Commentary
It’s high time we legalize marijuana. Voters will decide Tuesday.
Nov. 7 is rapidly approaching and that means Ohio voters only have a handful of days to decide how they will vote on two critically important Statewide Issues. At its simplest, Issue 2 is a ballot initiative to legalize marijuana for adult-use in Ohio, regulating it just as the state does alcohol. Many Ohio lawmakers […]
What will Ohio look like if Issue 1 fails?
Next week, Ohio voters will go to the polls to vote to establish a state constitutional right for residents to make reproductive decisions about abortion, contraception, and miscarriage care. In the wake of the decision made by the U.S. Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to overturn the court’s previous opinion of […]
Ohio Issue 1 asks voters if health care should be left to patients and physicians, or politicians
Ohioans have a little less than a week to vote on Issue 1, which will encode Roe-like, pre-viability abortion rights in the Ohio Constitution. With opponents kicking up a great deal of misinformation dust, we need to zoom out to see the bigger picture. Clarity, after all, is a cornerstone of democratic life. Americans need […]
Ohio GOP politicians have gone to extraordinary lengths to subvert and deceive on Issue 1
Quietly purging nearly 27,000 Ohioans from the voter rolls late last month, even as some voting had already begun in the Nov. 7 election, was dirty pool. The questionably timed expulsion of inactive voters — ahead of a statewide vote on abortion rights — was ordered by a vocal opponent of that ballot referendum without […]
Trump flounders as lawyers flee his side
Anyone under indictment for 91 criminal and civil charges including everything from election tampering to fraudulent business practices might start to crack from the stress. With the potential to lose his properties and maybe wind up broke in a prison cell, it’s no wonder the 77-year old former president is getting more erratic by the […]
The aesthetics of fairness in a pre-fascist country
NEVADA — Four Proud Boys sporting Fred Perry shirts, shaved heads, and camo pants nonchalantly boarded my flight out of Baltimore in mid-October. They politely blended in like middle-class families. I asked my seat mates and a flight attendant if they noticed them and got blank stares in return. It made me think about how normalized fascism […]
Ohio Issue 1 and Issue 2 carry massive significance for younger voters
For Gen Z and millennial Ohio voters, Issue 1 and Issue 2 are critically important. Whether we vote and how we vote will shape what kind of rights and freedoms we have for ourselves and our loved ones well into the future. Issue 1 would establish a state constitutional right to “make and carry out […]
Banning access to reproductive health care would intensify poverty for Ohio women
On Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 7, Ohioans will vote on the Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety, a ballot question that would amend the state constitution to ensure an individual’s fundamental right to make decisions about reproductive health care — inclusive of fertility treatment, contraception, miscarriage management, and abortion. The referendum is a […]
The DeWines are gaslighting Ohioans in their dishonest anti-Issue 1 ad
They’re lying. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and wife Fran cut a homey anti-Issue 1 ad with warm lighting and soft music that features the couple as honest-to-goodness people with heart-felt concerns about the abortion rights amendment on the ballot Nov. 7. Then the lovely pair proceed to lie through their teeth. “Everywhere we go, folks […]
Passing Issue 1 will prevent extreme abortion restrictions from becoming law
When a demonstrated extremist slams a public policy proposal as “extreme,” you can take that with a grain of salt the size of Montana. The Republican legislators and state officials attacking Issue 1, the reproductive rights/abortion-access amendment on the Nov. 7 ballot in Ohio, have burnished their hard-right credentials in recent years. They haven’t just […]
Former Ohio AG and AG candidate issue rebuttal to Issue 1 legal analysis put out by current AG
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost recently issued what he claims is a legal analysis of the possible impact of Issue 1, the citizen-initiated Reproductive Freedom Amendment. While AG Yost boldly stated that his assessment “…is not an exercise in advocacy,” his memo detailing the horrible consequences he believes would follow the passage of Issue 1 […]
A reflexive act of military revenge burdened the US − and may do the same for Israel
In the wake of the shocking invasion of southern Israel by Hamas militants on Oct. 7, 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to destroy Hamas. “We are fighting a cruel enemy, worse than ISIS,” Netanyahu proclaimed four days after the invasion, comparing Hamas with the Islamic State group, which was largely defeated by U.S., […]