Another progressive coalition is seeking to repeal a new reactionary Republican election law in Ohio that targets black, elderly and poor voters.

The unions are once again the backbone of a campaign joined by various voting rights advocates to repeal Ohio House Bill 194, signed into law on July 5, 2011. The repeal coalition calls itself "Fair Election Ohio" and submitted the required 1000 signatures necessary for starting the repeal process on July 18.

Under Ohio law, approximately 232,000 valid voter signatures are needed to put a repeal issue on the ballot. A similar coalition gathered more than 800,000 valid signatures to repeal Ohio's anti-union Senate Bill 5. The Fair Election Ohio coalition is awaiting certification of its petition language by the current secretary of state. If certified, it has until September 30, 2011 to gather the additional 231,000 signatures to put the repeal on the ballot in 2012. Valid signatures by September 30 will put the law on hold until after the 2012 presidential election, according to the Columbus Dispatch.

Imagine how radically different the current debate over the Giant Debt Ceiling Monster would look if we moved it to one of those nations we're bombing into a democracy. Imagine us all still U.S. residents with the same views we have now, but imagine that our representatives in Washington, D.C., were obliged to give a damn what we thought.

Back on January 3rd, Americans expressed their first choice of action. While 3% chose to cut Social Security and 4% to cut Medicare, 20% said cut the military, and 61% said tax the rich. On January 14th, 52% said they would approve of cutting the military. Another poll, conducted January 15th to 19th, found 55% choosing to cut the military as their first choice (taxing the rich was not offered), while 21% said cut Medicare and 13% said cut Social Security.

In April, the Washington Post - ABC News found that 72% of Americans want to raise taxes on people with incomes over $250,000, while 42% say cut the military, 30% are willing to cut Medicaid, and 21% Medicare. Even Gallup says that 42% want to cut Homeland Security and 42% want to cut the military, while cutting Medicare and Social Security are at 38% and 34%.

What happens when you let Big Business regulate itself? You get fracked. Hydraulic fracturing — also known as fracking — is a controversial method of natural gas extraction that involves injecting a toxic chemical sludge into the surface of the earth until it rips open.

And it’s a case study in the dangers of letting giant corporations sidestep laws that protect our health, our investments and our environment.

Learn more about the risks of fracking, including how it could threaten your drinking water

In 2005, then-Vice President Dick Cheney got fracking exempted from laws that keep our air and water clean. That exemption — known as the “Halliburton loophole” — allows oil and gas companies to force hazardous chemicals into underground water supplies.

As if that’s not enough, the Halliburton loophole is only one of seven exemptions for the oil and gas industries from major federal environmental laws like the Clean Air Act and National Environmental Policy Act.

Leon Panetta, on his first visit to Iraq as secretary of defense last weekend, reached for a Bush moment ten years too late.
“The reason you guys are here is because on 9/11 the United States got attacked,” he said to the assembled troops at Camp Victory in Baghdad, according to the Washington Post. “And 3,000 Americans — 3,000 not just Americans, 3,000 human beings, innocent human beings — got killed because of al-Qaida. And we’ve been fighting as a result of that.”

Yeah, oops, gaffe, Mr. Secretary, right? That Iraq-al-Qaida connection thingy isn’t in the spin anymore, and Panetta’s assistant had to mop up afterwards, making sure no one misinterpreted the boss’s remarks as reopening an old “debate” by reiterating a long-abandoned lie.

Statutes of limitations for torture not resulting in death have passed. The DOJ has refused to prosecute 99 of 101 cases of torture-to-death that it looked at. Obama has long since publicly told the DOJ not to prosecute the CIA for torture. Obama's torture of Bradley Manning has been widely ignored. Rendition has been established as normal. Torturers have published confessional/bragging memoirs. Habeas corpus has been formally ended. The Bagram-Gitmo archipelago is here to stay. Torture continues in Iraq, Afghanistan, elsewhere. Assassinations have been established as the truly big new fashion. Harold Koh has replaced John Yoo as the Guy Who Will "Legalize" Anything. We've got more illegal wars going at once than ever before. Congress has practically dropped the pretense of a rule of law. The President can't clear his throat without opposing "relitigating the past," as if on the planet he comes from it is common to litigate the future. And Human Rights Watch has chosen this moment to announce that Bush and Cheney might just have been responsible for torture?