News
Tuesday, December 22, 2020 was the last day for meetings at the Ohio Statehouse, with the full senate scheduled to meet in the afternoon to pass any remaining legislation. Only one committee was scheduled to meet in the morning – the Ohio Senate Energy and Public Utilities Committee. And the committee had only one item on their agenda – Ohio House Bill 104.
HB 104 had passed the Ohio House in June with a vote of 80-11. All Republicans voted yes, and all the nay votes were from Democrats. Why 22 Democrats would vote in favor of this Republican-sponsored boondoggle has its opponents stymied.
Opposing this bizarre nuclear subsidy was a long struggle, lasting over 2 years and continuing until the very last minute. And the way it was sneaked through the legislature, managing to move along with an extremely low profile, and popping up unexpectedly, is nearly unique in the long history of outrageous Ohio legislation.
In 10 poorly-written pages, reduced from 34, House Bill 104 laid out obligations for the state that would have:
Donald Trump has summoned the first violent fascist attack on the American government, which is now under way.
Thousands of Trump-inspired neo-nazi attackers have physically assaulted the Capitol with the explicit goal of stopping the Electoral College from certifying the election of Joe Biden to be the next President of the United States.
In US history, this is the first physical attempt by fascist forces to overthrow American democracy by force.
Under Trump’s direction, law enforcement has been virtually absent. Had this been a Black Lives Matter assault, or one coming from the Peace Movement, the Capitol grounds would be littered with dead bodies.
Media reports now indicate a woman has been shot and seriously wounded.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump has issued feeble tweets and is now allegedly calling out the National Guard.
Stay tuned….
[BREAKING NEWS UPDATE 1.4.2020: A UK court ruled today Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange is not psychologically fit to face extradition to the United States, as he is a suicide risk, but endorsed the US prosecutor's legal theory that effectively criminalizes journalistic activity anywhere in the world. The US intends to appeal the ruling, and the UK is keeping Assange detained until the outcome of the appeal. Amnesty International put out the statement: "We welcome the fact that Julian Assange will not be sent to the USA, but this does not absolve the UK from having engaged in this politically-motivated process at the behest of the USA and putting media freedom and freedom of expression on trial."]
Former Wikileaks Editor and co-founder Julian Assange faces a UK court ruling Monday January 4th on his extradition to the US for journalistic work published overseas.
Columbus, OH) January 2, 2020 - Late in the evening of December 31, 2020, an unidentified shooter fired a single shot into the home of the family of Casey Goodson, Jr. as the family of Mr. Goodson was returning home from church and attempting to bring in the new year together, the bullet entered their home near the front door, nearly hitting one of Tamala Payne’s sons.
“We celebrated Christmas without Casey, but Jason Meade was home with his family. We tried to celebrate the New Year, missing Casey, and we were attacked in our home while Jason Meade was safe at home with his family,” Tamala Payne, Casey Goodson Jr.’s mother said. “Whatever their intent was, I want everyone to know we are unafraid and undeterred in our pursuit of justice for Casey.”
The website Whodoyouserve.org, also referred to as “Serve Us,” is once again being vindicated for what it reveals in the wake of the recent police shooting of Andre Hill: that the Columbus Division of Police could be one of the most undisciplined and unaccountable police departments in the nation, and that Hill’s killer, officer Adam Coy, should have been fired early in his career.
The website came about in June after a group of anonymous activists made a public records request for all citizen complaints against the division from January of 2001 to July of 2020.
The City of Columbus promptly handed over a spreadsheet listing nearly 25,000 citizen complaints or allegations. No surprise is the spreadsheet is vague and extremely limited in detail. For a complaint’s disposition or final outcome, most of the time only a single word is given, such as “unfounded” or “sustained” or “exonerated.”
The Columbus immigrant who is a key witness in a federal civil rights suit alleging excessive force by corrections officers at the notorious Butler County jail was indeed deported back to his native Africa even though a federal judge had ruled U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)to keep him in America.
Mory Keita, a 34-year-old long-time Columbus resident and father to a three-year-old daughter, had been detained at the ICE-contracted jail just north of Cincinnati and set to testify against corrections officers accused of beating and verbally abusing African and Muslim detainees. One allegation says a detainee in September was thrown down a stairs by a corrections officer who said, “I hope you die bitch.”
“Mory is a first-hand witness to two brutal assaults against other African men detained for ICE in the Butler County jail. It’s no wonder ICE wants to disappear and silence him,” says Ohio Immigrant Alliance director Lynn Tramonte who has an uncanny ability of getting information out of Ohio’s ICE-contracted jails.
Immigration activists from across the state claim U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)recently attempted to deport a Columbus resident who is an immigrant from Africa because he’s a key witness in a federal civil rights lawsuit against the ICE-contracted jail in Butler County.
The suit alleges correction officers at the Butler County jail, notorious for its treatment of immigrants, have beaten and verbally abused African and Muslim immigrant detainees with racial and religious slurs.
The allegations came to light after 50 detainees were able to sign and forward a letter to the Ohio Immigrant Alliance in October, which can be viewed here.
Part of the letter reads, “We the ICE detainees are afraid for our lives because it seems that the lawlessness of the Butler County jail is the norm which includes extremely poor treatment of detainees including but not limited to physical abuse.”
1. One company benefits from HB 104. The original version of HB 104and its predecessor HB 771tell a more complete story of the actors behind this bill. A single small private entity, eGeneration of Cleveland, had a heavy hand in writing the bill and is its major beneficiary. Language on their website confirmed this.
The snow had just finished melting and he had picked up a sandwich from Subway on his way home where his family was waiting his return.
His keys were in the door, with the sandwich and a mask in hand, when he was allegedly shot in the back three times by Franklin County Sheriff deputy Jason Meade. Goodson’s five-year old brother found him lying on the floor in his kitchen.
The latest local officer-involved shooting highlights a disconnect between and inside city leadership and law enforcement. Both claiming to want to earn trust while protecting and serving the community, yet when faced with something like the killing of Casey Goodson, these goals appear to be abandoned. Not only because another Columbus resident has been killed by police, but also the messy investigation of his death that has followed.
The Investigation
DECEMBER 6, 2020 - The family of Casey Christopher Goodson, Jr. demands answers after Casey was shot and killed by a police officer on December 4, 2020. Casey was an amazing young man whose life was tragically taken after bein gconfronted by a Franklin County Sheriff’s Deputy who was working with the US Marshal’s Southern Ohio Fugitive Task Force. Casey was not a target of that task force and his death is completely unrelatedt to that investigation. While police claim that Casey drove by, waving a gun, and was confronted by the deputy after exiting his vehicle, that narrative leaves out key details that raise cause for extreme concern.