Local

Friday, December 10, 2021, 4:45 PM
We invite you to join us on Friday, December 10th, International Human Rights Day, for a teach in focusing on strategies for successful boycott campaigns that advance Palestinian freedom. We'll be looking at local campaign to Boycott the Military Industrial Complex at the city council level and thinking about budgets, from local to federal, developing strategies to hold elected officials accountable from local politicians to Members of Congress.  This is the second teach-in in a three part local series on BDS organizing, organized by Demilitarize Durham2Palestine, with support from the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR).  Register here. 

It appears possible that since November 2006, no Wisconsin statewide election has been conducted in full compliance with Wisconsin law according to public records sent to the Columbus Free Press by the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

Most of the election administration authorities in Wisconsin use an electronic voting system (“EVS”) to count the ballots.

Since 2006, any EVS used to count votes in Wisconsin had to be certified for use by the Wisconsin Elections Commission or its predecessors. Within 90 days after approval of a given EVS, the EVS manufacturer must place certain software components in escrow with the commission. Within 10 days after any change in the software components, the changed software components must be placed in escrow with the commission.

There are two main types of software in an EVS.

First, there is the software in the EVS when the software is first installed and upgrades to such software.

Environmental coalition cited as instrumental in setting city’s climate goals in line with climate science

Sustainable Columbus unveiled the city’s first Climate Action Plan (CAP) on Thursday, December 9, 2021, with an ambitious overall goal of reducing carbon emissions 45% by 2030, in line with climate science. 

More than a year in the making, the final CAP contains a series of goals and action steps to reduce emissions, increase equity, and make Columbus more sustainable in five areas: Climate Solutions, Sustainable Neighborhoods, Buildings, Transportation, and Waste. Its overall goal is to reduce carbon emissions by approximately 5.2 million metric tons by 2030, or 45%. 

On Thursday, December 9 at 12:00 pm, we will meet at 1 Capitol Square, on the High Street side, in Columbus, to urge our legislators to pass SB 117 and HB 351, bipartisan legislation that will repeal one of the last pieces of corrupt House Bill 6 and refund money to consumers.

We need to repeal ALL of HB6 and that includes the OVEC coal plant subsidies.

On Wednesday morning (Dec. 8, 2021), a joint coalition of Ohio advocacy groups, including the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, Ohio Environmental Council, and the Council of American Islamic Relations-Ohio, rallied for fair maps in front of the Ohio Supreme Court following oral arguments in the three lawsuits filed against Ohio’s illegal, partisan, and extremely gerrymandered maps. The three challenges to the maps are Ohio Organizing Collaborative v. Ohio Redistricting Commission, Bria Bennett v. Ohio Redistricting Commission, and League of Women Voters of Ohio v. Ohio Redistricting Commission. The rally predominantly featured Black and Muslim plaintiffs and advocates, whose communities will be denied fair representation due to the illegal legislative maps. 

Wednesday, December 8, 11:30am-12:30pm, Supreme Court of Ohio, 65 S. Front St.

Black, white, or brown, native, or immigrant, Ohioans believe that voters should pick our leaders, not the other way around.

The unfair, illegal, and heavily-rigged legislative maps that Republicans rammed through the official process will literally shape our lives and our communities for the next decade.

Join us on Wednesday, December 8, 11:30am-12:30pm, for a rally outside of the Supreme Court of Ohio on the first day of oral arguments in the lawsuit against the rigged Statehouse maps passed by the Ohio Redistricting Commission. RSVP for this event and bring a friend with you!

As Ohioans, we have the power to choose which hospitals, schools, and resources are funded in our neighborhood, not power-hungry politicians who favor their own interests.

We need “all hands on deck” to demonstrate that our communities agree that voters need fair and representative maps that reflect the diversity of Ohio.

Below this introduction is the obituary for Sarah Michelle Burris, who passed from a drug overdose in October. The obituary was written by her mother who wrote it “early one morning after not sleeping very much. The words are straight from my heart.”

“The love I have for my daughter never changed throughout the addiction,” Rhonda Burris told the Free Press. “I loved her every day the same as the day she was born. I miss her so very much, we all do. She was a beautiful soul.”

Sarah’s obituary first appeared in a London, Ohio, weekly paper, where Sarah was born and raised. We reprint it here because it reflects what we are learning from the “Saint of Sullivant Avenue” – Esther Flores.

Flores works tirelessly at her drop-in safehouse to take care of the “Street Sisters” who travel up and down Sullivant. Esther knew Sarah and used some of the exact same words to describe Sarah as her mother did. “She was a beautiful soul. Kind and polite.”

Sarah’s mother confirmed that her daughter’s battle against addiction was mostly fought on Sullivant Avenue, a long-time hotspot for trap houses.

The exclusion of certain countries from the U.S. “democracy summit” is not a side issue. It is the very purpose of the summit. And excluded countries have not been excluded for failing to meet the standards of behavior of those that were invited or the one doing the inviting. Invitees didn’t even have to be countries, as even a U.S. backed failed coup leader from Venezuela has been invited. So have representatives of Israel, Iraq, Pakistan, DRC, Zambia, Angola, Malaysia, Kenya, and — critically — pawns in the game: Taiwan and Ukraine.

What game? The weapons sales game. Which is the whole point. Look at the U.S. State Department website on the Democracy Summit. Right at the top: “‘Democracy doesn’t happen by accident. We have to defend it, fight for it, strengthen it, renew it.’ –President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.”

Wednesday, December 8, 6pm, this on-line event requires advance registration

Join us for our monthly huddle for all Fair Districts volunteers. Catch up on Fair Districts news, current actions, what’s next for our #fairmaps advocacy. Bring your questions!

RSVP for this event by using this link.

Hosted by Fair Districts Coalition, League of Women Voters of Ohio, and Common Cause Ohio.

The Columbus Dispatch is suffering a four-year free-fall in circulation/readership, according to documents obtained exclusively from the Alliance for Audited Media.

The Columbus market is rapidly becoming a news desert, that is a place where news readership is dwindling and where increasing numbers of residents are either uninformed or poorly informed about their communities, the state, the United States and other nations.

What people know about the world around them is increasingly random via social media such as Facebook and websites that often lack verification and editing. This may be affecting our politics adversely as people are increasingly motivated by imagery and personality cults rather than by facts, reasoning and science.

Until around 2006, Ohio's government and its political leaders were held accountable by the major Ohio daily newspapers, who often would ardently investigate wrong-doing. The Coingate scandal, where Ohio taxpapers' money was invested in rare coins, led by the Toledo Blade and the Dispatch, resulted in Democrats winning all but one state administrative office and control of the Ohio House.