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Much has been printed concerning the “data-scrubbing” scandal in the Columbus City Schools (CCS) district. Less has been revealed about the more blatant criminal theft and misappropriation of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) tutoring funds. As a result of the Tuesday, January 27 release of State Auditor David Yost’s long-awaited report on student data tampering, four principals were immediately fired and Columbus Schools data czar Steve Tankovich may be facing possible criminal charges. Yost also told reporters that former Columbus Schools Superintendent Gene Harris may have known about the illegal activity: “There’s a reasonable inference, at least based on our interviews that she was at least aware of what was going on.” Yost is sending the information he gathered in the data tampering scandal to the Columbus City Attorney’s, Franklin County Prosectutor’s and the U.S. Attorney’s offices.

The sweeping Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act could bring an end to the resource war that’s ravaged the eastern mining regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo for the last decade and a half, this according to the Enough Project, a Washington-based non-profit that seeks to end genocide. Signed into law by the Obama administration in 2010, Dodd-Frank was passed in response to the financial crisis of 2008 which led to the “Great Recession.” Many of Dodd-Frank regulations are targeted toward American banks and other financial institutions that took too much risk with other people’s money, nearly collapsing the world’s economy. Supporters of Dodd-Frank claim the law finally brings regulation and transparency to hedge funds while also establishing regulatory agencies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, tasked with preventing predatory mortgage lending. Dodd-Frank is being described as the most comprehensive effort to reform Wall Street since the Great Depression. But whether the law actually checks Wall Street greed is meant to be seen.

On January 14, the Federal Appeals Court for the District of Columbia struck down a Communications Commission rule that guaranteed what is called “net neutrality.” The rule prohibited internet providers from blocking internet traffic to consumers based on content or bandwidth or charging consumers a greater fee to access content. The split decision by the court in favor of Verizon and MetroPCS had additional support in the form of briefs from right­wing lobbying groups and the conservative former Attorney General of Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli. Cuccinelli had filed friends of the court briefs to assist the appellants in their case. The court leaned heavily on a similar decision in 2010 in favor of ComCast, that prompted renewed rules prohibiting the blocking of internet traffic based on content. Verizon brought the new lawsuit that asks to charge both the internet subscriber for access and the content providers for access to the subscribers.

What do you do if a grassroots citizens' coalition is gaining traction to enact good government reforms? If you're in charge at Columbus City Hall, you challenge the reforms to keep them off the ballot based on procedural and technical issues and you recruit your own “grassroots” organizer to carry water for you. The Columbus Coalition for Responsive Government filed enough signatures on petitions to place two initiatives on the May 2014 ballot -- a citywide campaign finance reform issue and a call for a vote to repeal the publicly funded Nationwide Arena bailout. The Franklin County Board of Elections has indicated that the legal system has typically supported allowing initiatives on the ballot, indicating that any legal or technical issues should later sorted out in court. One of the challenges to the initiatives points out that one warning sentence was not printed in red ink at the top of each petition. It was instead printed in black. Printing the sentence in red is not required by the city charter, only at the state level.

Organizers are gearing up for a march that will go from Los Angeles to Washington DC to call attention to the need for serious, immediate action to stave off a looming, deadly climate change catastrophe. The Great March for Climate Action is the brainchild of former progressive Iowa state legislator turned talk show host Ed Fallon, who identified the climate crisis as the most serious challenge facing humanity. Eight organizers have been hired to oversee the March and its logistics. Called the Climate March for short, it starts, appropriately, on March 1, 2014. Marchers will undergo eight months of heat, cold, wind, sun, rain, mountainous terrain, blisters and insects—all for an incredibly rewarding, life-changing adventure meeting and educating people and policymakers along the way. Marchers will walk around 15 miles per day and tent camp at night. The distance is very doable in comparison with a 20 or more mile per day walk. The March will go through Phoenix, Albuquerque, Taos, Denver, Omaha, Des Moines and Chicago. The route will go through Northwest Ohio to Toledo and along Lake Erie to Cleveland and then to Youngstown.

Next Tuesday, January 21 is the fourth anniversary of the United States Supreme Court Citizens United vs. FEC decision, a key decision in the expansion of personhood rights for corporations. Coordinated by Move to Amend of Central Ohio, a number of local groups will hold a gathering to rally public support in opposition to this decision. The rally is scheduled from 11am until 2pm. The activities will start at the ProgressOhio offices at 172 E. State St. near N. 4th St. at 11:00am in downtown Columbus with socializing and networking followed by a feed to hear national MTA spokesperson, David Cobb at 11:30. After the online conversation with Cobb, at around noon, attendees will march to the West side of the Ohio Statehouse on High Street near the McKinley statue to be addressed by local speakers supporting the opposition to Citizens United. Prominent among the speakers are Pat Marida of Sierra Club addressing environmental effects of corporate personhood and Jon Beard of the Columbus Coalition for Responsive Government.

“Sex is like snow, you never know how many inches you're going to get or how long it will last.” Sexapalooza returns to Columbus this weekend for three days of bawdy entertainment and a unique shopping experience. Starting Friday and running through Sunday at Franklin County Veterans Memorial, Sexapalooza offers a safe yet titillating environment dedicated to entertaining and educating visitors on all aspects of sex and sexuality. Enjoy stage shows and learn new sex “how tos” and tips at seminars given by professionals in the adult industry. Highlights will include burlesque, male erotic dancers, body painted models, bondage bed demos and more. This will be the third time the sex expo has been presented in Columbus, the first city in the United States for the Canada-based enterprise. Liz Lewis, the event promoter, said after holding Sexapalooza shows in Ottawa, Toronto and other Canadian cities, Columbus seemed a good fit. “There were a number of things I looked for and also the facility was open to having me,” Lewis said. “They were great to work with, they've been very welcoming.

The roll call of U.S. Sailors who say their health was devastated when they were irradiated while delivering humanitarian help near the stricken Fukushima nuke is continuing to soar. So many have come forward that the progress of their federal class action lawsuit has been delayed. Petitions on their behalf are now circulating worldwide at www.nukefree.org and elsewhere. Bay area lawyer Charles Bonner says a re-filing will wait until early February to accommodate a constant influx of sailors from the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and other American ships. Within a day of Fukushima One’s March 11, 2011, melt-down, American “first responders” were drenched in radioactive fallout.

The Problem Over forty years after the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision established abortion to be a constitutional right, the state of Ohio has begun to deny women their ability to exercise it. Three abortion clinics were shuttered in 2013, with more facing closure soon. Within the span of a few years, access may be virtually nonexistent. Toledo is likely to be the first major metropolitan area in the state without an abortion provider. One clinic, Capital Care Network, has received orders to shut down and remains open pending a hearing with the Ohio Department of Health. Their chances of remaining open after the hearing are slim to none, although the move has bought some time. The other clinic, the Center For Choice, closed in June after operating for thirty years. It had survived constant harassment, anthrax scares and even being firebombed. It could not, however, survive the smothering bureaucracy thrust onto it by a state government determined to scale back women's rights by half a century. The Process The systematic dismantling of abortion access in Ohio has been an ongoing project of the Republican-led state legislature for some time.

Concerned residents of the Village of Yellow Springs held a community forum to better understand and discuss the merits of a proposed $1 million bond issue to support infrastructure for a business park on the edge of that storied Ohio town. The proposed “Center for Business and Education” has been in the works for more than a decade, and has drawn public funding for private development through a non-official community development corporation with strong ties to the village government and a small group of local business interests. A group of residents have aligned themselves to fight public funding for the project through a ballot referendum should a bond issue be passed. The group is concerned that a small number of well-connected residents stand to profit from the development while the public assumes the up front cost risks as debt. About 50 village residents gathered to hear local commercial real estate professionals give a overall negative forecast for the profitability of the project.