Opinion

Celebrating our 55th year, the Columbus Free Press will honor five outstanding community activists and a community organization at our November 2025 Salon and Awards event on Saturday, November 8 from 1:30-4:30pm at the First Unitarian Universalist Church, 93 W. Weisheimer Road. One of our "Libby" Award for Lifetime Achievement in Community Activism honorees is Bob Krasen. 

Bob worked in Columbus for non-profits, United Cerebral Palsy, American Red Cross Blood Services, and Vision Center of Central Ohio. He volunteered for 12 years with Suicide Prevention Services.

After retiring in 2006, he became a volunteer in Healthcare for All Ohioans / SPAN Ohio, assuming a leadership position in 2014 as Columbus Regional Coordinator. He continues in active membership, stepping down from leadership positions in 2023.

Celebrating our 55th year, the Columbus Free Press will honor five outstanding community activists and a community organization at our November 2025 Salon and Awards event on Saturday, November 8 from 1:30-4:30pm at the First Unitarian Universalist Church, 93 W. Weisheimer Road. One of our "Libby" Award honorees is Bob Krasen. 

Bob worked in Columbus for non-profits, United Cerebral Palsy, American Red Cross Blood Services, and Vision Center of Central Ohio. He volunteered for 12 years with Suicide Prevention Services.

After retiring in 2006, he became a volunteer in Healthcare for All Ohioans / SPAN Ohio, assuming a leadership position in 2014 as Columbus Regional Coordinator. He continues in active membership, stepping down from leadership positions in 2023.

Healthcare for All Ohioans is a state wide volunteer organization started in 2003, to promote passage Healthcare for All legislation in Ohio as the Ohio Health Care Act, (HB 289 & SB 78, 2025-26). The organization also supports the passage of Enhanced and Improved Medicare for All (HR 3069 & SR 1506, 2025-26) in Congress.

The Washington Post quoted Trump on Tuesday, Oct. 21, that “the federal
government owes him ‘a lot of money’ for prior Justice Department investigations
into his actions and insisted he would have the ultimate say on any payout because
any decision will ‘have to go across my desk’”. The implication
is that Trump thinks he can use the power of his office and his control over the
Justice Department to ensure that he will be given this money. And it is a
substantial amount of money.
The Post story further explains the issue in question.
“Trump’s comments to reporters at the White House came in response to questions
about a New York Times story that said he had filed administrative claims before
being reelected seeking roughly $230 million in damages related to the FBI's 2022
search of his Mar-a-Lago property for classified documents….”
The flaw in Trump’s views of the case is that he did break federal law when, after
the end of his first presidency, he took boxes of public documents to his Florida

President Trump and two of his former officials (AT Jeff Session and senior advisor Jared Kushner) all lied under oath and get off scot-free. Meanwhile, it is public knowledge that many convicts in the US —and I'm not exaggerating—are innocent or receive unjust and harsh sentences. That makes a mockery of the US justice system. Having lived in the good old' USA for nearly half a century, I can tell you without a doubt that justice in America is not colorblind.

Let me explain why: 

* On October 19, 2022, a federal judge said that Trump lied under oath about voter fraud claims in the 2020 election. Add to that his involvement on Jan. 6 assault on the US Capitol was "a terror attack” that resulted in five people dead.

Lying under oath, know as perjury, can result in serious penalties, including fines and imprisonment for up to five years.

* On August 23, 2022, the FBI raided former president Trump's Florida home and discover more than 700 pages of stolen top-secret U.S. documents that were illegally stored.

President Donald Trump has announced that a massive new homeless shelter and soup kitchen will replace the East Wing of the White House, which he has demolished.

“This 90,000 square foot structure which I am building without any process or approval from the American people or Congress will stand as human history’s greatest single monument to kindness and charity. 

“This kingly project will certainly win me the Nobel Prize, whose proceeds I will donate toward the expense of housing and feeding hundreds of humans suffering under the weight of the billionaire bonanza that is my regime.”

Trump explains that “throughout history, great men like myself have devoted ourselves to empathy, compassion, kindness and charity.  

“Thus the re-made White House will cement my status as the best American Dictator ever.”

Trump says he and his fellow oligarchs promise (without putting up any actual collateral) to fund the structure, now projected to cost about one-third of a billion dollars, roughly what he’s suing the federal government for as compensation for his having been investigated for his 2021 attempt to seize the federal government.

This article firrst appeared on World Beyond War. 

For the last two years, my social media algorithm has been relentlessly dominated by Gaza, particularly by the voices of ordinary Gazans, displaying a blend of emotions that centers on two core principles: grief and defiance.

 Grief has characterized life in Gaza for many years, a consequence of successive Israeli wars, the unrelenting siege, and habitual bombardment. The last two years, marked by genocide and famine, however, have redefined that grief in a way almost incomprehensible to the Palestinians themselves.

Dr. Bob Fitrakis and Dan-o Dougan talk about how freedom is in peril and play some songs that celebrate freedom, from Free at Last by Sam Cooke to Freedom by Beyonce and many more!

Listen here

Listen live at 11pm Fridays, October 24 and 31 streaming at wgrn.org or on the radio at 91.9FM
and
Mondays at 2pm streaming October 27 and November 3 at wcrsfm.org or on the radio at 92.7 or 98.3FM

Yes, I admit that on Oct 21 I drove to the downtown Main Library for a debate with five of the six candidates for Columbus City Schools. And, no; I haven’t been this disappointed since seeing Star Wars ATTACK OF THE CLONES at the movies.

Like you, I also love the Columbus Dispatch.

Unfortunately, the questions that they chose for the candidates reminded me more of middle school student government. On behalf of Western Civilization, I beg forgiveness to the candidates who wasted their time.

Normally the phrase used is that there is an “Elephant in the Room,” but since half of the candidates have been “Officially Endorsed” by the Franklin County Democratic Party it has to be a donkey. Their three candidates represent the STATUS QUO of COLUMBUS; swimming in thousands of dollars in donations from big business and a guaranteed spot on the MAGICAL “Sample Ballot” that will be forced into your hands if you choose to vote.

The important questions that were IGNORED?

As much as conservatives have tried to make the rest of America believe they’ve shed their white supremacist bigoted spectacles, a group of Young Republican national leaders hoodwinked us once again.

On a local level, will Ohio State’s new “intellectual diversity center” – the Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture, and Society – make its students and devoted alumni also one day look like absolute fools for supporting Thee?

Not in leaked texts mind you, but through veiled far right and pro-white tendencies. No doubt –  and this is for all left and left-leaning OSU alumni – your beloved alma mater is making a hard pivot to the right. Trump investigations, Ohio Senate Bill 1, the closing of all Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) offices, and Anduril (killer robots) have laid the groundwork. But when it comes to actual boots-on-the-Oval, the Chase Center could become the command center as its first academic year began this semester.