CINCINNATI – In the mid-1300s, the Black Death became the most devastating pandemic in history, killing 75 million people worldwide (25 million in Europe alone). Differences between Christianity and Judaism led to the social ostracism of the Jewish people so, as the Times of Israel has put it, “People looking for reasons to hate the Jews didn’t have to look very hard.” A myth developed that the king of Tunisia, some lepers and the Jews had conspired to destroy Christianity by poisoning the wells with a concoction made of lizards, spiders, frogs, human hearts, urine and sacred hosts. The result was the slaughter of tens of thousands of Jews and the destruction of over 200 Jewish communities.

Several Republican former leaders from around Ohio are coming out in support of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Tim Ryan as they condemn the actions of former President Donald Trump.

With November’s election looming, a group of Republicans are hitting the campaign trail this week. But instead of stumping for the GOP, they’ll be encouraging voters to back the Democrat, Tim Ryan, in Ohio’s race for U.S. Senate.

A group of five lifelong Republicans gathered in Cincinnati on Wednesday to call on Ohioans to vote for Democrat Tim Ryan over Republican J.D. Vance in November’s US Senate election.

On Don Lemon Tonight, Lemon aired a segment, in which CNN assembled a group of people of varying political ideologies to discuss President Biden’s Wednesday town hall. And one participant stood out from the rest. Phil Heimlich, a Republican who voted for Biden, aired plenty of grievances about former President Donald Trump, and the disturbing behavior he’s seen from those representing his party.

Heimlich’s first order of contention was with the fact that so many Republican lawmakers are trying to whitewash the reality of the violent insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

I’ve noticed a disturbing trend around the world: A leader is democratically elected and then gradually transforms his country into a dictatorship.

With the president now infected with the novel coronavirus, there isn’t much in this election year that can be described as “normal.” But among the most abnormal is that a group of lifelong Republicans — political strategists for Republican candidates for the last 30 years — have banded together to mount a rogue offensive aimed at defeating the sitting president of their own party.

It’s OK to vote for Joe Biden if you’re a conservative-leaning Republican who wants a change from Donald Trump.

That’s the message that “Operation Grant,” the Ohio-focused collaboration between two national anti-Trump organizations, brought to Toledo and its swingy suburbs less than a month from Election Day.

Named for Ohio-born President Ulysses S. Grant, a Civil War general who led the nation during the Reconstruction era, Operation Grant is a partnership between Republican Voters Against Trump and the Lincoln Project. The latter was founded with John Weaver, a former advisor to former Gov. John Kasich and a prominent Never Trumper, who endorsed Mr. Biden at the Democratic convention.