Local
Wednesday, September 13, 2017, 9:30am
High Street in front of Ohio Statehouse
Sponsored by Ohioans to Stop Executions (OTSE)
The Supreme Court of the United States has refused to stay the execution of Gary W. Otte. Gary currently has an appeal before the Ohio Supreme Court, asking them to halt his execution. He is arguing that his age at the time of the crime (20) should have precluded him from being sentenced to death.
HELP STOP EXECUTIONS
With the resumption of executions in July comes the admonition to us all to step up our work to end the death penalty in Ohio. The next 26 executions are set for 10am on Sept. 13, Oct. 18 and Nov. 15 (and almost monthly going into 2020!).
Contact info@otse.org to receive an action alert flier you can print out to post and/or distribute in your community
It is not easy being number one. Columbus is the best in the nation at only one thing. When it comes to the killing of black people, the Columbus Police Department is the New York Yankees, a dynasty team of history. Although they end more black lives per capita than any other metropolis in the nation, this time they did not extend their Babe Ruth like record as well as they clearly intended.
Timothy Davis walked into a convenience store in his own neighborhood to get change. Undercover officers followed him in, attacked him, handcuffed him, and continued to beat him five on one. He was stripped naked and left in a coma. Four uniformed officers showed up to join in the beating. Video clearly shows cops screaming for him to put his arms behind his back while holding his arms forward. The video clearly one cop repeatedly stomping on his head. Another screams “Got that taser? Tase this motherfucker!” The scene rapidly spirals into an orgy of violence where 10 white policemen beat him, while one attempts to block the camera and the store owner tries to seize the camera. Clearly they are not proud of what they are doing.
Tues Sep 12th, 6:00pm business, 7pm public
2231 N. High St., Northwood-High building, room 100 - park in back in "R" spots only
At 7:00 come hear Abe Bonowitz of Ohioans to Stop Executions discuss Ohio's death penalty, its racial bias, its unfairness, and the inevitability of wrongful convictions -- among its other evils, and discuss what you can do to help.
Tues Sep 12th, 6:00pm business, 7pm public
2231 N. High St., Northwood-High building, room 100 - park in back in "R" spots only
At 7:00 come hear Abe Bonowitz of Ohioans to Stop Executions discuss Ohio's death penalty, its racial bias, its unfairness, and the inevitability of wrongful convictions -- among its other evils, and discuss what you can do to help.
Last fall the Bureau of Land Management (BLMird lease auction is set for September 21st. On August 17, Eclipse Resources, which won about 1,300 acres in the first two BLM auctions, applied for its first drilling permit to begin fracking under public land in Wayne National Forest from a well on private land in Green Township in Monroe County.
Tuesday, September 5, 2017, 5:00 – 6:30 PM. Rally support for DACA and our friends and neighbors affected by it! Show your support for immigrants and Dreamers. Urge our representatives to uphold this crucial program. Hosted by Indivisible Columbus. Location: outside the Ohio Union at OSU on High Street. Facebook.
The historians are coming.
Across the country, untold millions have suddenly awakened to the historical significance of various and sundry statues honoring the great Confederate generals of the Civil War. While their energy is no doubt commendable, their newfound knowledge has not yet permitted them to draw a distinction between education and glorification.
Our newly minted annalists, while wrong-headed, are not necessarily wrong. Although these triumphant monuments are somewhat misleading about the war’s outcome, they are quite informative about the Jim Crow era in which they were built. They also provide renewed motivation for debunking the “lost cause” historical narrative that has convinced generations of schoolchildren that the Civil War was fought by noble southerners over some obscure federalism issue.
Why does it seem, ever since the Charlottesville incident, that so many racist roads lead to Ohio? James Alex Fields, Jr. of Maumee, Ohio, ran his car into the counter-protestors, killing Heather Heyer and injuring several others. The “Huffington Post” of the white supremacist movement, The Daily Stormer website, is the creation of Worthington’s own Linworth High School graduate Andrew Anglin. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, there are 27 white supremacist groups in Ohio.
It may not be just the overt racist groups we should consider – sometimes the haters could be civil servants, like firemen from northeastern Ohio, as the following story reveals.
Shawnee Township Fire Chief Todd Truesdale’s 45th birthday inspired his fellow firefighters to throw him a party with a Nazi-themed birthday cake – decorating the cake are the words “German Fire Dept” encircling a swatiska, on the left-hand corner sits a tall replica of an oven also with a swastika on the side, and cake decorating frosting depicts presumably Jewish people marching toward the oven.
Free Press readers asked us to analyze The Ohio Drug Price Relief Act (Issue 2), the issue that is running so many TV commercials this election season. Ad campaigns on both sides are more confusing than usual. Progressive voters will lean towards voting “Yes” on the issue, which is a vote against Big Pharma's price gouging – but the opposition is threatening that the prices paid by veterans and others will increase.
We decided to follow the money to determine the real behind-the-scenes story.
Notable support for Issue 2 comes from Senator Bernie Sanders. The local group promoting Issue 2 is the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, an organization formed in 1987 by Michael Weinstein to help AIDS patients by making the life-saving drugs affordable. Their current pro-Issue 2 promotion urges Ohio voters to deliver some “Voter Medicine” and pass the bill. The “Yes on Issue 2” campaign notes that drug companies spent $2.3 billion lobbying over the past decade.