Three years ago, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 2334. With fourteen members voting in favor and one abstention, the Resolution was the equivalent of a political earthquake. Indeed, it was the first time in many years that Israel was roundly condemned by the international body for its illegal settlement policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Unlike previous attempts at holding Israel accountable, this time the Americans did nothing to protect its closest ally.

Al Capone wasn’t prosecuted for tax evasion because it’s cool or smart or strategic to prosecute murderers for lesser crimes, but because proving murder in court was going to be more difficult.

That’s not analogous to a Congressional impeachment, but the opposite of how Congress operates. Congress sits on indisputable evidence of the greatest crimes while impeaching presidents for lesser offenses that are harder to prove.

Andrew Johnson publicly did everything he could to limit “freedom” for African Americans to a meaningless word. He was impeached for firing the Secretary of War.

Richard Nixon had indisputably bombed Cambodia, a crime that one failed article of impeachment charged him with, not to mention Vietnam and Laos. In fact, he had sabotaged the peace process and kept a war going for years during which millions of people were killed. Lyndon Johnson (who had committed similar horrors) believed Nixon guilty of treason for the sabotage. When Nixon fled Washington, he was about to be impeached for employing a group of thugs to break into a Democratic Party office.

The annual defense budget, passed recently by both the House (377-48) and Senate (82-8), came in at $738 billion for 2020, up from last year a sweet $22 billion.

War hits the motherlode every year.

“The money just isn’t there” for virtually anything that matters — you know, healthcare for all, free college tuition, clean water, eco-sustainable energy production — but we’ve sold the national soul to the war god so long ago that the perfunctory, bipartisan passage of the National Defense Authorization Act comes and goes every year with, at most,  a few marginal cries of outrage and a big shrug from the media.

Whenever there's an election in the United States, qualified voters are denied the right to vote because they haven't jumped through the hoops necessary to register.

Meanwhile, thousands of volunteers toil endless hours on a task that need not exist at all: registering voters.

But in 16 states, plus Washington D.C., registration is now automatic. There's no reason that Ohio can't be next to join this list: Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia.

Thursday, December 19, 6-7pm
Trinity Episcopal Church on Capitol Square, 125 E. Broad St.

This annual Memorial Service will honor and remember people who have experienced homelessness who have passed away during the course of the year. Please join us to honor their lives with words and music of inspiration.

Sponsored by Columbus Coalition for the Homeless.