State

Poindexter Village, a public housing community on the Near East Side of Columbus, was threatened on Friday by illegal demolition activity by Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority ("CMHA"). In a pointed telephone conversation with CMHA Vice President of Business Development, Bryan Brown, City of Columbus Historic Preservation Officer Randy Black ordered the illegal activity to stop. Based on that emergency phone call, CMHA demolition has been temporarily halted.

On Friday, under the guise of asbestos abatement, CMHA began tearing out windows, including sills and lintels of the historic, but now shuttered Poindexter Village public housing community. These actions are in violation of federal regulations which require completion of an historic review before any demolition can take place. This historic review has not been completed. In fact, CMHA demolition work began on the day public comments were due, and before the adoption of a binding Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) that would determine what should happen to this historic property.

Dear Ms. Rhimes:
You are one of the bravest, most extraordinary women on TV and you are going to help save us from election fraud.

Thank you for creating the ABC television series "Scandal," -- and in particular for taking on the bedrock of democracy, voting rights. All of our other rights rest upon voting rights.

I also applaud your diverse cast, which includes many women in leading roles.

Over the last ten years, I, like many others, have written to numerous media and entertainment outlets to implore them to help us get rid of all electronic voting machines and bring democracy to our voting system and our country. To no avail, alas.

And then I saw a recent episode of "Scandal," entitled "Defiance," which did just this, in part, by addressing charges of election fraud in Defiance, Ohio in a fictional format.

The Republican Party and the Romney presidential campaign’s voter repression machine produced nearly 30,000 provisional ballots in Franklin County, Ohio. This accounts for roughly 5% of all the votes cast.

On Election Day, the Free Press reported a high number of early provisional at a majority African American polling location, Driving Park, on the Near East side. After complaints from Green Party observers and election attorneys from the Obama campaign, the illegal practice of forcing voters who were registered in the pollbook to vote provisionally, ceased.

Sherri Hamilton, a Green Party observer at Driving Park, complained about provisional voters being sent to the wrong precincts and being allowed to vote provisionally at the wrong location. These actions could have potentially disqualified their votes.

For over two decades the Central Ohio Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, has been partnering with community organizations in the “One New Toy” campaign during the holiday season to aid needy families, giving out tons of food, toys for children and aid to families needing help. This year that program will kick off this weekend (12/14-15-16) at St. Stephens Community House, 1500 E. 17th St, Columbus, (43219), and they are still looking for more volunteers.

Last year this program aided over 1,500 Columbus families, but this year the load is expected, due to the continuing economic downturn, to be even larger. Hundreds of volunteers are involved, packing and unpacking, unloading trucks and getting the food, gifts, to the waiting families, feeding, helping the volunteers, etc. Unions are asking for more volunteers, from progressive groups, or individuals wanting to give back to our community.

As a registered voter and citizen of Ohio, I no longer have to wonder why we can't get animal abuse laws passed? During House Session-December 5, 2012-Part 2, our legislators can be heard joking and laughing about raping animals while they discuss a bestiality bill against raping dogs which I am unhappy to inform you is legal in OHIO, other than being charged with a misdemeanor Animal Abuse. They talked about how sheep don't have enough protection in Ohio; following by open laughter (65:38 time), not chuckles or snickers, out right belly laughing. There were even a couple comments by a business man about his personal relationship with his sheep. Again laughter, not chuckles or snickers, out right belly laughing. For our lawmakers out rightly joke and laugh out loud about animal abuse shows there is a bigger problem than most citizens and voters realize. This is such unprofessional and immoral, uncompassionate behavior for elected officials. Governor Kasich, VOTERS AND CITIZENS OF OHIO, you should be totally and utterly disgusted to have these kinds of people representing our state. I’M DISGUSTED and I want something done about this. How about you?

On November 30, the city of Cincinnati became the first in Ohio to pass a resolution to require the labeling of genetically engineered (GE) foods, citing that consumers should have the right to know what is in their food. The consumer advocacy organization Food & Water Watch brought the resolution to city council as a part of their “Let Me Decide” campaign to make GE labeling the law. GE foods have not been fully tested for their impacts on human health and the environment.

Alison Auciello, Ohio-based organizer for Food & Water Watch said, “genetically engineered foods are potentially unsafe, and consumers should have the right to decide for themselves if they want to eat GE foods. It took regulation to get food processors to label ingredients and nutrition facts on labels, and now we’re calling for federal lawmakers to require the labeling of GE food.”

The Middletown, Ohio story continues, like an old soap opera! In response to that city’s council action raising the city manager’s pay, the city’s unions have now pushed back, at least for now killing that increase. Middletown’s city council had inspired last year’s attack on public worker’s bargaining rights by officially asking the Ohio state legislature to “take action to limit public union contracts, so local governments can control their finances.” After last year’s massive struggle by organized labor and regular Ohioans killed SB 5, the state’s attempt to destroy public worker bargaining rights, Middletown’s city voted two week’s ago to change the rules under which the city’s workers are compensated so that only the city manager could get a major pay increase. The council took this action after successfully urging that city’s unions to agree to a wage freeze through the lifetime of their contracts with the city.

It was city council in Middletown, Ohio, a small city in southwestern Ohio, that provided the initial push for that state’s Republican dominated legislature to draft SB 5, the attack on public worker’s collective bargaining rights this past year. They passed a resolution calling on the state to take action against public worker’s contracts “so local governments can control their own finances,” which was used by the GOP majority in the legislature as the basis for drafting SB 5. While unions, their allies, organized a massive fight against SB 5, sending it down in flames, that same council this past week took another action that shows that they are far from learning from that huge defeat.

They voted 6-1 to change city rules and give the city manager, Judith Gilleland, a big raise. This action also came a year after that city’s public unions had agreed to forgo any raises in their contracts “to prohibit the city from going into further economic decline.”

Preview Clips from a new EON/FreePress.org joint Work in Progress. This a a trailer for our Indiegogo project - a documentary on the inside story of how investigative reporting, the Green Party, the Election Protection movement, pre-emptive litigating and just plain angry voters saved the Dems from Karl Rove in a key 2012 battleground state. Please go to:

Swing State to help support it and please spread the word to your networks!

YouTube Link



You can read our full print report on our blog:

Ohio Confidential - How the Fix was Nixed

The Free Press is saddened by the death of our friend and Free Press “Libby” Award honoree Nommo X. We will miss him and the community work he performed and inspired on the Near East side of Columbus. However he celebrate his life, which was a life well-lived, as is documented in this biography from his memorial service:

James Edward Brown (Nommo X) was born March 14, 1947 in Memphis, Tennessee . He was the oldest of three children born to Otis and Julia Brown. He departed life on Sunday, November 4, 2012 at Mount Carmel East Hospital.

Nommo was a community activist, counselor at the Africentric Personal Development Shop, entrepreneur, historian, Ironworker (Local 172), lecturer, operations manager for various community food co-ops, radio and television host, soldier in theAfro-Set, and a member of the indigenious Washitaw people. He was recognized as a War Chief in the TAWI Family along with other members, promoted Kwanzaa, Queen Mother Moore Day, FESTAC and brought many world renowned scholars to Columbus.