On the occasion of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a group of over 60 prominent American citizens is calling upon Congress to reopen the investigations into the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Signers of the joint statement include Isaac Newton Farris Jr., nephew of Reverend King and past president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; Reverend James M. Lawson Jr., a close collaborator of Reverend King; and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, children of the late senator.

Bob Fitrakis will be interviewing John Potash, author of Drugs as Weapons Against Us, about his documentary based on the book, WGRN at 5:30 PM on the show The Other Side of the News .

Drugs as Weapons Against Us: The CIA war on musians and activists was released yesterday for rent or purchase.

Please ignore (but do what you can to protest against) the US Mainstream Media’s gleeful, one-sided support of what can be justifiably regarded as Crimes Against Humanity that are being committed in plain sight by our nation’s (and Venezuela’s) oligarchs, corporatists, war-profiteers, war-mongers, militarists, neo-liberals, neo-conservatives, politicians, and assorted sociopathic, neo-fascist greed-heads who care not about humanity, human rights or true democratic principles. State-sponsored economic sanctions have been routinely used by America’s ruling oligarchs since the Johnson/Nixon Vietnam era in order to de-stabilize – and then privatize – the oil reserves and other natural resources of any and all oil- or resource-rich country on the planet. Such immoral actions also meet the definition of crimes against humanityand crimes against the peaceand often morph into international war crimesas well. The regimes of Nixon, Reagan, both Bushes, both Clintons, Madeleine Albright, John Bolton, Elliot Abrams, Obama, Trump, Pence, etc are good examples of perpetrators of such international crimes. Do perpetrators of crimes against humanity deserve to be tried in a criminal court?

Seven-plus decades ago, as humanity was ensnarled in a monstrous world war, its instinct to win — to dominate others above all else — achieved ultimate manifestation: the capacity to annihilate all life on Planet Earth.

Nuclear weapons are, you might say, the logical outcome of the 10,000-year journey of civilization: “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth.’”

And so we have. And now we’re stuck with ourselves, as are all other forms of life.

Close up of many dollars scattered on top of each other

After a second public hearing where citizens again strongly opposed the amount as way too high, Columbus City Council unanimously enacted a $12,707.79 annual limit on contributions to candidates for city offices. Council member Michael Stinziano, a lame duck who leaves office Feb. 22, was the only member at the hearing.

Citizens speaking there denounced the limit as a sham benefiting incumbent officeholders and big-money donors under the guise of protecting the public. Speakers generally supported an amount between $250 and $3000, which is more in line with the limits in comparable cities.

They said a lower limit would motivate candidates to seek support from and represent regular citizens instead of a small group of wealthy donors. 

An ineffective limit favoring incumbents and easily avoided

White bald man in white shirt at a podium speaking

Joe Motil, a longtime community advocate for fairness and equality for Columbus neighborhoods was told by Mayor Andrew Ginther’s office that he was not permitted to represent the Columbus Chapter of the NAACP’s Labor & Industry Committee at the upcoming Construction Trades Career Fair at the Fort Hayes Career Center. The event is being sponsored by the City of Columbus and several other construction trades and related organizations. Mr. Motil serves on the Chapter’s Executive Committee and was recently appointed as Chairman of the Labor & Industry Committee. Furthermore, Joe has worked in the commercial construction industry for 39 years and is retired from Laborers Local 423. For the past 13 years he has worked as a construction safety manager and currently oversees the safety of the $355 million Mt. Carmel Grove City Hospital construction project for Hunt Construction.

Openly transgender persons have been serving in the military for two and a half years and leaders from each branch have testified that their service has not harmed the military. Although the government cries that the sky is falling, it has offered no evidence to support its dire claims.

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