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Bail Reform Action at the Statehouse

Gavel and justice scale

Tuesday, March 29, 2:30pm, Ohio Statehouse

We finally have a chance to support pre-trial reform in front of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee as the sponsors introduce the substitute language for S.B. 182.

That committee is typically scheduled to begin at 3:15pm, so you can meet us there or meet us beforehand at 2:30pm over at the AFP office in the KeyBank Building, 88 E. Broad St., on the 11th floor.

Because we know this is a Statehouse hearing that could be canceled or moved [right up until the last second], we’ll have a substitute event ready to go, so you know you can make the trip to Columbus and still be doing something to drive Criminal Justice Reform!

We’ll have food set up in our conference room where we can get together and run through a number of vital actions that we can take to support Criminal Justice Reform and learn about our exciting plan for Ohio, The Buckeye Blueprint! Expect it to be a casual and enjoyable time.

Additional Opportunities:

Our State Director Donovan O’Neil will be speaking on a great panel in the Statehouse Atrium on “Economic Opportunity” that will begin at 4:30pm.

Free Press hero Cynthia Brown set to host Ohio’s “Day of Empathy” at Statehouse

Details about event

Free Press hero Cynthia Brown has been unwavering since 2017 in her fight to change or end qualified immunity for law enforcement in the state of Ohio, which if successful, could remove the legal shield police have from being sued civilly by victims of excessive force.

Indeed, Brown has been knocking on Ohio Statehouse office doors of those who have the power to make change, but behind these doors are lawmakers who progressives believe would never want to end qualified immunity for police.

“They control the Statehouse, right? So no laws are going to be passed unless you have Republican support,” says Brown who founded the nonprofit De-Escalate Ohio Now! HeartbeatMovement Inc. “We were the only organization that was invited to the Statehouse during the George Floyd protests to talk policy.”

Brown says progressives want to end or change qualified immunity as well. Some of the nation’s most prominent progressives, in fact.

“Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, they really want to end qualified immunity,” she says.

ANNA IN THE TROPICS: Theater Review

ANNA IN THE TROPICS: Theater Review

From Russia, With Lust: Tolstoy Meets “Florida Man”

By Ed Rampell

It’s ironic that A Noise Within’s absorbing production of Anna in the Tropics opens, as fate would have it, while Russia is making frontpage news. This is because the titular “Anna” is a reference to the eponymous Anna Karenina in Count Leo Tolstoy’s famed 1878 Russian novel. But in this Pulitzer Prize winning play, playwright Nilo Cruz has transmogrified Tolstoy’s saga of infidelity, moving it from Moscow and St. Petersburg (in Russia – not Florida!) to – of all places! – Tampa in the Sunshine State in 1929.

The Billion Dollar Deal that Made Google and Amazon Partners in the Israeli Occupation of Palestine

“We are anonymous because we fear retaliation.” This sentence was part of a letter signed by 500 Google employees last October, in which they decried their company’s direct support for the Israeli government and military. 

Biden’s Unhinged Call for Regime Change in Russia

Ever since Joe Biden ended his speech in Poland on Saturday night by making one of the most dangerous statements ever uttered by a U.S. president in the nuclear age, efforts to clean up after him have been profuse. Administration officials scurried to assert that Biden didn’t mean what he said. Yet no amount of trying to “walk back” his unhinged comment at the end of his speech in front of Warsaw’s Royal Castle can change the fact that Biden had called for regime change in Russia.

 They were nine words about Russian President Vladimir Putin that shook the world: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”

Demonstration for Affordable Housing Set-asides in Columbus

Columbus City Hall

Monday, March 28, 2022, 6:30 PM
Location:  Columbus City Hall, 90 W. Broad St., Columbus 43215.
The B.R.E.A.D. organization is coordinating a series of three actions to raise awareness of the shortage of affordable housing for people with low income.  The current required set-asides for housing developers do not serve people with income at or below 80% of the Area Median Income.  People with lower income are just left out of the equation, and most often can't afford rent without assistance. 

Busting Myths: The Ohio Attorney General vs. Science, Ethics, and Law

Middle aged white man

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost extends his streak of violating the law and science. Yost, who agreed to much-too-small settlements by three large drug distributors with the state (see Eric Lagatta, “Columbus address to join state opioid settlement against three large drug distributors”), now claims with no evidence that there is a causal connection between Spring 2020 Covid “stimulus checks” (under Trump Administration, which Yost never mentions) and opioid drug deaths in Ohio. (See Titus Wu, “Ohio AG Dave Yost says federal Covid-19 stimulus checks fueled opioid deaths. Is that so?”)

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