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You just got off of work and need to stop at a place where you can make a bank deposit, pick up a gallon of milk, find a new blouse for your interview the next day and printer ink so you can print off your child’s permission slip for his class activity.
Where can you accomplish all of these tasks at one place? Walmart. That’s right, Walmart the place where you can “Save money” and “Live better.” I’m not going to get into the “save money” aspect of their motto because I personally don’t believe that their food prices are lower than any other food chain.
What I’m going to focus on is the “live better” aspect of Walmart. Walmart has had a pro-gun stance since April of 2011. They have sold rifles and ammunition in half of their stores, which is about four thousand stores give or take a few, and they sell handguns and assault rifles in Alaska. You can go to Walmart’s website under “home defense and recreation” and find guns that are manufactured for law enforcement and the military force. These are weapons that civilians can order on-line every day.
Privatization is becoming the policy de joure at Ohio State University, but students and university employees are left out of the discussions.
As OSU’s leadership has shifted, many community members have become concerned about drastic changes in student life and operations, like the new sophomore on-campus housing requirement and the recent parking privatization deal. The OSU administration has touted great success with the parking privatization, but how much is propaganda and talking points?
Now OSU has turned to privatizing campus energy services. Few details were shared with the public about the parking deal, like how savings were spent or how the university’s mission has been better served. Similar concerns are echoed in the current energy privatization deal.
Columbus is neither Steel City nor Motor City – places where one industry dominates the economic landscape. Ohio State University has dominated Central Ohio’s economic landscape. Stakeholders and residents here have benefitted from a growing university and more income streams.
On Tuesday, March 15 nearly 64% of Toledo’s citizens voted YES on ISSUE 1 in support of a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate constitutional rights and money as speech.
As a result of this initiative, Toledo will hold its first annual Democracy Day in 2017 - a public hearing on the corrupting influence of moneyed interests in politics that the Mayor and at least one member of City Council must attend. Afterward, the Mayor is required by law each year to send a letter to our elected representatives in Congress on our behalf urging them to pass a Constitutional amendment declaring that corporations are not people and political contributions are not free speech (meaning they can be capped/regulated).
Since my last article, a mere four months ago, I was lamenting Responsible Ohio’s crash and burn 66-34% defeat on Election Night 2015. Good grief! After a year of twists and turns and ups and downs and ins and outs, it was hard to believe that this $25 million-dollar campaign to legalize marijuana in Ohio could fail so miserably. Some said RO’s loss was the end of marijuana in Ohio, some said just wait for something better in 2016, some said the election results smelled funny.
If 2015 was a rollercoaster in Ohio cannabis reform, 2016 portends to be even more bizarre. Don’t believe me? Let’s look at just the four months since RO’s defeat in CannaTime:
November 3, 2015:Election Day. Responsible Ohio badly loses its bid to legalize marijuana in Ohio. Stunned, RO’s raucous Executive Director Ian James declares in his election night speech, we’ll be back! Definitely on the 2016 ballot.
November 4, 2015:No, it can’t be true! Well, maybe it isn’t. Implausible irregularities in RO’s 66-34% loss are detected.
It’s Monday night at Dempsey’s, a perennial Democratic Party meet-up spot in downtown Columbus. The Ohio presidential primary is five weeks away. Powerful members of the Franklin County Democratic Central Committee are meeting to plot strategy against an unprecedented grassroots attack upon the Party’s ward leaders. The ward leaders are the ones responsible for the official Party candidate endorsements.
Even more unfathomable than a populist revolt among local Dems is what’s going on in the back room at Dempsey’s. The room is packed with political supporters of a 74-year-old self-proclaimed “democratic Socialist” – an independent Senator from Vermont running for president. Many are doing electoral major party politics for the first time and were unaware of the local powerbrokers they just squeezed past. The folks in the back room all have one thing in common – they’re feeling the Bern.
Tuesday March 15 is just around the corner and the national media hordes will be descending into central Ohio, the swing region in the swing state, to cover the presidential primary.
On the Democratic side, the slugfest between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders will be coming to a head with Sanders needing a victory to overcome Clinton's growing lead..
Former Gov. Ted Strickland is also on the ballot, trying to fend off challenger and Cincinnati councilman P.G. Sittenfeld for the U.S. Senate Democratic nomination. Ordinarily, Strickland, well-known and well-liked by Ohio Democrats, would be home free against a little-known newcomer, but Sittenfeld has been cozying up to the Sanders campaign and could ride a Sanders wave into contention, even an upset.
Strickland is a longtime Clinton supporter, owing her for helping him win a close race his southeast Ohio Congressional seat way back when. Strickland could be harmed and Sittenfeld helped if Clinton slumps or is wounded by the FBI investigation of her emails while secretary of state.
IMPLICATIONS FOR FRANKLIN COUNTY
City planners and everyone else for that matter are convinced Columbus is one of the fastest growing cities in the nation. Data from the US Census Bureau shows from 2013 to 2014 the region grew by 25,000 residents, and many more are said to be on the way. The Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission or MORPC predicts Central Ohio will attract 500,000 more residents over the next 35 years.
The numbers are eye-opening and many are taking notice. Such as high-end apartment complex developers and owners who are salivating over these predicted herds.
From downtown to Franklinton, from Grandview to North Campus and into Clintonville, high-end apartment complexes are up-and-renting or being proposed. The developers and owners are inspired by predictions from MORPC and others that Columbus is one of the last Midwest boomtowns, this according to several real-estate experts interviewed by the Free Press.
Bernie Sanders' common sense proposals for dealing with universal health care, college tuition, restoring the infrastructure, confronting poverty and more have encountered predictable scorn from "fiscally responsible" corporatists.
They all scream about the "deficit spending" and tax hikes that might be required to pay for these vital programs. From predictable right-wing corporatists to Hillary Clinton ("free stuff! free stuff!" she mocks) to fictional "left-leaning economists" invented by the New York Times, numerous voices scorn Bernie’s agenda because his proposals "cost too much."
A candlelight vigil honored the life of Marshawn McCarrel, local community leader, drawing friends and fellow activists together in sadness and solidarity. "Many people spoke, sang songs and cried," said Pejmaan Irani who attended the event at Dodge Park in Franklinton on Tuesday night, February 9 at 6pm. McCarrel committed suicide on the stairs of the Ohio Statehouse on February 8 after posting "My demons won today. I'm sorry." McCarrel was 23 -years-old from Columbus' west side.
McCarrel was a well-known and liked Black Lives Matter activist. Free Press Editor Bob Fitrakis remembers him from a protest in Beavercreek following the John Crawford murder at the WalMart there. Members of the Ohio Student Association had sat in at the Sheriff's office in Beavercreek to demand answers following the police shooting of Crawford.