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‘Misleading’ headline masks real challenge facing local democracy

The recent opinion piece characterizing the Trumbull County Democratic Party as being in “free fall” may make for a provocative headline, but it misrepresents what is happening in local and state politics, and why potential Democratic candidates and anyone who believes in fair competition and public service give pause. Headlines matter. Framing this moment as party collapse implies dysfunction or indifference. That is not the reality in Trumbull County. What has changed is the political environment itself. National right-wing PACs have inserted themselves into local legislative ...

Plant in your own life; we all reap the rewards

There’s a 36-year-old song that talks about the value of hard work. “I gotta get out of bed and get a hammer and a nail,” the chorus goes, “Learn how to use my hands, not just my head. I think myself into jail. Now, I know a refuge never grows from a chin in a hand in a thoughtful pose. Gotta tend the earth if you want a rose.” I’ve been thinking a lot about farming lately, which is weird because the last time I tried to do any gardening, I pulled a random muscle in my back and limped for a week. But work, real work, goes back in my family for generations. My ...

Youth crime: Why don’t some kids value life?

We’ve been here before, dealing with the shock and sadness that comes when lives are cut short in the streets by unimaginable violence. Sometimes these are lives that haven’t really begun yet. Often, the casualties of gun violence in the Mahoning Valley are still kids and almost as often, so are their killers — still in their teens, but already captured by the allure of the streets and seemingly unafraid of that life and the culture of death that comes with it. A week ago today, a man was ambushed in his car in the parking lot of Hoda’s Tobacco at the corner of Paige Avenue ...

US Attorney General Bondi inflicts wounds on herself

On the night of Sept. 21, 1788, Austrian hussars scouting for the Ottoman Army stumbled upon gypsies who offered them schnapps. The Austrians got drunk, encountered part of their infantry, refused to share the alcohol and a fight broke out. One soldier fired his gun; the rest of the army presumed the Ottomans were attacking and the Austrian General of Artillery thought the Ottoman cavalry was upon them. He ordered the artillery to fire. The Battle of Karansabas would go down in history as the world’s worst friendly fire incident. Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, so demoralized from what ...

Given widespread support, voter ID laws need not be controversial

President Trump says that “Republicans” should “nationalize the election” or at least take over voting in up to 15 places where he says voting is corrupt. His evidence of fraudulent voting is that he lost in such places in 2020, and since it is axiomatic that he won everywhere, the reported results are proof of the fraud. This is all delusional, narcissistic nonsense. But at this point, if you still claim it’s an open question whether Trump actually lost the 2020 election (he did), you’re immune to the facts or just lying — either about not having made up your mind or ...