Local

The biggest local electoral issue in this year’s primary election in Columbus is the split in the Democratic Party. Mayor Andrew Ginther, former Mayor Michael Coleman and Congresswoman Joyce Beatty led one faction dead set to punish Sheriff Zach Scott and his supporters, simply because Scott ran for Mayor against Ginther in November. The Franklin County Democratic Party establishment recruited candidates and endorsed them to run against Scott, as well as Democrat incumbents County Commissioner Paula Brooks and Treasurer Terry Brown, because they supported Scott.

In a further effort by this ruling faction to retain control of the Party, this faction took the unusual step of recruiting and endorsing candidates for the party’s Central Committee – party officials elected by ward every four years – so that those people’s names were a part of the “Democratic Unity Ticket” sample ballot. Scott and Brooks fought back with the “Democrats United” sample ballot, which had Scott, Brown, and Cheryl Brooks Sullivan, along with a slate of Central Committee candidates.

Did you know that trolls, Internet or otherwise, have a mental disorder? So found a study in the Journal of Personality and Individual Differences. Researchers surveyed 1,200 respondents, giving each one a personality test and then analyzing their Internet comments. The subjects’ behaviors were matched to a “Dark Tetrad” of personality traits that include sadism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. You remember Machiavelli, the 16th Century writer whose work endorsed deceit and duplicity as tools of control?  The trolls in the study scored highest in sadism. Congratulations.

Unfortunately for us non-sadists and psychopaths, trolling has become rampant in all areas of social activism. You might think marijuana, the last presumed bastion of peace and love, would be immune, or at least, less vulnerable. You’d be wrong. Some have called this booming industry, and Ohio in particular, a circular firing squad, rampant with infighting and hell bent on self-destruction.

On Tuesday, March 15 nearly 64% of Toledo’s citizens voted YES on ISSUE 1 in support of a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate constitutional rights and money as speech.

As a result of this initiative, Toledo will hold its first annual Democracy Day in 2017 - a public hearing on the corrupting influence of moneyed interests in politics that the Mayor and at least one member of City Council must attend.  Afterward, the Mayor is required by law each year to send a letter to our elected representatives in Congress on our behalf urging them to pass a Constitutional amendment declaring that corporations are not people and political contributions are not free speech (meaning they can be capped/regulated).

Hey old people! This is why American youth Feel the Bern

By Sam Lagana

Bernie Sanders’ appeal to so many young people is uncanny to older Americans. As if the Democratic candidate with the socialist message has a secret energy that’s driving them to flock under his banner. No other presidential candidate has such influence over our young adults and even those who are not of voting age. After pressure from Sanders’ team and a lawsuit, an Ohio judge ruled last week that teenagers who turn 18 before Election Day can vote in Ohio’s primary.

What’s mind-boggling is that while the support for Bernie from young people is unwavering, older generations are left scratching their heads and scoffing. How can our youth be so loyal to a 70-something white man who works in Vermont? How can a card carrying Democratic socialist be so well liked by a generation that’s so in love with their connected devices and video games? Don’t these young voters know about the Red Scare? Older Americans often ask my friends and me: Don’t you know about the failed socialist and communist experiments that nearly drove the world to the brink of extinction?!

The Ohio Statehouse committee on Medical Marijuana is taking public input at their next hearing March 10th!

Medical Cannabis patients advocates, under employed holstic healers, and hemp for nutrition advocats are doing grassroots organizing in the state to get a clear pro-safe access to medical marijuana message to our Ohio's elected officials. RALLY and March are in order!

The science on Pain management and PTSD recovery is all signalling we can't go without this healing, we dont wait for the arbitrary restriction on treatment options to be lifted! The Statehouse wants to take all month of March, when the language is ready to pass now.

On Sunday, March 6, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and hundreds of allies completed the Workers' Voice Columbus March on Wendy's!

We took over High Street, picketed outside of the Wendy's on Woodruff& High and spread the word that Ohio will ‪#‎BoycottWendys‬ until they respect farmworkers through the ‪#‎FairFoodProgram‬!!

Local Voters Will Deliver 1.5 Million
Petition Signatures to Offices of Sen. Rob Portman Telling Him: Do Your Job.

PCCC Launches Online Ads Statewide

Petitions gathered by Organizing For Action (OFA), Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), MoveOn.org Civic Action, UltraViolet Action, Color of Change, Daily Kos, Demand Progress, People For the American Way, Common Cause, NextGen Climate, Sierra Club, CREDO Action, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Rep. Donna Edwards, and Every Voice Action

Tomorrow -- March 3, 2016 -- local PCCC members will join supporters of ally organizations to deliver 1.5 million petition signatures to the Cleveland office of Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) and Hamilton County Courthouse in Cincinnati.

The petitions demand Portman and Senate Republicans follow the Constitution and do their job by allowing a fair process on the president’s upcoming Supreme Court nomination. The PCCC will also launch online ads in Ohio to hold Senate Republicans accountable for obstruction.

For some reason I can't for the life of me recall, I was thinking about the time I saw Leslie West of Mountain play at the Agora way back in the '70s. Why was I thinking about it? Oh, I know why: I was transporting to my crammed house the two wooden stools from my ghost of a record store along with a bunch of other junk I didn't want to leave to the advancing Mexican asbestos-removal army. And the memory just sort of seeped into my consciousness.

Because: Leslie West--whose band name was sort of his nickname and not for a powerful build which he did not have--walked out on stage with his awesome little vintage Gibson Melody Maker guitar and had to sit on a stool.

Because: he was so damned fat his legs couldn't support his humongous-ness. I remember estimating his weight pretty near 400 pounds.

And the stool? Well, the significance of that was how the stool, you know, sort ofdisappeared into him as he sat down on it. I mean, it looked like his body just sucked that piece of convenience furniture like Scotty beaming up Spock.Gone!

Vince Staples is one of hip hop's brightest stars. Alright?

I mean that in both the sonic vision he took with NO ID on his latest album, “Summertime 2006.”

NO ID is the Chi-Town producer who played a huge roll developing of the careers of Common, Kanye West, and has risen to become the VP of Def Jam Records.

Even if the NO ID produced  Jay-Z song “Death Of Auto-Tune” didn't exactly end Autotune.

(See TLOP or Future.) The anthem is a banger.

Vince Staples' Summertime 2006 was released on NO ID's Artium Def Jam imprint and Blacksmith (owned by Talib Kweli & Corey Smith.)

It's not only that Staples is making phenomenal records with NO ID.

I'm also saying his interviews are usually insightful like his music.

However this is going to be the worst Vince Staples interview you will ever read because we had to reschedule due to my error.

Well a family member of mine was sick....but excuses are useless.

Vince Staples can't ask you to read his lyrics off your phone while the beat plays at his concert and then say, “my nephew has the mumps.”