Local

COTA’s LinkUS levy (Issue 47) could dramatically change Columbus’s transportation culture, but areas desperately in need of LinkUS’s accordion buses or other solutions may have to wait years before massive traffic messes and congestion is alleviated.

A LinkUS spokesperson last month insisted to the Free Press their levy was mostly about getting residents to good paying jobs. Especially those who don’t have a car or are averse to commuting by car.

And not a moment too soon. On a recent sunny weekday afternoon near Rickenbacker Airport, home to thousands of warehouse distribution jobs, hundreds of commuters were lined up and bottlenecked on Alum Creek Drive’s one lane out of the area at Grove Port Road leading to the two 270 exits just a few hundred feet from this intersection. Even so, the never-ending line of cars suggests quitting time near Rickenbacker may be more tiresome to the hardworking warehouse employees than their actual shift.

Please join We Are Ohio and Union Strong in Columbus on Thursday, Oct. 24 at 6:30 p.m. 
The meeting will take place at IBEW 683, 939 Goodale Blvd., Columbus, OH 43212 with food served at 6:30 p.m. and the program beginning at 7 p.m.

Urgent Community Meeting to get a Yes on Issue 1 yard sign and talk about..

…Issue 1, the effort to have fair maps and fair elections in Ohio..

…the threat to all Ohioans posed by an extreme out-of-touch legislature…

…and what you can do to fight back.

Learn why you need to Vote Yes on Issue 1 on or before Nov. 5 to give citizens, not politicians, the power to draw fair maps for fair elections.

Even as war keeps spreading, the world is outgrowing many other forms of violence and cruelty. Violent crime outside of war is decreasing in many countries, and so is the death penalty, which is now limited to a small and shrinking list of mostly the worst national governments on Earth and 21 U.S. states (plus six that have paused without yet permanently banning capital punishment). Those 27 states include OH.

Click here to tell your state legislators to catch OH up with the country and the world.

Even as war keeps spreading, the world is outgrowing many other forms of violence and cruelty. Violent crime outside of war is decreasing in many countries, and so is the death penalty, which is now limited to a small and shrinking list of mostly the worst national governments on Earth and 21 U.S. states (plus six that have paused without yet permanently banning capital punishment). Those 27 states include OH.

Click here to tell your state legislators to catch OH up with the country and the world.

We are living in a golden age of humorous political commentary. This is not surprising, given the abundant comic material oozing from every pore of the American body politic these days. From Donald Trump’s bizarre declarations about illegal immigrants (“They’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats!”) to Kamala Harris’ indigestible word salads (“It’s time for us to do what we have been doing, and that time is every day”), from Marjorie Taylor Greene’s befuddled culinary claims (“Pelosi’s Gaspacho Police [are] spying on members of Congress”) to Tim Walz’s addled declarations (“I’ve become friends with school shooters”), the comedy quotient in American public life has never been higher.

As a continuation of Mary Jane’s coverage of the 2024 general election, this article will focus on cannabis-friendly candidates and issues. Let’s get started!

HOW TO FIND CANNABIS FRIENDLY CANDIDATES

On the federal and state level, you will be voting for or against candidates for the U.S. Presidency, the U.S. Senate, the Ohio Senate, the Ohio House, and the Ohio Supreme Court. In addition, a statewide ballot measure will also appear on the ballot. Certainly, you want the candidates of your choice to reflect your values and to support our cannabis cause. Here’s how to find these contenders:

Join us for O22 2024 on Tuesday, October 22nd from noon-2pm on the lawn in front of the Ohio Statehouse (High Street side). RSVP here!

A local game creator has taken a stab at the indie card game scene—literally. Don’t Get Stabbed was developed by Jordan McLaughlin, a Columbus resident whose passion for horror movies has led to a thrilling, laugh-out-loud game perfect for parties and casual game nights

Don’t Get Stabbed brings together classic horror movie tropes with fast-paced laughs in a perfect blend of humor and horror. One player is the Killer. The rest play as Victims. Victims take turns drawing cards and trying to avoid being “stabbed” by the game's slasher, all while building alliances, plotting escapes, and trying to survive the night. The Killer tries to kill all the victims by “stabbing” them three times.

The idea for Don’t Get Stabbed first sparked during a casual game night in 2018 when McLaughlin’s cousin suggested he create his own card game. He started working on the game the very next day. McLaughlin spent weeks going to the local library after work to teach himself how to illustrate the game. “I didn’t have money to hire an artist, so I knew I had to figure this out for myself.” Said McLaughlin.

This story appeared in the Ohio Capital Journal

The United States is the only democracy in the world where a presidential candidate can get the most popular votes and still lose the election. Thanks to the Electoral College, that has happened five times in the country’s history. The most recent examples are from 2000, when Al Gore won the popular vote but George W. Bush won the Electoral College after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, and 2016, when Hillary Clinton got more votes nationwide than Donald Trump but lost in the Electoral College.