You would never know it after reading the July 2, 2011 puff piece “In Ohio, a new Governor is off to a smooth start,” but Governor John Kasich is already on the ropes. In the Times’ analysis, the passage of Kasich’s controversial budget “…has been about as smooth as a knife through butter.”

In reality, Kasich is a founding member of the “gaffe of the week” club. His budget is based on busting all the public employee unions in the state of Ohio and began with the supposed savings Kasich cited in the union-busting Senate Bill 5. The bill not only went after state employees, public school teachers, and professors, but also attacked police and firemen. In a gaffe that went around the Buckeye state, Kasich justified union-busting by calling a police officer who gave him a traffic ticket “an idiot.”

The "Heartbeat Bill, HB 125, must not be passed.
Why? Here are 3 powerful reasons:

~HB 125 is tantamount to a total abortion ban, forcing rape and incest victims to give birth to their rapist's baby.
~HB 125 also does not allow for an exception for fetal anomalies. Women who have been informed of a medical condition that harms their fetus would have to carry the pregnancy to natural birth.
~HB 125 is unconstitutional and would be litigated for years.

The state of Ohio would have to spend millions to defend this bill in court battles that could take years. The Executive Director of Ohio Right to Life acknowledged this in an interview with Fox News when he said, “…the Supreme Court…has ruled on countless occasions that any restrictions on abortion pre-viability are unconstitutional.”

We must not give into the groups pressing for passage of HB 125. Listen to the voice of reason and true humanity for the mother and child alike, and block it.

Sincerely,
Shira Nahari

In times of war, U.S. presidents have often talked about yearning for peace. But the last decade has brought a gradual shift in the rhetorical zeitgeist while a tacit assumption has taken hold -- war must go on, one way or another.

“I am continuing and I am increasing the search for every possible path to peace,” Lyndon Johnson said while escalating the Vietnam War. In early 1991, the first President Bush offered the public this convolution: “Even as planes of the multinational forces attack Iraq, I prefer to think of peace, not war.” More than a decade later, George W. Bush told a joint session of Congress: “We seek peace. We strive for peace.”

While absurdly hypocritical, such claims mouthed the idea that the USA need not be at war 24/7/365.

But these days, peace gets less oratorical juice. In this era, after all, the amorphous foe known as “terror” will never surrender.

There’s an intractable enemy for you; beatable but never quite defeatable. Terrorists are bound to keep popping up somewhere.

“We can realistically reach a million signatures against SB 5 with the mobilization we’ve put together now,” stated John Parker, Regional Field Director for the We Are Ohio coalition. “This is a goal that will build momentum into the November election. It will show everyone that the union, community coalition can and will have the horses to reverse SB 5 and gain justice for Ohio’s working families.”

Parker was speaking to union and community supporters at the Carpenters Union Hall in Columbus, preparing for the final run to the poll in the drive against SB 5, the legislation passed by the GOP legislative majority to wipe out collective bargaining rights in the state. Petitioning to place that bill on the November ballot is continuing through this month, with a target date of June 25 as the cutoff date to turn in petitions. 233,000 signatures, totaling 3% of the electorate in 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties from the previous election, are needed for the proposed referendum to be certified on the upcoming ballot in the fall. Although no official totals have been released since We Are Ohio announced they’d reached 215,000