What’s a black female police officer to do when her fellow white male police officer talks about blowing up Black Lives Matter protestors? Any words of caution may be interpreted as anti-police rhetoric. This is the case of Police Lieutenant Melissa McFadden.

Racial discrimination

Police Lieutenant Melissa McFadden filed a civil rights lawsuit against the City of Columbus June 4. McFadden charges, among other things, that she was “retaliated and discriminated against” for “assisting a fellow officer in drafting and filing a claim of race based discrimination….” McFadden and one other female lieutenant are the highest-ranking minority women on the Columbus police force.

The charges in McFadden’s complaint are explosive. She alleges that after accompanying an “African-American female officer” to the city’s Human Resources department to file a complaint she was targeted by the white officers at the highest level of the department.

Institutionalized racism

Mark McKinnon, a former political consultant and co-host of the Showtime documentary The Circus, famously said that losing an election is a soul-crushing experience. He said he quit because the defeats were damaging his psyche.

The negative effects of losing two elections on the same day appear to have gotten to Melanie Leneghan, who finished a close second in Republican primaries for the unexpired term and new 2-year term as 12th District Congressperson on May 8.

Rather than accept defeat at the hands of State Sen. Troy Balderson, Melanie turned into a "sore loser" and has filed a legal challenge to the results in Troy's home county of Muskingum, whose county seat is Zanesville.

District 12 is a GOP gerrymander of three counties (Delaware, Licking and Morrow) and parts of four counties (Franklin, Marion, Muskingum and Richland). Most of the votes are in northern Franklin, Delaware and Licking.

U.S. Rep. Pat Tiberi quit the post in January leaving 725,000 residents of central Ohio without representation for six months and counting after Gov. “National Johnny” Kasich briefly interrupted his 2020 presidential campaign to call a special election.  

Tuesday, July 3, 7-9pm
485 E Livingston Ave
Calling all musicians, comedians, dancers and poets! No matter your craft come and show it off at Inclusive. 
Art will be for sale in the studio store which is all handmade by local artists with disabilities.
Live DJ, coloring activities and play-dough will be on deck to keep you in good spirits throughout the night.

The joke around town about personal injury attorney Scott Schiff is, if you need to find him, just wait around any car accident. Poof, he’s going to appear out of nowhere, and if you need a chiropractor, he’s probably one of those, too.

Columbus born and raised, Schiff has made a killing off traffic accidents and slip-and-falls. He’s even become a TV personality of sorts and went into real estate 30 years ago when he started Schiff Properties, now a family-run business and one of the largest owners of commercial property around Ohio State.

He’s omnipotence continues to fester and this is no surprise. We live in an age when personal injury lawyers, real estate developers, tech gurus, CEO billionaires and healthcare executives, have too much the power and our city government, so desperate for tax revenue and campaign contributions, caves to their every whim. 

Drones have been seen buzzing above our heads at rallies, starting around the time of the 2016 election and during the aftermath of huge women’s and climate change marches in 2017. The sight of millions of people in the street from a drone’s-eye view can be amazing, and can provide proof of the magnitude of people who gather together for a cause.

As personal drones get smaller and cheaper, more people are having fun using them to shoot photos and video from interesting perspectives. Companies and individual entrepreneurs are springing up offering drone services taking aerial footage for advertising and even wedding coverage.

Drone owners are creating meetups, such as the Buckeye Aerial Drone User Group of Columbus Ohio, and other clubs, websites and events in central Ohio. Though getting a personal drone is a fun techy thing to do, it is important to check the laws before doing too much flying. Dronenthusiast.com is a resource outlining drone laws in Ohio and giving flying advice.

Drone flying