Author

Marilou Johanek
Marilou Johanek is a veteran Ohio print and broadcast journalist who has covered state and national politics as a longtime newspaper editorial writer and columnist.
Don’t let Ohio’s hot mess stop you from exercising your freedom to vote
By: Marilou Johanek - April 26, 2022
What a hot mess. Thanks to Ohio Republicans, enjoying a monopoly of power from the last redistricting sham they engineered after the 2010 Census, a critical election has been turned into a crapshoot. Thanks to one party, impervious to the needless chaos it created for voters, poll workers, and election administrators with lopsided district maps […]
Legalizing bigotry with “Don’t Say Gay” bill will chase businesses away from Ohio
By: Marilou Johanek - April 19, 2022
Question: How could you blow a $20 billion investment in Ohio? Answer: Chase away business with legislation to legitimize bigotry. A cynical attempt by Ohio House Republicans to further stigmatize and marginalize LGBTQ people in Ohio with a Florida-style “Don’t Say Gay” bill could give Intel pause about breaking ground on the state’s largest private […]
‘Backpack bill’ disingenuous play for tax dollars
By: Marilou Johanek - April 12, 2022
If there’s one thing Ohio taxpayers hate – other than paying taxes – it’s being ripped off by disingenuous ideologues in the statehouse. You’re not going to like what a pair of legislators are itching to do with your tax money that pays for public schools. They want to divert a ton of it to […]
New DeWine ad fails to show full picture of candidate’s history
By: Marilou Johanek - April 5, 2022
“He’s not afraid of the tough fights.” The opening line in the first statewide TV commercial from Gov. Mike DeWine’s re-election campaign describes someone Ohio voters don’t know. It pictures a governor looking stern and striding resolutely with law enforcement. Heavy on campy cliché but laughably bogus. DeWine is no principled warrior who “fights and […]
Ohio GOP Senate candidates ignore real issues facing Ohioans to put on repugnant political circus
By: Marilou Johanek - March 29, 2022
Embarrassing doesn’t cover it. Offensive is better. The sad sacks duking it out (almost) to grab the crown in the Republican primary for Ohio’s open U.S. Senate seat have managed to insult just about every rational-thinking voter in the state. Good job, candidates, you’ve turned the GOP side of this race into a cheap side show […]
Ohio Supreme Court justices Kennedy and DeWine undermining judiciary with redistricting partisanship
By: Marilou Johanek - March 22, 2022
Justice is supposed to be blind. But not in Ohio. Not when a pair of Ohio Supreme Court justices dropped all pretense of impartiality and objectivity in the super high stakes redistricting cases before the court that have utterly upended Ohio politics. Justice Sharon Kennedy and Justice Pat DeWine effectively removed their metaphorical blindfolds to […]
The law-flouting, truth-denying, science-deriding Trumpian Republican extremists are the real RINOs
By: Marilou Johanek - March 15, 2022
It’s the MAGA battle cry heading into the primaries. “He’s a grandstanding RINO.”-Donald Trump about retiring Ohio Republican congressman Anthony Gonzalez who voted to impeach him for Jan 6. “Mike DeWine is the biggest RINO in America today.”-Jim Renacci, Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate about the Republican incumbent. “Ohio is not going to tolerate RINOs anymore.”-Marjorie […]
Why is Ohio Secretary of State LaRose trolling Twitter on election fraud, the media, and inflation?
By: Marilou Johanek - March 8, 2022
Curiouser and curiouser. What’s up with Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose blasting polarizing snark on Twitter? Just asking, as Tucker Carlson likes to say with queries dripping in fascism, e.g., what did (mass killer) Putin ever do to you? Certainly, the partisan tweets by the state’s top election officer — whose job is to […]
With support of Putin’s attack on Ukraine, Trump turns betrayal of America into an artform
By: Marilou Johanek - March 1, 2022
This should be the final straw. A former American president genuflecting to a ruthless dictator invading a democratic ally of the United States. Can you imagine any other U.S. president publicly admiring a violent, unprovoked assault on a sovereign nation of democracy-defending citizens? Hell no. Yet, even as Russian President Vladimir Putin rained carnage on […]
Real education issues ignored by lawmakers inventing culture war to stoke parents, undermine schools
By: Marilou Johanek - February 22, 2022
I’m all for transparency. Who isn’t? People with something to hide, right? That’s what the book-banning, history-sanitizing, fear-fanning culture warriors hope you’ll think with their latest diversion into so-called “curriculum transparency.” Hardliners, who jumped on the Fox News bandwagon to weaponize critical race theory as a threat to white people, are now queuing up to […]
Gerrymandering leads to extreme laws most Ohioans don’t want
By: Marilou Johanek - February 15, 2022
Fault for the gerrymandered mess in Ohio lays directly at the feet of Statehouse Republicans who are watching their unconstitutional handiwork play out exactly as planned. The same folks who brought Ohio national notoriety in 2011 for drawing state district maps distorted in the extreme to lock in GOP control, had no intention of playing […]
Republican candidates keep lying about 2020 Election even as proof of legitimacy keeps stacking up
By: Marilou Johanek - February 8, 2022
First, the good news. Out of nearly 6 million votes cast in Ohio for the 2020 presidential election, just 27 have been referred to local and state investigators for potential voter fraud. Wow. A routine review of an election with the highest turnout ever — conducted during a pandemic that posed “the most challenging set […]