Local

On November 18th, 2023 in Oxford, Ohio, 20-year-old Devin Johnson, a student at Miami University, was arrested and charged with assault, resisting arrest, underage drinking and criminal trespassing. After the arrest the Oxford Police Department claimed it was investigating the use of force, while immediately affirming the use of force was certainly justified. This false narrative immediately planted by the Oxford police department could not be further from the truth.

In recently released videos from the patio, you see the true version of events. Not only is there a stark contrast from the aggressor the department has painted Devin Johnson as, but you also see there was no need for the use of force he received. While being held on the ground by multiple people, Oxford officer Matthew Blauvelt almost immediately began punching Devin as he was held down by other officers. 

Clintonville’s Rag-O-Rama – a hipster destination for resale clothes – shut down this past weekend, leaving employees in a lurch and another remnant of Columbus’s soulful and non-corporate past in the proverbial back-alley garbage dumpster.

The Free Press often reminisces on Columbus of the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, when it was more a hip and quirky college town than a lame playground for young professionals and their corporate overlords.

“I’ve been going there for 25 years. After Bernie’s, Surly Girl, Larry’s, Mamas, Outland, Lil Brothers, King Avenue Coffee Shop, Atlantis, Blue Danube, Tee Jayes, Short North Coffee House, and almost all the entire Short North art district, etc. with nothing ever replacing any of it, Columbus is culturally dead,” wrote Michael Moore on the Crazy Mama’s remembrance page on Facebook. For those not in know, Crazy Mama’s on South High off-campus was Columbus’s answer to the punk, new wave and garage band “underground” which emerged in the 1970s and 1980s.

Saturday, January 6, 9am
Ohio Statehouse, Broad and High Streets Columbus
Calling on community members and groups to counter demonstrate against the hate and bigotry of mulitple racist groups planning a rally at the statehouse. 

Introduction

This post raises the question of whether President Biden’s quest for re-election in 2024 will be negatively affected by his pledge to continue America’s support for Israel and its war on Gaza.

President Biden has put his 2024 re-election at risk by supporting Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza.

Early in this war, Biden unequivocally supported Israel’s military response to the Hamas attack on southern Israel. In just over a week after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, Biden met with Netanyahu to express his and America’s unequivocal and unconditional support for Israel

(https://www.npr.org/2023/10/19/1206832708/biden-israel-trip-mideast-peace).

Wednesday, January 3, 2024, 12:00 PM
Learn the ins and outs of collecting signatures for the Citizens Not Politicians ballot initiative.  Register here.

Love and Happiness 

Sheila ordered a gin and juice from David, the bartender, and laid a dollar on the counter. She glanced at her watch and saw she had about two hours before her girls would get out of school. David made her drink, set a napkin on the counter in front of her and sat the drink down.

“How you been doing, Sister?”

“I’m cool, Dave. How you?”

“Doing all right, hanging in there, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.”

The Packer: “Drawing on her experience with the Fair Food Program, Gonzalo has helped to train, mentor and educate workers from other regions and industries on the Worker-Driven Social Responsibility model.”

“Gonzalo also was a member of the CIW team working with Futures Without Violence, which collaborated with CIW and other Fair Food Program partners on the first sexual harassment training curriculum for the agricultural sector in the U.S.”

As 2023 draws to a close, farmworkers with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers are celebrating the organization’s 30th anniversary. In the last 30 years, the CIW — which began as a loose gathering of farmworkers meeting weekly in a borrowed church hall in the small, crossroads town of Immokalee — has grown in size and success to become the founder of the Presidential Medal-winning Fair Food Program, the leading social responsibility program in the US agricultural industry today, and of the Worker-driven Social Responsibility model, the new paradigm for human rights protection in global supply chains to which the FFP gave rise.

In response to Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s review of its proposed constitutional amendment to protect voting rights, the coalition supporting the amendment released the following statement:

"We are disappointed to see the Attorney General reject what we think was indeed a fair and accurate summary of our proposed amendment, but we remain undeterred from moving forward with our ultimate commitment to putting an amendment on the ballot that will ensure secure and fair elections for all Ohioans,” Molly Shack, Executive Director of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, said for the Coalition. “We know Ohioans are ready to put necessary protections in our state constitution that guarantee we all have equal paths to the ballot box and that our democracy is accessible to all of us.”

This amendment is an Ohio Voters Bill of Rights that will expand voter participation by creating automatic and same-day voter registration, protect against discriminatory barriers to the ballot box, and ensure Ohio’s elections remain secure and fair without sacrificing equitable access to the polls for all voters.

Global challenges are grounded in local places. The health and vitality of every single community, every single child, every single acre of land, every single tree is important to creating a livable future. Every single local effort to do so is significant.

This is why I personally intervene to protect communities and people’s quality of life. Here, in Cleveland, I’m working with local homeowners to save a grove of mature, legacy trees from being destroyed by the local school board, even though a deed restriction protects the trees and the parkland on which they stand.

Today, as we prepare for a new, more hopeful, peaceful, New Year, I appeal to you on behalf of the Cudell community residents in Cleveland, Ohio, for public help in funding the court case to save the trees.  

My wife, Elizabeth, and I paid the bond to halt the cutting down of 50 trees in the Cudell neighborhood park. We have attended each several court hearings in support of the people. The people trying to save their park and the trees have one lawyer. The school board has six!

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.