Mayor from Ohio. (Getty image file photo.)
Each morning in the Ohio Capital Journal’s free newsletter, The Eye-Opener, we round up the news and commentary from across Ohio, the country and the world that catches our attention. We call this feature Catching Our Eye and have published it here.
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Catching our eyes
• Churches. Ideastream’s Gabriel Kramer reports: “A network of churches in Greater Cleveland is demanding Citizens Bank stop funding private ICE prisons“
A network of Cleveland-area churches rallied outside a Citizens Bank branch in University Heights on Thursday, demanding the corporation cut ties with Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities.
Greater Cleveland Congregations want Citizens Financial Group to end $2.5 billion in lending arrangements with CoreCivic and GEO Group — two companies that run private prisons and ICE detention centers — according to the church network.
GCC said it will withdraw more than $1.7 million from Citizens Bank from 26 church and personal accounts in Cuyahoga County.
• Transition to nuclear energy. Cleveland.com writes: “The Disturbing Rush to Build Small Nuclear Power Plants in Ohio Without Talking About Health and Safety: Editorial“
How cleveland.comAs Anna Staver recently reported, southern Ohio will soon become a testing ground for the revival of the U.S. nuclear power industry through a “fleet of small reactors” starting in 2030.
The reason: to meet the skyrocketing electricity demand from the giant corporate data centers that have flooded Ohio thanks to disastrous and ill-conceived data center tax breaks.
But where has gone the parallel effort to provide citizens with adequate health and safety protection?
• Department of Injustice. The Toledo Blade editorial board writes: “Editorial: Justice Department leadership disturbingly illegitimate.“
The U.S. Department of Justice needs recent leadership, free from the President’s retributive obsessions.
A U.S. District Court judge appointed by the Republican Party president has condemned the subpoenas issued against Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as “blatantly unlawful.”
We have previously expressed our opinion that President Trump’s current nominee, Todd Blanche, is unqualified to be attorney general. Not because Blanche is Trump’s former personal lawyer. This is because Mr. Blanche’s actions in office reveal a man who is motivated solely by pleasing his boss, not by upholding the principles of the American justice system.
A prime example of Mr. Blanche’s inability to act in the best interests of the United States was his plan to create a $1.8 billion slush fund to pay off Trump’s election-denying thugs and prepare them to launch another attack on democracy like the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, a date that will surely remain in infamy.
