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Politics online embraces distortion, lies

“Hezbollah hit 19 IDF tanks today. That’s $95M lost in 1 day. The IDF is a paper tiger,” declared Ethan Levins on Twitter with a picture of a burned-out tank. He describes himself as an “independent journalist,” “American Christian,” and “truth seeker.” The picture he posted was from 2006. His claim is fiction. Mario Nawfal tweeted footage with the text of his tweet reading, “Iran releases footage claiming to down a U.S. F-18 fighter jet. If true, this only happened twice before: 1991 Gulf War and 1995 Bosnia War.” Nawfal is a prolific tweeter with over 3.2 ...

Orchids & onions

ORCHID: To Emily Metheny for her appointment last week as the Champion Local School District’s first woman athletic director in the history of the school system. Metheny’s robust background in Champion sports — soccer and track coach and soon to become assistant coach for flag football — more than qualifies her for this responsible, high-visibility yet challenging role. Metheny’s ascension to the ­­­director of sports programs breaks yet another glass ceiling for women in our region as only one-fifth of all school district ADs in the country are women, according to a ...

Put bill to rein in animal abusers on the fast track

Advocates of tougher penalties for companion animal owners who willingly and negligently allow their pets to viciously attack others have had reason to cheer this month. As of March 20, Avery’s Law became the law of the land in the Buckeye State after sailing through both chambers of the state Legislature with rapid-fire speed. It did so with good reason as its primary provisions drew bipartisan support and unanimous votes in both the state House and Senate. In essence, the law imposes much more severe criminal penalties against negligent owners, authorizes immediate dog seizures ...

Sending in the clowns

Even someone with a rudimentary understanding of economics should know that if you tax a business or individual beyond their level of tolerance they will pack up and leave the state for one with lower or no state income tax. Unfortunately, one can’t escape the long arm of federal taxes. Proof of this axiom comes from the IRS and its publication of the latest (2023) migration numbers. Unleash Prosperity, which touts its mission to “educate policy makers and the public about government policies that have been proven, in practice, to maximize economic growth and equitable prosperity ...

The art of taxing fairly is messy

“The rich should pay their fair share of taxes.” Who can argue with that? But then we must decide who is rich and what is meant by fair. Neither political party has distinguished itself in making such distinctions. But Republicans play an especially outrageous game in portraying the Internal Revenue Service as the working stiff’s enemy. For salaried workers, taxes come straight out of paychecks, meaning most are already paying what they owe. Owners of small businesses have more deductions at their disposal, but the neighborhood bakery that tries to follow the rules doesn’t ...

Free speech for me but not for thee

Last week, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission threatened to rescind the broadcast licenses of media entities that do not relate events in Iran or Ukraine as the Trump administration would like them to be related. He also attacked The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times for the same reasons. This followed by one day a verbal attack on CNN by the Secretary of Defense who made known his bitter unhappiness with CNN's coverage of the Iran war. Yet, CNN is not regulated by the FCC, which only regulates broadcast media — not cable or streaming; and newspapers, thanks ...