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This article first appeared on The Buckeye Flame.

With a unprecedented rise in anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-transgender legislation across the country, out LGBTQ+ candidates faced a range of political climates in their own communities.

While some candidates reported intense anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment, other experienced overwhelming community support.

In total, 15 out LGBTQ+ Ohioans ran for public office in the 2024 general election, campaigning to represent voters in major cities and small villages and townships across the state.

Bobbie Brooke Arnold

Ohio State Representative, District 40

Bobbie Brooke Arnold lost her campaign to represent Ohioans in District 40 to incumbent and conservative Republican Rep. Rodney Creech (West Alexandria). 

Sofia Orr, 19, is an Israeli teenager who chose jail over enlisting in the Israeli Death Forces (IDF). Before turning 19, Sofia was jailed three times for refusing to enlist in mandatory military service and spending her time in Neve Tzedek, which is a military prison in Tel Aviv, in protest of the ongoing Israeli war and genocide in Gaza. She believes the two sides "have to exist" and that "revenge is not the answer." This brave Israeli teenager made it loud and clear that she would continue resisting even if the government extended her jail time because it was the right thing to do. Finally, after spending 85 days in prison, Orr was recognized as a conscientious objector. 

Long before the Israeli war on Gaza and when Sofia was 15, she made up her mind not to serve in the military because, to her, the occupation and the war on Gaza and the West Bank was and is still enough reason to refuse and she would rather work advocating for peace.   

Democrat and City of Columbus councilmember Shayla Favor is on the precipice of making history. Favor is about to become the first African American and woman to lead the Franklin County Prosecutor’s Office, and the first Black woman in the state to hold this position.

And not a moment too soon. In a recent interview with WOSU, she said she will hire more people of color. No doubt the lack of diversity in the Prosecutor’s Office, which is being vacated by Democrat Gary Tyack, is confounding. Out of 130 attorneys, only 11 are minorities.

Favor as many know is aligned with Columbus’s “establishment Dems.” Former Mayor Michael Coleman was on stage with her when she announced her candidacy.

She should win handedly against her Republican opponent, John Rutan, who is candid about his own past criminal behavior, as he served time in jail for assault when he was in college. He also told WOSU: “God gave us the death penalty to utilize for evil spirits…And so I’d use them all day long.”

COTA’s LinkUS levy (Issue 47) could dramatically change Columbus’s transportation culture, but areas desperately in need of LinkUS’s accordion buses or other solutions may have to wait years before massive traffic messes and congestion is alleviated.

A LinkUS spokesperson last month insisted to the Free Press their levy was mostly about getting residents to good paying jobs. Especially those who don’t have a car or are averse to commuting by car.

And not a moment too soon. On a recent sunny weekday afternoon near Rickenbacker Airport, home to thousands of warehouse distribution jobs, hundreds of commuters were lined up and bottlenecked on Alum Creek Drive’s one lane out of the area at Grove Port Road leading to the two 270 exits just a few hundred feet from this intersection. Even so, the never-ending line of cars suggests quitting time near Rickenbacker may be more tiresome to the hardworking warehouse employees than their actual shift.

Oct. 15, 2024

For many years we, and others, have been analyzing “Unadjusted Exit Polls” (UEP) for US Elections.  These are exit polls that result from asking voters who have already voted who they supported. A state’s UEP results are shown by the journalistic organizations sponsoring the exit poll at the time the state’s polls are scheduled to close.

These UEPs are distinct from the “Adjusted Exit Polls” (AEPs) that are widely reported in the US after UEPs are adjusted to match official vote outcomes hours after the polls close. It should be noted that this universal US practice of conflating UEPs with AEPs is not generally replicated in other countries.

This article first appeared on the Ohio Capital Journal

As it sought a massive, corrupt bailout in Ohio, Akron-based FirstEnergy also spent lavishly on Trump-aligned dark money groups and at hotels and golf courses owned by the former president, a new report said this week.

Trump and his aides wanted to provide a federal bailout for the company’s coal and nuclear plants, but they hit a brick wall — first in the form of a regulator, and then by public opposition to corporate bailouts, the report said.

America’s Supreme death penalty hypocrisy must end before more innocents are murdered. Six “pro-life” US High Court “Justices” have shrugged at the death of Marcellus Williams, a horrific sentence cavalierly imposed September 24 in Missouri.

Williams forever proclaimed his innocence. The family of the alleged victim joined his in begging that he not be executed. Numerous judicial players on the many sides of this lethal travesty asked that he be spared. Procedural, evidentiary and common sense holes in the case left more than ample room to further explore the obvious defects in the prosecution and sentencing.

But this MAGA Court, like so many Trumpist lovers of the death penalty, believes itself to be Divinely ordained beyond all decency and law. The level of dishonesty is cosmic. By 6-3 the Court has robbed millions of women of rightful control over their own bodies. Proclaiming the “sanctity of life,” these murderous “justices" are more than willing to let women die for lack of medical care. Their melodramatic concern for “the unborn” does not extend to women unable protect their bodies in cases of rape, incest or accidental pregnancies.

A Florida resident named Isaac Menasche received a home visit this September from a police officer asking whether he’d signed a petition for a ballot measure.

The petition, which Menasche had indeed signed, was for a November initiative overturning a strict abortion ban that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed last year. Now the governor is attempting to discredit those signatures using state-funded cops. According to the Tampa Bay Times, state law enforcement officers have visited the homes of other signers as well.

Background

The Ohio Coalition to End Qualified Immunity (OCTEQI) has been actively working to place a constitutional amendment on the Ohio ballot to end qualified immunity for government officials. This summer their efforts have faced significant legal hurdles, primarily centered around the case of Cynthia Brown vs. Dave Yost, the Ohio Attorney General. Brown is director for the OCTEQI, her leadership inspired by her 30-year-old nephew Kareem Ali Nadir Jones who in 2017 was approached by Columbus police for no good reason, shot in the back and killed.

The Petition Process

This article first appeared on the Buckeye Flame.

Bans on conversion therapy on minors now cover 25% of the state’s population.

After doing some research on the topic during summer break, Lorain City Council unanimously approved an ordinance to ban conversion therapy on minors during the council’s regular meeting on Sept. 3. 

“It was a great thing to do for the young people in our community,” said Council-at-large member Mary Springowski after the vote. Springowski had dedicated the ordinance to her brother Seán Donovan, who died in 2006 from an HIV-related illness. “I’m very glad that the council got on board with this.”