Marilou Johanek

Allowing politicians to stay in charge of Ohio redistricting has just led to more gerrymandering • Ohio Capital Journal Betrayal can be dressed up as bipartisan or best-case scenario, but it is still betrayal. Ohio Republicans picked off two more congressional districts to gerrymander, in defiance of the Ohio…

Commentary: Betrayal can be dressed up as bipartisan or best-case scenario, but it is still betrayal. Ohio Republicans picked off two more congressional districts to gerrymander, in defiance of the Ohio Constitution and the clear will of Ohio voters ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/11/04/a...

Allowing politicians to stay in charge of Ohio redistricting has just led to more gerrymandering • Ohio Capital Journal Betrayal can be dressed up as bipartisan or best-case scenario, but it is still betrayal. Ohio Republicans picked off two more congressional districts to gerrymander, in defiance of the Ohio Constitut...

Bipartisan betrayal in Ohio

As some Republicans balk at Trump's calls for gerrymandering, Ohio Republican politicians go along • Ohio Capital Journal Former Republican Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels broke his silence about the brazen Trump scheme to steal the 2026 election with gerrymandering. Having no such honor, Ohio Republican politicians are poise...

GOP resistance to Trump redistricting steal not found in Ohio…

SNAP cuts would bring more hunger to already hungry Ohioans • Ohio Capital Journal Commentary: Unless Republicans, who control Congress and the White House, re-open the government and pass a budget bill by Nov. 1 — that includes money for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Progra...

Steal from the poor and give to the rich while millions go hungry

Republican politicians ignore will of voters, Ohio Constitution with proposed abortion restrictions • Ohio Capital Journal After 57% of Ohio voters protected reproductive rights in the Ohio Constitution in 2023, the gerrymandered Republican supermajority in the Ohio Statehouse has been continuing to attempt to regulate, r...

Ohio GOP attempts to overturn popular vote

Ohio's JD Vance tells whoppers like his boss, but with no charisma he can't get away with it • Ohio Capital Journal Ohio's former US Senator and now Vice President JD Vance has flat out declared his willingness “to create stories” for political purposes. But while Vance tells whoppers just as flagrant as his boss, ...

Still creating stories for attention

Ohio family farmers describe life under Trump tariffs: 'We're in a hell of a mess here.' • Ohio Capital Journal Chris Gibbs farms more than 500 acres of corn, soybeans, wheat, and alfalfa hay in Shelby County, along with a 90-head cow-calf operation. The Trump tariffs are shrinking incomes and exploding expense...

Trump tariffs ruin what made rural great.

Amid horrific gun violence, Ohio politicians are proposing more guns at the Statehouse and City Hall • Ohio Capital Journal It takes an astonishing lack of awareness about the volatile present tense, amid rising political violence in a country awash in firearms, to propose legislation that would let politicians carry conce...

Tempting fate with concealed carry

None of this is normal: Not unconstitutional gerrymandering and not the Ohio National Guard in D.C. • Ohio Capital Journal Ohio politicians pressured by an openly corrupt president look to be doubling down on blatantly partisan gerrymandering to help them in the 2026 midterms by manipulating congressional district boundar...

Voter suppression and citizen submission

Ohio lawmakers keep attacking the power of voters not to protect elections but to protect themselves • Ohio Capital Journal It is becoming increasingly clear to many Ohioans that political self-preservation, not expanding access to voting or making it easier to register and participate, is what drives policymakers in Ohio ...

ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/09/10/o...

As Ohio Republican statewide politicians plan to play musical chairs, Ohio Democrats dither • Ohio Capital Journal Ohio Republican statewide politicians plan to play a game of musical chairs in 2026, shuffling positions between secretary of state, auditor, treasurer and attorney general. Meanwhile, Ohio Democrats ...

Will any Ohio Democrat meet the urgency of the moment?

Ohio Gov. DeWine sending guard troops to D.C. makes him complicit in Trump's military occupation • Ohio Capital Journal What Pandora’s Box has Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine opened by sending National Guard troops to D.C.? His participation in Trump's military takeover of the nation's capital to target American civilians makes ...

U.S. soldiers on the streets of America

Opinion | How Sherrod Brown could stage an upset in 2026 Many Ohioans couldn’t tell you who Sen. John Husted of Ohio is, but almost everybody knows Sherrod Brown.

He’s back…

Stop the Steal: Politicians cheat voters and destroy democracy with shameless gerrymandering • Ohio Capital Journal “Stop the Steal!” The mantra screamed for years by MAGA to perpetuate the lie that that 2020 election was rigged can be repurposed as Republicans in Ohio and elsewhere announce their plan to pass even...

Grand theft politics from the “stop the steal” crowd…

Ohio U.S. Senators Husted and Moreno keep putting Trump and billionaires over working Ohio families • Ohio Capital Journal Ohio Republican U.S. Sens. Bernie Moreno and Jon Husted both swore to uphold the U.S. Constitution before taking their seats, but their loyalty to the rule of law was quickly supplanted by unyielding ...

Shame on you, Bernie Moreno and Jon Husted.

Republican politicians looking to gerrymander Ohio and Texas to protect U.S. House majority • Ohio Capital Journal Ohio and Texas could do it. Both states could steal enough congressional seats with new gerrymandered maps for voting districts to fortify the Republican majority in the U.S. House next year, effectiv...

GOP playing dirty in Ohio and Texas

Every Ohio Republican congressmen voted to militarize America's cities • Ohio Capital Journal Are you ready for armed occupation on in Ohio tearing immigrant families apart for sadistic spectacle? It is coming. Every single Ohio Republican member of Congress voted for it, while showering billi...

Boots on the ground in America

Ohio Statehouse, Congressional Republicans embrace handouts for the rich, cuts for working families • Ohio Capital Journal The saying used to be, "As Ohio goes, so goes the nation." Now it might as well be, as Ohio’s MAGA conformists in Congress go, transferring resources from the poor and middle class to the rich, so goe...

A perfect microcosm of budgeted greed at great expense…

Children of immigrants made Ohio what it is. Constitutional birthright citizenship made it possible • Ohio Capital Journal The story of Ohio is the story of immigrants. Throughout the 20th Century, those born to immigrant parents in the U.S. had birthright citizenship. The U.S. Constitution affirms that unconditional righ...

American by birth

Opinion | Allegations that Jim Jordan ignored sexual abuse resurface in new HBO documentary Multiple OSU wrestlers say in “Surviving Ohio State” that when they were subjected to serial sexual assaults by a team doctor, Jordan wasn’t there for them.

www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

Former Ohio U.S. Sen. JD Vance just can't stop trolling, gaslighting, and flip-flopping • Ohio Capital Journal Why does he do it? Why does Ohio’s former U.S. senator keep damning himself with snarky provocations and self-evident lies? How difficult is it for JD Vance to be respectful, instead of derogatory, ho...

Ohio’s cringe-maker

'Christian' lobbyists embrace Ohio Republican budget that guts programs to help the poor and hungry • Ohio Capital Journal The Ohio Republican Senate budget guts efforts to bring down infant death rates, to help with child care, to fight hunger, to help middle-and low-income families with the costs of raising kids. Regard...

Where’s the humanity?

National, Ohio Republican budgets prioritize corporate welfare and donor handouts over Ohio families • Ohio Capital Journal Budget bills being shepherded through Congress and the Ohio Statehouse by Republicans are a reflection of priorities. Not working Ohio families or everyday people, but lavish corporate welfare and red...

Let them eat cake…

While Republicans shred the First Amendment and rule of law, Democrats in Ohio and elsewhere dawdle • Ohio Capital Journal Freedom of speech, assembly, and due process are being shredded in real time by the felon-in-chief as Republicans on Capitol Hill do nothing. Meanwhile, Democrats in Ohio and elsewhere continue to dit...

Demure Democrats don’t get it.

House budget document will hurt Ohioans • Ohio Capital Journal Commentary: The Ohio House's budget proposal was about advancing the hard-right priorities of powerful politicians who answer to big money – not constituents in gerrymandered voting districts, writes ...

The Ohio version of Project 2025

Pope Francis' final message, lost on JD Vance, was to welcome those different from ourselves • Ohio Capital Journal On his final day, Pope Francis made a powerful call for mercy and kindness for those “who are different than ourselves. ... What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal di...

The papal message JD Vance spurns…

Ohioans showed this past weekend they will not go quietly into subjugation and impoverishment • Ohio Capital Journal Ohioans showed up in mass throughout the state this past weekend, from deep red Ohio counties to solid blue urban strongholds to suburban swing districts, to show that they will not go quietly into su...

Rising up from deep red counties to solid blue strongholds…

Republican playbook in Ohio mirrors Trump's union-busting and attacks on voters and education • Ohio Capital Journal Chilling freedom of speech in education with legal and financial threats, union-busting of public workers, attacking voter access to the ballot box by lying about fraud and claiming you're "restoring ...

ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/04/01/ Eyes wide open

Hundreds show up to town hall worried sick over federal cuts but Ohio GOP congressman a no-show • Ohio Capital Journal Nearly 200 Ohioans filled a community center in Norwalk last week, worried sick federal cuts and harm being done to farmers, veterans, and access to health care by Elon Musk and President Trump. The l...

Another Republican no-show in Ohio

Republicans in Ohio and nationally are waging war on freedom of thought and expression in higher ed • Ohio Capital Journal We have seen dictatorial regimes throughout history attempt to destroy great institutions of higher learning that fail to sufficiently align themselves with the ruling ideology of the state. But we’ve...

ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/03/18/r...