Local
This article first appeared in the Buckeye Flame
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Friday vetoed HB 68, a bill that would have banned gender-affirming care in the state of Ohio and prevented trans female athletes from participating on women’s sports team in K-12 and college athletics.
“I cannot sign this bill as it is currently written,” DeWine said, repeatedly asserting that the “government does not know better than parents.”
The Ohio legislature passed HB 68 on December 13, sending it on to DeWine for his signature. The governor had 10 days after receiving the bill to make his decision. The Republican-led state legislature needs a 3/5s vote to override the veto.
In the briefing, DeWine explained that he used those 10 days to have conversations with those affected including: bill sponsor Rep. Gary Click (R-Vickery), physicians and counselors who provide gender-affirming care, detransitioners and medical personnel he met during visits to children’s hospitals in Akron, Columbus and Cincinnati.
The Proud Boys in their bee-suits with mass-shooter guns slung over shoulders will be at the Ohio Statehouse on January 6, 2024 to commemorate the US Capitol insurrection, this according to the Ohio Right Watch of Cleveland, which is “keeping an eye on the far-right in Ohio”.
“We literally just wanted to have an event to memorialize Ashli Babbitt and show her family support and be able to simultaneously be much needed attention to J-6 political prisoners. That’s all this event is,” said Columbus resident Jay Deets in a rambling and conspiratorial video recently posted online in response to anti-fascists calling for a counter protest.
Who Deets is and what influence he has over local right-wingers is not fully known by the Free Press. But his MAGA vitriol for “antifers” is loud and clear. While his inside information that the Patriot Front and the neo-Nazi “Blood Tribe” will also show sounds legitimate.
Our organization Central Ohio Revolutionary Socialists has been suspended from OSU following our December 7th teach-in titled “Intifada, Revolution, and the Path to a Free Palestine.”
We’ve now released our full statement which you can read here.
We’re also asking our supporters to sign our Petition of Reinstatement which can be found here.
Thursday, December 28, 2023, 6-8pm
Brewcadia, 467 N. High St.
Looking for something to do with friends and family in town this month? Green Drinks Trivia is back! Join us on 12/28 from 6-8 PM at Brewcadia to celebrate the upcoming new year and get through the post-holiday slump together 
Bring your own team or come solo, just be prepared to test your environmental knowledge either way! See you there.
Invite your friends on Facebook here!
If you’ve recently dined out, you’ve noticed that single-use plastic straws are disappearing.
I have received and read a daily printed newspaper since I was learning to read more than 70 years ago. I grew up with the print edition of the Sunday New York Times, and the daily morning Pittsburgh Post Gazette and afternoon Pittsburgh Press. When I moved to Evanston, Illinois for college, there was the daily delivered Chicago Sun Times as well as the New York Times. And the equivalent in Toronto (Globe and Mail, Star), Dallas (Morning News, Times Herald), and San Antonio (Express-News).
And then we moved to Columbus, Ohio in 2004. Delivery was not a major issue until the right-wing-Heritage Foundation-supported and influenced, anti-editing and ideological USA Today/Gannett purchased the failing Columbus Dispatch from the Wolfe family. The Wolfes bled it into the red in part by never distinguishing between their own private development interests and owning the city’s only major daily newspaper.
Every Secret Isn’t a Secret
Richardson hadn’t interviewed one person who knew who Smooth really was in life. To the men he was just a “cool brother man” and to the women he showed Smooth’s picture too, he was “That’s that fine Smooth baby.” They all said they didn’t know he was the judge’s son until they read it in the Call & Post newspaper and saw his picture and his face on the local news stations.
The last lead Richardson had was from the bartender at the Colony Club on Long Street. She said that she had seen Smooth on the day of his death and that Smooth called a cab about one-thirty pm to pick him up at two pm. She knew this because he asked her to use the bar's phone to call it for him, so he didn’t have to pay a dime in the phone booth. She didn’t know where the cab was taking Smooth because he said he would tell them when they picked him up. She also remembered that Smooth had eaten lunch with a sister named Sheila that day around noon but that she was gone before the cab picked Smooth up at the bar. She said they often had lunch together there, at least once a week.
With fracking, and proposed CCS and Carbon Capture Use and Storage projects, Ohio is becoming a sacrifice zone for the fossil fuel industry.
As we close out 2023, many Ohioans are still unaware of the negative effects fracking under our state parks and public lands will have on our health, the
environment and the planet from the oil and gas industry's greenhouse and methane gas emissions, as well as toxic fracking wastewater.
Science tells us that fresh water purity and supply; air quality; destruction of plant, animal and insect habitats; as well as increased
illness for people who live near parks and public lands to be fracked are likely.
Attached are two Save Ohio Parks documents. One offers examples of comments and one with more information.
Saturday, December 23 - 8pm
Ace of Cups, 2619 N. High St. Columbus OH 43202
Ace of Cups is hosting a benefit show to raise funding for Columbus based mutual aid groups.
MASS Ohio (Mutual Aid Street Solidarity) and Heer To Serve
These organizations help provide harm reduction supplies to the community as well as resources to those experiencing houselessness.
The show will feature local friends in
The Mer-tini's
Trachete
Adios Beaches
Forever Strange
$10 suggested donation/pay what you can
All ages
We will provide direct links to donate to these organizations, their wishlists, and will have a spot to donate supplies.
The supplies they are most in need of are
Winter gear (especially socks)
Rain gear
Hand warmers
Propane tanks
Volunteers from Heer To Serve will be on site to offer extra information on how to further help and get involved.
The Senate and the White House are narrowing in on a bad deal that could codify Trump-era policies: Mass deportations, family detention, and family separation. That’s in addition to removing crucial transparency and congressional oversight of billion-dollar weapons sales.
Distressingly, the Senate could vote on this deal as soon as this week. These extremist anti-immigrant demands are straight out of Trump and Stephen Miller’s playbook — a laundry list of hateful policies we spent YEARS fighting against.