State

  Will precinct-by-precinct, 15 minute-by-15 minute election night results that are available only to the Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, compromise the security of the statewide election?

In Ohio’s notorious 2004 presidential election, called by pollster Lou Harris “one of the most corrupt in U.S. history,” one of the signs of election tampering was the impossible results flowing from precincts in Republican rural Ohio. In Cyde, Ohio they initially reported 130 percent voter turnout.

In Perry County, one precinct came in at 120 percent, another at 114 percent. In Miami County, the Concord Southwest precinct claimed 679 out of 689 voters cast ballots overwhelmingly for Bush. They later admitted to The Free Press that only 549 people signed into the polls and that the other votes had been the result of bad computer tallies.

Now with Ohio’s new election night reporting system it is easier than ever to stack the deck and bring in the cybervote at the precinct level.

Secretary of State’s strange secret software patches suspected purpose to steal election

While some attention is focused on the risks inherent in placing untested software patches on county election tabulators, another election technology is being aggressively deployed throughout Ohio. That technology, the e-pollbook, appears to reduce lines at the polls, increase convenience and be a more modern way to verify voter identity and precinct location. The technology as deployed brings with it new possibilities for tampering with elections and whole new vectors for cyber attack.

What is most alarming is the potential for this technology to compromise the secrecy of the ballot. E-pollbooks could allow people with access, from election officials and private contractors to Ohio Secretary of State John Husted, to know how you voted.

The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld federal Judge Peter Economus’ historic ruling protecting African American voting rights in Ohio. In a September 4, 2014 opinion, Economus held that the actions of Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted violated both the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by erecting illegal barriers to keep minorities and the poor from voting in the Buckeye State.

Husted’s attack on voting right proceeded under the guise of fighting “voter fraud.”
 

Economus noted, “The state’s argument about reducing fraud did not withstand logical scrutiny.”

As the New York Times stated, “There has been no in-person voter fraud documented in the country.”

Republican Secretary of State Husted is up for re-election this year, and in order to increase his chances he came up with a variety of measures that directly suppress minority and poor voters. His opponent, State Senator Nina Turner (D-25), is a black female and an outspoken voting rights activist.

John Crawford III went shopping at WalMart. John Crawford III was going to buy a pellet gun. He picked one out. He called his girlfriend on the phone and was chatting casually. He was shot dead by a policeman before he reached the checkout line. He was black. The officer who killed him with two rounds from an AR-15 was white. According to both a grand jury and a special prosecutor appointed by Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, no crime was committed other than a man shopping while black.

DeWine had refused to release the store surveillance video (above) to the public prior to the grand jury being empaneled, claiming that would contaminate the jury pool. Crawford's family had seen the videotape and claimed that DeWine had promised to release it. This did not stop the special prosecutor, Mark Piepmeier, from showing the video to a key witness prior to the grand jury, enabling that witness, Ronald Ritchie, to possibly change his story.

Bob Hart, Green Party Congressional candidate for twelfth district of Ohio came out in opposition to an expanded American military role in combating ISIS in Syria. The Press release read in part “President Obama and Congress have chosen to sacrifice additional U.S. troops, and further degrade our economy and constitution, by illegally broadening the ongoing wars in the Middle East to include Syria.”

Hart's statement referred to the recent announcement by President Obama that airstrikes targeting ISIS would be carried out in Syria. The President also has asked Congress to grant the military the authority to arm and train friendly militias inside Syria.

The friendly militias are on the short end of a three way struggle between themselves, ISIS and the Assad regime which is allied with Iran. Both Iran and the United States have special operations troops assisting Iraqi forces combating ISIS in Iraq.

Thousands of Ohioans will join the Peoples' Climate March in New York City on September 21. Ohio will send at least eight buses to Peoples' Climate March. The march demands global leadership for creating new energy policies, enforcing corporate investment in green industry, reducing corporate waste and fraud, and ending political intransigence and gridlock to advance Global Climate Justice.

   On September 20, 2014, buses will leave Columbus, Cleveland, Athens, Toledo, and Yellow Springs, Ohio. Send-off events include:

1) Send-off Celebration

September 20, 2014, 8:00 a.m. 

496 S. High Street (43215) in front of the First Watch Restaurant

A bus from Wichita, KS and Oklahoma will be passing through.

Speakers: Samantha Allen (Sierra Club), Harvey Wasserman (Greenpeace), and Paula Brooks (Franklin County Commissioner), and a Wichita, KS organizer/bus rider.

2) September 20, 2014, 10:00 p.m.*

4140 E. Broad Street (43213), in front of the CWA Local 4320

Two buses leaving from Columbus, Ohio and another from Yellow Springs will pass through.

In May Ohio’s Eighth District Court of Appeals in Cuyahoga County upheld a common pleas court’s decision ordering the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation (“BWC”) to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to up to 264,000 businesses. Under the decision in San Allen v. Buehrer, some businesses were owed more than $1 million, and many were owed six-figure amounts.

A few weeks after appealing the decision to the Ohio Supreme Court, BWC agreed in July to settle the class-action lawsuit for $420 million.

The appeals court said the case involved a “cabal” of lobbyists and BWC bureaucrats who “rigged” the workers’ compensation premium rates paid by Ohio employers. It found that BWC developed and maintained “an unlawful rating system under which excessive premium discounts were given to group-rated employers at the expense of nongroup-rated employers.”

The common pleas court said BWC “even admitted” to violating statutory requirements in setting premiums. The court also said BWC was “aware of the inequity in the system” and “aware it was violating the statutory mandate.”

TOLEDO OH – Ironically, although this city is affixed to the shore of a Great Lake, we’ve given a new meaning to what a “dry” town is. We learned it’s one thing to go without beer; quite another to go without water.

For three days, some 500,000 people avoided almost all bodily contact with water that came out of their faucets. No drinking, cooking, dish-washing, teeth-brushing. Boiling didn’t help. Bathing was OK except for small children, pets and those with compromised immune systems.

Algae blooms in Lake Erie caused by excessive phosphorus and nitrogen from sewage – from humans and animal feedlots – and large scale farming are not new. For years, algae has leached microcystin bacteria into Lake Erie, but literally overnight three days ago, the health of Lake Erie and a long-delayed overhaul of our aging water treatment plant are top priority.