:

1. A president elect who has been part of every disastrous war for decades should not be nominating for Secretary of State a key advisor who helped him get numerous critical decisions wrong. Biden was the committee chair who guided the Iraq war authorization through the Senate with Blinken’s help. Blinken helped Biden into catastrophe after catastrophe in Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and elsewhere. If Biden claims to have regrets or to have learned anything, he’s not yet showing it.

2. Blinken has been part even of Biden’s hairbrained schemes that weren’t acted on, such as the plan to divide Iraq into three separate puppet states.

3. Blinken has supported Trump’s bombings in Syria and arming of Ukrainians, militarism that went beyond Obama-Biden policies.

4. Blinken has urged that campaign promises of ending endless wars not be taken too seriously.

UPDATE DEC. 6: The Columbus City Council hearing on this issue has moved to December 14th, so letters are still needed!

The award-winning neighborhood institution, Kossuth Street Garden (KSG), is in grave danger.

A developer wants us to go away so he can build 10 expensive homes on 641 E Kossuth Street. But to succeed at this point, he needs changes approved by the City of Columbus for zoning and variances, based on advice of our South Side Area Commission.

The site of our majestic and beloved 12-year-old award-winning community garden was sold and the new developer now wants us out, as he will build 10 new "affordable homes" at $250,000 to $350,000 each and likely ask for tax abatements next spring. The land is zoned "commercial" and the developer needs a "residential" zoning change in order to build.

New owner Tracy Cohen, the Carroll, Ohio developer, offered to sell us the section where the garden/green space is on October 23 this year.

But then on November 10, he went back on his promise, as that would impact his bottom line and decrease his profits.