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Photo of Billy Wimsett

I emailed Upski last month because I wanted guidance about the current political climate. Upski’s books Bomb the Suburbs, No More Prisons, and Please Don’t Bomb the Suburbs have hugely impacted and influenced Hip Hop culture, and grassroots activism.

Graphic of state of Ohio with a flower growing in the middle

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.

Jon Beard and Al Sharpton

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

Helipcopter in background with words Top 25 Most Censored Stories of 2016

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.”

Dozens of blue green barrels lined up

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.

Maybe it’s the phrase — “commander in chief” — that best captures the transcendent absurdity and unaddressed horrors of the 2016 election season and the business as usual that will follow.

I don’t want to elect anyone commander in chief: not the xenophobic misogynist and egomaniac, not the Henry Kissinger acolyte and Libya hawk. The big hole in this democracy is not the candidates; it’s the bedrock, founding belief that the rest of the world is our potential enemy, that war with someone is always inevitable and only a strong military will keep us safe.

  As I drove my van into the main gate at the Standing Rock Sioux encampment on the Cannon Ball River in North Dakota few weeks ago, I was greeted by a smiling young Original Nations man. I told him that I was arriving from Ohio, was supportive of the cause, wanted to learn more, but mainly that I was there to help in any way they felt might be useful. He asked how long I thought I would be stay. I told him I did have to be back in Ohio for three or four weeks weeks.   
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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.

Trump don't grab my - then a picture of a cat - on a billboard

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.

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