Local

At yesterday afternoons Columbus City Council Columbus Metropolitan Club Debate, City Council candidate Joe Motil stated in his opening comments that, “The musical chairs appointment process is in place to keep control and power over the people and to benefit councils campaign contributors. And if Ms. Brown wins and completes her 4-year term I will remove the words tax abatement from my vocabulary”. Motil has been the city’s most outspoken critic of Ms. Brown and her City Council colleagues on handing out tax abatements over the last 4 ½ years and having called City Council’s appointment process a ‘farce.”

Thursday, May 20, 5pm, this on-line event requires advance registration

Facilitating meetings takes skill and practice that many don’t think about especially in order to ensure the meeting is inclusive and productive. We want people to feel seen and heard so engagement and community agreements in meetings, within your organizations and coalitions, are crucial.

In this “lunch and learn,” we will go over best practices for how to facilitate meetings. We will go over accessibility and inclusivity, note-taking, meeting structure, community agreements, and follow-up practices. Basically, all of the tools, tips, and tricks that you will need for your toolbox.

Bring a comrade and a friend and come learn how to facilitate meetings for your coalition’s and organization’s work! Our expert will be Ohio Voice’s very own, Alwiyah Shariff.

RSVP for this event by using this link.

Hosted by Ohio Voice.

Of course there are 60,000 Pentagon super (duper!) spies prancing around the globe with tracking devices in their shoes, goofy wigs on their heads, collections of comical sunglasses, and — for the employee of the month! — silicon handsleeves and silicon faces to fool the airport cops, or maybe it’s the Vaccine Nazis, or perhaps it’s the Marxist conspiracy and election stealers denounced by the head of the Space Command who was fired last week for straying from his designated delusions.

After all, this is the military that produced 120 retired generals openly proud of their batshit balminess. When you dump $900 million dollars unbeknownst to anybody into 130 private companies listed absolutely nowhere to get 60,000 undercover clowns employed at household-name corporations that even the author of the article linked above doesn’t name a single one of, who is to say what will happen?

I am.

Horrible things will happen.

Local activists are left confused and angered on why Police Chief candidate Perry Tarrant was rejected by the City a second time even though his experience and resumé – and also being “outside the Division” – seemed like a good fit to make needed change within the Division while also effectively protecting Columbus.

Activists reminded the Free Press that Tarrant has experience leading a police department under Department of Justice (DOJ) scrutiny, which Mayor Ginther has called for regarding the Columbus Division of Police.

The Seattle Police Department was under DOJ monitoring when Tarrant came on as Assistant Chief of Police, and assisted Oakland and Ferguson police departments as well when they were under DOJ monitoring.

“My penchant for constitutional policing and procedural justice were personal drivers for accepting a leadership role as Assistant Chief of Police with the Seattle Police Department, which was under a Department of Justice (DOJ) negotiated settlement agreement,” wrote Tarrant in his 2019 application letter to Mayor Ginther.

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Ablock later, the bus stopped again, and Anton stepped on, fumbling for change.

“Oh, man,” Anton said, counting out what he had.

“How much you need?” Jim said.

“I don’t know. A buck?”

“Here,” and Jim peeled off a dollar bill.

“Thank you, sir.”

“You owe the next guy.”

“I got that,” Anton said, sitting down across from Jim.

The bus took off and rumbled down the street. After six blocks or so, Anton leaned across the aisle.

“Buy you a beer?” Anton said to Jim.

“Sounds good,” and the two were out of the bus.

“There’s a place around the corner,” Anton said.

“Hester. I know it,” Jim said.

“Anton Evers,” holding out his hand to shake.

“Wallace, Jim Wallace,” shaking Anton back.

Both men instinctively thought they’d heard each other’s names before, somewhere.

The men walked in, eyeballed a booth and sat down. A cute waitress, Ebony, sauntered over.

“Couple a beers?” she said, wiping the table.

“That'd be fine,” Anton said.

“So, what are you doing out tonight?” Jim said.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

We need your help! We need letters of support and phone calls to State Legislators! - We ask for your support in opposing Ohio House Bill 282 and SB 171 (Establish conditions for the sale of brine as a commodity) or any such bill that would commercialize brine and comes up before the 134th Ohio General Assembly. One such product, currently marketed under the name AquaSalina, was tested by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Results from the test revealed that this product contains high levels of Radium-226 and Radium-228.

House Bill 282 will have its second hearing this Thursday, May 20.  This hearing will only be for those that support the bill.  Testimony for those against the bill could come as early as next week, so there is still time to think about doing testimony, either in person or written.  If you would like help with writing your testimony, please feel free to contact us.  Below are links to both the House and Senate versions of the bills. 

Tuesday, May 18, 11am, this on-line event requires advance registration

The Our Voices Together Coalition invites you to turn up the heat on anti-protest bills by lighting a fire under Ohio Legislators. Every Tuesday, we will come together at 11am for training and a group action.

This coming Tuesday, we will be turning up the heat on Twitter with a TweetStorm. Never participated in a TweetStorm? Don’t know who to Tweet or what to say? No problem. We’ll give you everything you need to know. Jump in and away we will go.

Register at bit.ly/turnuptuesdays and we will see you there.

RSVP for this event by using this link.

Hosted by Stop Ohio Anti-Protest Bills. 

An interesting recent article by international lawyer John Whitbeck suggests that the billions of dollars that the United States gives to Israel annually is not technically “foreign aid” as the Jewish state is as measured by per capita GDP the 19th wealthiest in the world, ahead of countries like Germany. It is, instead “tribute,” which is defined as the “payment made periodically by one state or ruler to another, especially as a sign of dependence.”

This month the Ohio Senate’s Energy and Public Utilities Committee held the second hearing for a bipartisan billthat would repeal yet another unnecessary ratepayer-funded bailout implemented by the historically corrupt HB 6. SB 117 ends the costly bailouts going to two Ohio Valley Electric Corporation (OVEC) coal plants – one called Kyger Creek, which is in Ohio and another called Clifty Creek, which is in Indiana. For anyone who needs a visual aid of how Ohio is different from Indiana, I recommend looking at a map and checking it out, especially if you’re a Republican state legislator.

The illicit street sale of “fenty” or fentanyl in Columbus is wreaking havoc with its drug dealing violence and overdoses. The opioid epidemic led to illegal sale of fentanyl in the first place, and the HBO documentary “Crime of the Century” is further exposing Cardinal Health of Dublin as culpable in starting this two-decade long scourge.

“Crime of the Century” by Academy award winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney premiered last week with Gibney telling national media that Cardinal Health and others pushed millions into addiction but their ownership and CEOs aren’t under threat of criminal charges.

Unintentional overdose deaths in Ohio finally started to subside in 2018, but this wasn’t the case for Franklin County. From 2012 to 2019 the county went from 191 deaths to 547 deaths a year, and the pandemic made it worse.