Local
At the same time Green Party candidate for county prosecutor Bob Fitrakis was debating Democratic candidate Zach Klein, a Columbus police officer with a history of questionable shootings killed Tyre King, a 13-year-old African American. King’s shooting occurred less than a block away from Fitrakis’s Near East home.
Opposition to City Council format and city schools levy growing from the grassroots
Feds called to investigate Columbus Police and legality of at-large City Council
Three groups now opposing school levy hike
The Free Press is proud to announce that Project Censored recognized our work exposing election rigging with their 2015-2016 (academic year) Project Censored award for the 4th most censored story in the world. Project Censored cited Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman’s Free Press article “Is the 2016 Election Already being Stripped & Flipped?” posted on freepress.org March 31, 2016 and Wasserman’s appearance on “Democracy Now!” with Amy Goodman broadcast February 23, 2016 where he discussed the book he and Fitrakis released this year: “The Strip and Flip Selection of 2016: Five Jim Crows and Electronic Election Theft.”
On Oct. 12, 2016, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) approved a massive subsidy for FirstEnergy to keep their dirty, dangerous and, now they say, uneconomical Davis-Besse nuclear power plant on Lake Erie in operation.
This bailout will force FirstEnergy’s electric customers to pay about $200 million extra per year for the next three to five years. Though the PUCO made statements about FirstEnergy improving the electric grid, there is nothing in the fine print that would force the company to do anything other than hand this money over to their shareholders. The subsidy could ultimately cost customers $1 billion.
FirstEnergy complained bitterly about the PUCO decision, because they had asked for billions more.
An earlier bailout request by FirstEnergy was approved by the PUCO but ultimately rejected by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC.) FirstEnergy’s new request to the PUCO, written slightly differently, is an end-run around the original FERC decision.
A common reason given by progressives for continuing to support the Democrats is party loyalty. “They gave us the New Deal,” they say, “they always save the economy.” Those who use those talking points are absolutely correct. The Democratic Party has done a lot of good for this country; most social and environmental programs were enacted by Democrats. They are also correct when they discuss how Republicans want a Christian theocracy and always ruin the economy.
However, those individuals are deliberately forgetting huge pieces of history. The Republicans ended slavery, started the Environmental Protection Agency, and built the Interstate Highway System. The Democrats dropped the atomic bomb on Japan, resegregated the federal government, and gave us the Defense of Marriage Act. No individual or political party is perfect but everyone must acknowledge their shortcomings in addition to their strengths. Blind, unwavering loyalty guarantees someone support solely because of the (D) next to their name, not because of their policy positions or track record.
Donald Trump has said so many inflammatory things this past year that it's hard to keep track of them all. Yet, as divisive as The Donald's public comments have been, it was the word he thought he was saying in private that raised the hackles of a local activist group. The now-famous Access Hollywood tape that emerged recently in which the phrase “grab them by the pussy” was uttered by the current Republican Presidential nominee some 11 years ago has brought American politics to a new low. But here in the epicenter of the most crucial of swing states, a litter of self-described pussies is having more fun with the whole thing than a kitten with a ball of string.
Attached is the report from the September 2016 Pre-Election Citizens Grassroots Congress.
Unity March to protest police brutality.
Friday, October 28, 12noon, Goodale and High Street.
Marching south on high to the state house where there will speeches and then we'll continue the march south on High to the Franklin County Court House.
Donald Trump’s demand for “monitors” at polling places to prevent a “rigged election” is an old and ugly story.
It’s obviously aimed—-KKK style—-at stopping black and Hispanic citizens from voting. But in fact both major parties have used such terror tactics—- and updated electronic ones—-since the birth of the nation.
The cure—-we call it “the Ohio Plan”—- is scorned by both corporate parties: universal automatic voter registration, transparent registration rolls that can be easily monitored, a national holiday for voting, and universal hand-counted paper ballots that stay in one place and are tallied (and re-tallied) in full public view.
The “rigged election” story dates back to the Constitution. Its Electoral College gave a three-fifths “bonus” to slaveowners for blacks who could not actually vote. The race card carried through Jim Crow segregation and the KKK terror unleashed against post-Emancipation blacks who dared try to vote. It continues through the Drug War and the tens of millions of African-American and Hispanic citizens stripped of their freedom and franchise.
Joe DeMare, the Green Party candidate, has been excluded from the Columbus Senate debate. Joseph DeMare is the 2016 Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate in Ohio. Join the Green Party in front of the Channel 10 Studios to demand Freedom of Speech in the U.S.!
Monday, October 17, from 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
WBNS 10TV 770 Twin Rivers Dr. Columbus, OH 43215