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Solidarity With Ohio prisoners

May 10, 2020 Martha Grevatt, Workers World. , , ,
Over 200 people demonstrated outside the state prison in Marion, Ohio, May 2 to protest the conditions inside and demand prisoners who meet certain criteria be released. The prison drew national attention after 80 percent of the prisoners tested positive for COVID-19. Conditions are now deplorable, with the prisoners only receiving two meals a day. Those meals do not meet the caloric intake or nutritional needs of an adult male. The excuse given is that staff needs extra time to sanitize. However, the more critical steps of requiring masks and social distancing have not been taken. The protesters demanded that all the 400 prisoners housed at the Marion Reintegration Center be given clemency by Gov. Mike DeWine. Most of them are deemed “low risk” and are within a year of their release date.

Physicians Demonstrate Support For Targeted Health Department Director

May 4, 2020 Jane Morice, Cleveland.com. , , ,
Columbus, Ohio - The Physicians Action Network held a socially distanced demonstration Sunday at the Ohio Statehouse, showing their support for Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Amy Acton. The demonstration comes one day after another small group gathered outside Acton’s home in the Columbus suburbs, lamenting the state’s stay-at-home order and pushing for the state to re-open in full. About 25 physicians donned their scrubs and lab coats Sunday and stood a safe distance apart as a show of support for Acton, a video posted on the Physicians Action Network Facebook page shows. In the video, one masked physician - Anita Somani, an OB-GYN based in Columbus - notes that many doctors are in similar positions to those protesting the stay-at-home order that’s kept hundreds of thousands of Ohioans out of work for weeks. Not all doctors work in hospitals, and some own small businesses too.

73 Inmates Test Positive For COVID-19 At One Ohio Prison

April 21, 2020 Catherine Garcia, The Week. , , ,
The COVID-19 coronavirus is hitting prisons in Ohio hard, especially the Marion Correctional Institution, where 73 percent of the inmate population has tested positive for the virus. The Ohio Department of Health reported Sunday that there are 11,602 confirmed and probable COVID-19 cases in the state, with 471 deaths. The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction shared its own numbers, saying that 2,426 inmates in the state's prison system have tested positive for COVID-19, accounting for 21 percent of all confirmed cases in Ohio. Most of the cases are at Marion Correctional Institution, where 1,828 inmates have tested positive for COVID-19. The prisoners who are not infected by the virus have been placed in quarantine. No prisoners have died of COVID-19.

Refusing To Fund Our Own Destruction

June 28, 2019 By Kelsey Hawkins-Johnson, Otherwords.org , , ,
I spent the summer of 2015 knocking on doors across Cincinnati. As a rising college sophomore, I’d joined a group called Ohio Citizen Action to canvass for my community and the planet. That year, the Ohio River was the most polluted body of water in the nation. Named for the Seneca term for “beautiful river”, the Ohio was then — and remains today — a dumping ground for toxic chemicals. Also that year, the state was in the middle of a two-year freeze on renewable energy and energy efficiency standards, making Ohio the first state to roll back its clean energy standards.

Lake Erie Just Won The Same Legal Rights As People

March 1, 2019 By Sigal Samuel, Vox.com , , ,
It started in a pub. A handful of people, hunched over beers in Toledo, Ohio, were talking about a water crisis that had plagued the city in 2014. The pollution of Lake Erie had gotten so bad that it had taken a serious toll on their lives. The government, they felt, wasn’t doing enough to protect the lake. And so they wondered: What if the lake could protect itself? The idea they hatched that night ultimately resulted in a special election, which had the citizens of Toledo voting Tuesday on a very unusual question: Should Lake Erie be granted the legal rights normally reserved for a person?

Enbridge Gas Pipeline Explodes In Ohio

January 29, 2019 By Lorraine Chow, Ecowatch.com ,
A natural gas pipeline owned by Enbridge exploded in Noble County, Ohio at approximately 10:40 a.m. on Monday. At least two people were reportedly injured and two homes are believed to have been damaged in the incident. "We got reports flames were shooting (up) 80 feet to 200 feet (25-60 meters)," Chasity Schmelzenbach, emergency management director for Noble County, Ohio, told Reuters. "You could see it upwards of 10-15 miles (16-24 km) away. Lots of people thought it was in their backyard because it does appear large."

Columbus, OH: Rally To End ODRC #PrisonStrike Retaliation

November 26, 2018 Pittsburgh Anarchist Black Cross, Itsgoingdown.org , , ,
On Friday November 16th, activists from across Ohio and Pennsylvania collaborated for an action outside the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) Central Office in Columbus. The rally was in response to a number of repressive and retaliatory actions against prisoners following the massive #August21 prison strike. Organizers of the action included Lucasville Amnesty, Pittsburgh Anarchist Black Cross, Central Ohio IWOC and BQIC (Black Queer & Intersectional Collective). Amplified voices recounted the demands of 2018 prison strikers, sounded off on the mistreatment of the prison strikers and all prisoners by the ODRC, and called for solidarity with queer and trans prisoners. Interested ODRC staff lined the windows to witness the spectacle.

Supreme Court Allows Purging Voter Registration For Nonvoters Who Do Not Respond To Mail

June 12, 2018 Staff, Demos.org , ,
WASHINGTON – In a 5-4 ruling in Husted v. APRI, the U.S. Supreme Court today upheld an Ohio voter purge practice that removes infrequent voters from the registration rolls. The decision creates a danger that other states will pursue extreme purging practices to disenfranchise millions of eligible voters across the country. “Today’s decision threatens the ability of voters to have their voices heard in our elections,” said Stuart Naifeh, senior counsel at Demos, which led the legal team challenging the state’s practices. “The fight does not stop here. If states take today’s decision as a sign that they can be even more reckless and kick eligible voters off the rolls, we will fight back in the courts, the legislatures, and with our community partners across the country.”

Columbus Activists Turn Out To Support ‘Black Pride 4’ Protesters During Sentencing

March 21, 2018 Prince Shakur, Injusticetoday.com , , ,
On March 13, roughly two dozen community activists and supporters gathered outside a courtroom in Franklin County Municipal Court to support four young activists accused of disrupting last June’s pride parade in Columbus, Ohio. The Black Pride 4 — Wriply Bennet, Ashton Braxton, Deandre Miles-Hercules, and Kendall Denton — and six other activists blocked the path of the parade for seven minutes last June “to protest the acquittal of Jeronimo Yanez, the Minnesota police officer who killed Philando Castile in 2016, as well as to shed light on the lack of safe spaces for black and brown people in the LGBTQIA+ community,” according to their press release. Three out of four of those arrested were sentenced Wednesday to two years of probation and dozens of hours of community service; two of them were fined.

Lifeline Program Changes Could Cut Low-Cost Internet For Thousands In Ohio

January 18, 2018 By Julie Washington, Cleveland.com , , , ,
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A federal program that helps low-income people afford internet service in their homes is in the Federal Communications Commission's crosshairs. Under changes the FCC recently proposed, fewer people may receive subsidized broadband service under the Lifeline program. Those left out will struggle to do online tasks such as filling out a job application, or paying bills online. About 12.5 million low-income people across the country, and thousands in Ohio, could be affected. There are even health implications, since so much of today's medicine relies on patients having the ability to make appointments, refill prescriptions and view test results online. "There are a lot of unknowns so far," said Liz Lazar, director of programs and partnerships for DigitalC, a nonprofit organization that provides digital literacy and internet access to the under-served.

Ohio Overturns Ban On Cities Keeping Them From Voting Against Fracking

November 4, 2017 Ruth Milka, nationofchange.org , , ,
By Ruth Milka for Nation of Change - In a great victory for environmentalists and the people of Ohio, the Ohio Supreme Court struck down a provision that restricted citizen’s efforts to vote locally on banning fracking. The ruling is a turn around from earlier rulings that prevented residents from placing county charters and a city ordinance to ban fracking from appearing on ballots. In 2015, after the movement against fracking had progressed enough to include new county charters to elevate the rights of local residents and ecosystems, the Supreme Court ruled that the state has “exclusive authority” over oil and gas drilling. This meant cities and counties no longer had the right to ban or regulate fracking through any restrictions. Ohio’s Secretary of State Jon Husted supported the ruling, claiming he had “unfettered authority” to remove county charters from ballots, even if the people had gathered enough signatures. And it’s no wonder, as Husted is deeply tied to the Ohio Oil & Gas Association, who fundraise for him. Since 2015, Husted and his team of appointed county boards of elections, along with the state Supreme Court, have removed 10 proposed fracking-related county charters from Ohio ballots. Earlier this year, the city of Youngstown, Ohio spent $185,000 promoting anti-hydraulic fracking ballot measures, regardless of the state’s law. Even though city lawyers deemed that any regulation or ban that was passed with a vote would “not be enforceable,” the environmentalist group Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, are pushing on.

Fossil Fuel Allies Are Tearing Apart Ohio’s Embrace Of Clean Energy

October 30, 2017 Brad Wieners and David Hasemyer, www.insideclimatenews.org , ,
By Brad Wieners and David Hasemyer for Inside Climate Change - COLUMBUS, Ohio—On March 30, Bill Seitz, a charismatic Republican, took to the floor of the Ohio House to make a case for gutting a 2008 law designed to speed the adoption of solar and wind as significant sources of electricity in the state. The law, he warned, "is like something out of the 5-Year Plan playbook of Joseph Stalin." Adopting a corny Russian accent, he said, "Vee vill have 25,000 trucks on the Volga by 1944!'" Nine years before, Seitz and his colleagues, Republicans and Democrats alike, had voted overwhelmingly for the measure he now compared to the work of a Communist dictator. It made Ohio the 25th state to embrace requirements and inducements to lure utilities away from coal, a major contributor of the gases fueling global climate change. Studies suggested the law would help create green energy jobs and boost the Ohio economy—and it has. Now, Seitz said, it was obsolete. Natural gas, rapidly displacing coal, was the resource Ohio ought to foster, he said. He also argued the law gives an unfair advantage to wind and solar when the state's last nuclear plant is fighting for its life. Most important, Seitz insisted, the government had no business telling anyone what kind of energy to buy.

Ohio State Denies Request To Have Richard Spencer Speak On Campus

October 21, 2017 Brandon Carter, www.thehill.com , ,
By Brandon Carter for The Hill - Ohio State University has denied a request to rent space for prominent white nationalist Richard Spencer to speak on campus, citing public safety concerns in the wake of Spencer's appearance at the University of Florida earlier this week. “The university has deemed that it is not presently able to accommodate Mr. [Cameron] Padgett’s request to rent space at the university due to substantial risk to public safety, as well as material and substantial disruption to the work and discipline of the university,” a lawyer representing Ohio State said in a letter to an attorney representing Spencer’s associates and obtained by The Guardian. Earlier Friday, a lawyer for Spencer said he would file a federal lawsuitagainst the university if it denied a request for Spencer to speak on campus. WOSU reports that Ohio State senior vice president Christopher Culley told Michigan attorney Kyle Bristow last week that the university could not accommodate a request to rent space, but the lawyer held off suing while the school looked into "other alternatives." Bristow told WOSU he is seeking an injunction to force the school to rent space for Spencer’s speech.

Youngstown Residents Push To Oust Corporations From Election Campaigns

August 16, 2017 Staff, www.inthesetimes.com , , ,
By Staff of In These Times - Today, a long-standing community rights group in Youngstown, Ohio, submitted over 1,900 signatures to qualify their Youngstown Fair Election Bill of Rights initiative for the November ballot. The measure is the first of its kind in the state, limiting campaign contributions to registered voters within the City, and capping those contributions at $100. The Youngstown Community Bill of Rights Committee drafted the initiative with the support of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF). CELDF has been assisting Youngstown residents to advance their democratic and environmental rights since 2013, when residents launched their community rights work to protect themselves from fracking activities. Fracking threatens their drinking water and has caused earthquakes in the area. “We have fought to keep fracking projects out of our City for several years, with six ballot measures that asserted our right to clean water and to local community self-government,” says Lynn Anderson, a lead organizer with the Youngstown Committee.

Ohio’s Anti-Wind Regulation Comes At A Serious Cost

July 29, 2017 Harvey Wasserman, www.progressive.org , , , ,
By Harvey Wasserman for The Progressive - In the corporate war against renewable energy, a single Ohio regulation stands out. It is a simple clause slipped into the state budget without open discussion, floor debate, or public hearings. The restriction is costing Ohio billions of dollars and thousands of jobs. The regulation demands that wind turbines sited in the Buckeye State be at least 1,125 feet from the blade tip to the nearest property line, about 1300 feet total—nearly a quarter-mile. Ohio’s setback rule is similar to one in Wisconsin, where progress on wind power has atrophied. Lincoln County in South Dakota just passed a requirement that turbines be at least a half-mile from any residence. And Vermont is pondering a rule change to require a setback of ten times the turbine height, which in the case of a 500-foot turbine would be nearly a mile. Such regulations threaten to kill wind power, thus protecting corporate investments in nuclear power and fossil-fuel generators. The situation is Ohio is especially egregious. FirstEnergy, owner of Ohio’s two dying reactors at Perry and Davis-Besse, is now strong-arming the legislature and regulators for $4.5 billion in handoutsto sustain two money-losing nukes whose electricity is far more expensive than what would come from currently approved wind projects, and whose 1,400-odd jobs would be dwarfed by the new turbine construction.
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