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Orchids & onions

ORCHID: To Carl Foote of Boardman for embarking on an ambitious and compassionate 700-mile bicycle trek to benefit research to battle the debilitating Alzheimer’s disease. Foote, 74, a veteran benefit bike rider, is in the middle of his excursion across the entire perimeter of Lake Erie in Ohio, Michigan, Canada, New York and Pennsylvania. This isn’t Foote’s first rolling rodeo. In 2024, he biked 2,200 miles across the country on U.S. Route 62 for the same mission. As he put it before launching his Lake Erie project, “Every mile of this ride represents a step forward in the fight ...

Issue 3 may be odd, but it merits support

Given the heated clamor over such hot-button races on the Ohio ballot this fall as the caustic battles for governor and U.S. Senate, one proposition up for a vote among all 7.5 million registered voters in the state may easily get lost in the shuffle. Others might find its very presence downright odd. That measure is state Issue 3, an Ohio constitutional amendment proposed by state lawmakers to require photo identification to vote. And yes, some may legitimately find it odd. It is, after all, the only statewide issue on the ballot. So what happened to state Issues 1 and 2, some head ...

Mother’s milk gone sour

“Money is the mother’s milk of politics,” said Jesse M. Unruh, who in the ‘60s was a powerful Democratic politician and speaker of the California State Assembly. It is a disgrace, if much is disgraceful these days, that we spend so much on getting people elected to Congress, who do little or nothing to solve real problems once they get there. AdImpact, the leading advertising intelligence and market analytics company, estimates more than $3.4 billion will be spent on this year’s midterms across all races. In Texas, alone, an estimated $446 million will be spent by ...

Women keep politics honest

This is a generalization, I know. As Mark Twain is said to have said, “All generalizations are false, including this one.” But there is growing evidence that women tend to be more protective of our American democracy than men. They are more willing to put their foot down when partisan schemers try to game the electoral system, mostly by changing the rules or gerrymandering. A recent sign that women place more value on being a force for good comes out of conservative Utah. Both parties gerrymander, that is, draw voting district boundaries to give unfair advantage to their ...

When war comes home: A constitutional warning

A failed war does not end when the drones stop flying. It creates a new danger: A government that refuses to admit defeat and a president who, having failed abroad, seeks muscular victories elsewhere. The war against Iran is a case study in the limits of military power, the dangers of presidential overreach and the enduring wisdom of the Constitution’s separation of powers. It was unauthorized, unconstitutional, illegal, strategically incoherent and — by the standards by which wars must be judged — a geopolitical failure. The American people were told that force would achieve ...

We are the leaders we’ve been waiting for

We're now officially in the run-up to the midterm elections, with less than two months to go before Election Day 2026. The good news is most Americans now understand how bad Donald Trump is. With the exception of Richard 0Nixon, he's the most unpopular second-term president at this stage in his tenure in the history of polling going back to the 1940s. On issues where he once was strong — like the economy, national security and immigration — Trump is now underwater, with more Americans opposing than supporting his policies. All the major problems America now faces are entirely ...