The current situation in Afghanistan is undeniably linked to the 1990-1991 Gulf War. This earlier conflict could have been prevented if then President George H.W. Bush had told Saddam Hussein that Iraq would be blasted back into the stone age if the Butcher of Baghdad even considered invading Kuwait before it happened. Saddam definitely would have backed down if he had been threatened with retaliation before he made that disastrous decision. But the first Bush administration misjudged him and mismanaged the situation to allow a minor crisis to grow into a major one. Even though the president had been a former director of the C.I.A., he was clueless or pretended to be clueless when dealing with this situation. Maybe he thought that involving the United States in a war would make him more popular than using diplomacy to prevent one. His approval ratings did hit an all-time high just after the war before the collective failure of his foreign and domestic policies led to his defeat in a landslide in 1992.

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The “Columbus Way” is notorious for co-opting the ideas of grassroots activists for its own gain. Just ask former mayoral candidate Joe Motil, and it has happened again. This time to the “Saint of Sullivant Avenue,” the moniker the Free Press gave to Esther Flores who has worked tirelessly to help Hilltop and Franklinton “street sisters and brothers” in their struggle with addiction to illicit street drugs.

Flores, a registered nurse, runs the 1DivineLine2Health “harm reduction” drop-in at 2424 Sullivant Avenue. She’s been helping the addicted and all the challenges they bring, such as human trafficking, violence, homelessness, and disease, since 2015. She had the courage to be a Sullivant Avenue harm reduction pioneer and has risked everything to help thousands, many of whom are women and their children.

Sows in Factory Farm Gestation Crates, courtesy of CIWF USA/Jo-Anne McArthur /We Animals Media Non-Commercial use

The blades move ever faster, slicing through flesh—animal and human alike. Workers, pressed shoulder to shoulder in a factory of blood, push through exhaustion, through pain, through the deafening machinery, knowing that slowing down isn’t an option.

Pigs scream, their bodies trembling from stress and drugs, their legs buckling beneath them. Some won’t even make it to slaughter—collapsing from heat, injury, or sheer terror before they reach the kill floor.

Tuesday, April 8, 2025, 1:00 – 1:30 PM
Due to the number of executive orders, immigration raids, and other policy changes, Episcopal Migration Ministries is scheduling weekly immigration calls. EMM will share updates and resources and will be joined by the Office of Government Relations and the Chief Legal Officer.

Spanish interpretation will be available.  

Register here.

As “Deep Throat,” the whistleblower who was FBI associate director Mark Felt, tells Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in the film “All the President’s Men” as Woodward unravels the Watergate scandal: “about the White House—the truth is, these are not very bright guys.” 

 Fifty years later, that is again the truth.

How much of Donald Trump’s directive on U.S. tariffs imposed on nations all over the world—that in recent days has caused a stock market loss of trillions of dollars—is a result of his not being very bright?

The Trump tariffs “are reckless, careless, just plain dumb,” declared U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut after the move last week.

Trump through the years has insisted that he is a “stable genius.” 

Through the years, the opposite has been charged.