Last month’s vote on the national emergency resolution gave me pause to think about courage. We admire those who display it and criticize those who don’t. We like to give a pat on the back to those who show courage under fire, whether it be combat or the pressures of the business world.
Show me someone who has been scorned in the news for a moral failure in business or politics, and I’ll show you plenty of people eager to ...
Continue Reading →Jeffrey Epstein, a Miami hedge fund manager, and Kevin Keith, an indigent Bucyrus resident, have been through the criminal justice system for serious crimes but with remarkably different experiences.
Epstein allegedly had sex with and trafficked over three dozen girls, most of them 13 to 16. He faced a life sentence in 2007, but his lawyers worked a deal. Epstein served just 13 months in a county jail and was allowed work at his Palm Beach office during the day. ...
Continue Reading →Posted by:
I get concerned when people use the Bible to justify a position. The United Methodist Church recently justified its decision to exclude LGBTQ people from ministry leadership and marriage on the Bible. Oh, I’m sure if you look, you’ll find passages in the Bible that speak out in some way against homosexuality. And you’ll find passages to justify lots of other things, from concubines to slaves.
It’s all a matter of your perspective and what you’re trying to accomplish. And whether ...
Continue Reading →The farm bill, which provides assistance to farmers and funds the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, was passed in December with bipartisan support in the House and Senate. Though controversial, SNAP funding was not fundamentally changed. However, after signing the bill, President Donald Trump announced he wants to tighten restrictions.
SNAP is controversial because it’s perceived as an entitlement conservatives want to cut. They overlook that SNAP helps promote good health by making up in part for ...
Continue Reading →Last month, the U.S. Senate passed the Justice for Victims of Lynching Act of 2018, which makes it a federal crime to injure or murder a person “because of the actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of any person.” The bill seems like a reasonable idea unless you belong to Liberty Counsel, an advocacy group whose message is based on conservative Christianity. Liberty Counsel is intolerant of the LGBTQ movement and views ...
Continue Reading →Posted by:
President Donald Trump warns that the Senate confirmation hearing for Brett Kavanaugh indicates that “it’s a very scary time for young men in America.” Fox journalist Jeanine Pirro believes the left is setting a new standard—“You are guilty until proven innocent”—and that due process, probable cause and reasonable doubt no longer have any meaning.
Let’s drop the hyperbole and recognize that the Kavanaugh hearing, while ugly, was, in essence, a job interview on a national scale.
What should have been a dignified ...
Continue Reading →Posted by:
The Pew Research Center reports that income inequality is at its highest point since 1928. Will it ever substantially improve? Not without a dramatic paradigm shift.
From 1979 to 2015, annual wages increased for the bottom 90 percent of Americans by 21 percent, according to the Economic Policy Institute. For the top 1.0 percent, the increase was 105 percent. For the top 0.1 percent, it was 339 percent.
Our system is based on the paradigm, as Professor Scott R. Sanders of Indiana ...
Continue Reading →Who would ever think Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi have anything in common? Then again, what about those outsize egos they lug around?
Trump proved his ego is of epic proportion the week before last when talking on Fox & Friends about the Mueller investigation (as reported by CBS News). “If I ever get impeached, I think the market would crash. I think everybody would be very poor.” He ...
After being terminally ill for months or perhaps years, should you have the right to say, “I’ve had enough. It’s time to die?” Not only a tough question, it’s one that makes us uneasy.
Seven states—California, Colorado, Hawaii, Montana, Oregon, Vermont, Washington—and the District of Columbia permit what some call “death with dignity.” Except for Montana, the laws are similar: patients must be a resident of the state, capable of making and communicating health care decisions for themselves, at least 18 ...
Continue Reading →Posted by:
[I thought it appropriate to follow my last blog, which dealt with the annoying overuse of the word, “guys,” to touch on a related subject, bad grammar. This post was published in the Columbus Bar Association Lawyers Quarterly magazine a few years back. Regrettably, what I wrote then is still relevant.]
In the words of a great American nautical hero, “I’ve had all I can stands. I can’t stands no more!” I’m talking about bad grammar. That’s right—bad grammar, a bad ...
Continue Reading →