News

The future of energy generation in Ohio hangs in the balance with House Bill 6(HB6) and May 22 and 23 saw some pivotal events in the saga of this bill. Protests and hearings laid out two very different paths Ohio could go down, one filled with nuclear contamination and countless tons of waste, the other with clean energy from wind and solar. The proposed law would add a charge to every Ohioan's electric bill in order to bail out the Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear plants. These crumbling, leaking plants can no longer compete in terms of price with wind, solar, or gas generation. Initially, the bill tried to pass itself off as a pro-environmental bill. The official title states that it  was intended "to create the Ohio Clean Air Program, to facilitate and encourage electricity production and use from clean air resources..." and never actually mentioned nuclear power. However, it quickly became clear that restrictions on how generation sources could access money from the charges meant that most of the money would go to First Energy to bail out their failing nuclear plants. Wind farms and solar fields would not be eligible.

While the politicians dither over universal health care versus single payer versus the current Republican prescription for all non-millionaires (Get Sick & Die Quick), medical debt is still the number one cause of American family bankruptcies.

Throughout the US, people are forced every day to choose between medical care and food, shelter, and supporting their children.

At this point there’s no indication there’ll be an easy victory to bring the US in sync with the rest of the civilized world in providing decent health coverage.

But one back-door guerrilla campaign is being waged to lessen some of the pain. A group called RIP Medical Debt has thus far helped retire around $434,000,000 owed by about a quarter-million Americans. With some $750,000,000,000 in nationwide indebtedness to medical providers and their secondary bill collectors, it might seem like a drop in the bucket. But for those who are helped, it can mean a new life.

From 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. on May 9th, about 50 activists and community members gathered outside of Franklin County Government Center to stand in solidarity with Masonique Saunders, the teenager whose boyfriend, Julius Tate Jr., was murdered by Columbus Police Department. In the meantime inside the courthouse, Saunders accepted a plea deal to avoid being charged with felony murder as an adult.

Justice Harley, a core organizer in Coalition to Free Masonique has been a member of the organization since January. They briefed the protestors after coming back from the court that Saunders pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter and a couple aggravated robbery charges. She pled guilty to a crime she did not commit. She could be incarcerated for 3 years. The sentencing will occur at a late date.

“She thought she had to admit to something she didn’t do. She was put in this position by a system that doesn’t value black lives. That is actively hostile towards them in fact,” said Harley. “She is 17. She will be in prison until she is 20. Think about the mental and emotional toll this will take on her.”

COLUMBUS, OH:  Today, the Ohio House of Representatives adopted its 2020-2021 budget with provisions that prohibit anyone, including local governments, from enforcing recognized legal rights for ecosystems.

The political maneuver is a direct response to the historic Lake Erie Bill of Rights passed by Toledo voters in February. That law recognizes legally enforceable rights for Erie, the 11th largest lake on the planet. It made national and international news.

At a time when the United Nations is reporting “unprecedented” rates of species extinction, such political strong arming to repress efforts to address the global crisis is in keeping with the state’s actions since 2014. 

Cincinnati, OH – On May 11, 2019, at 10:30am, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center will host “Community Conversations: US Deportations and Modern-Day Slavery in Mauritania.” We encourage the widest attendance possible at this event, to spread awareness about a tragedy currently befalling Ohio families and the human rights abuses taking place in Mauritania today.  

In April, Julian Assange, the controversial founder and publisher of WikiLeaks, was arrested in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for what appears to be trumped up charges regarding classified information that Wikileaks published in 2010. While there’s been no shortage of big news in recent months, as often tends to be the case in our hyper-partisan, 24-hour news cycle, the most important aspects of the Assange story have been misrepresented by the mainstream media and partisan hacks on both sides.

First and foremost, everyone needs to realize that while Assange is certainly a tendentious figure who provokes a variety of feelings, the charges brought against him by the U.S. in this particular instance are because Chelsea Manning supposedly asked Assange for help cracking a government password back in 2010. While Assange originally agreed to help Manning with the hack, he subsequently failed at doing so, making the charge even more frivolous, so much so that the Obama administration actually decided not to prosecute Assange for the same thing. So, the fact that these charges are being brought forward now has several journalists scratching their heads.

Last month, Ohio governor Mike DeWine signed controversial Senate Bill 23into law. The law, which bans abortion as soon as six-weeks into a pregnancy, is an almost total ban on the procedure, as many people do not even know that they are pregnant by six weeks. While the bill does include an exception in the case a pregnant person’s life is at risk, there are no exceptionsfor rape and incest included in the legislation.

Farmer-tanned golfers smoking cigars and swigging beer are gleefully swatting their ball in and around the Octagon Earthworks, built 2,000 years ago by Native Americans in what is now Newark.

The Octagon is arguably a massive lunar temple considering it tracks the moon’s major cycle of 18.6 years. Some experts believe it is twice as precise as Stonehenge and equally impressive as the Great Pyramid. Nevertheless, the Octagon has been besieged by a private golf course for over 100 years.

The Free Press and others have witnessed golfers tee off on the Octagon’s mounds instead of designated tees. The golfers also drive their carts on the mounds themselves. Such blasphemy would inspire many Native Americans to call on their moon goddess Hanwi to smoke them into oblivion.

However, ending golf at the Octagon could soon be a reality, where it will be open to the public and restored to its prehistoric glory as a ceremonial pilgrimage site built by the Hopewell culture (100 BC to 500 AD).

Three years after their building burned down, Columbus KTC Buddhist Meditation Center began their rebuilding. On Sunday, April 7, they held a ceremony to bless the land where their original building stood in Franklinton. The event was led by a contingent of lamas from Karma Triyana Dharmachakra, KTC’s home monastery in Woodstock, New York. The lamas led the assembled members of KTC in a litany of Tibetan prayers and then blessed the land with traditional rituals.

The official groundbreaking followed with Lama Kathy Wesley, KTC’s resident teacher; Kim Miracle, Board President; and Peter Macrae, new building architect, turning the first shovelfuls of dirt. The event marked the end of a long period of fundraising that showed the center’s commitment to staying in Franklinton, where they’ve been since 1990. They plan to be in their new building by this time next year.

All the cool politicians are backing it; President Trump is mocking it: it’s the Green New Deal. The Democratic Socialists (DSA) spring issue of Democratic Left is totally dedicated to reporting on the Green New Deal. Perhaps DSA’s most famous member currently is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), or as Time magazine calls her on its cover, “The Phenom.”

It was AOC more than any other elected official who brought the Green New Deal into vogue. First, a week after the 2018 midterm election, the Sunrise Movement held a sit-in over climate change at Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office. Representative Ocasio-Cortez stopped in to chat up and support he demonstrators. Soon after, she went beyond that as she introduced House Resolution 109 – the Green New Deal – in the newly seated 116th U.S. Congress. Senator Markey (D-MA) introduced similar legislation with Senate Resolution 59. Their legislation reveals that the Green New Deal in essence is a jobs stimulus program centered around solving the problems of climate chaos and economic inequality.