Columbus Takes Aim at the Homeless

The city with rapidly rising rents is now attacking where the homeless can relax.

ICYMI: I devised a new tax scheme where I go to local restaurants and review their food on my blog and send the bill to the patriots at the IRS because according to the Ohio Tax Code those are the perks allowed to me as a business owner.

Yesterday I dropped the debut Rooster Review of Urban Meyer’s Pint House. I realized I have a lot to learn about being a food critic and Step One is to read food reviews to discern a way to write about meals in a way that goes beyond “this is good” and “me no likey.”

This review is available to the freeloaders but future reviews will only go to paid subscribers so what the fuck throw me as little as $5 a month. Sad thing is I don’t even get that full five dollars on account of the 13% tribute I need to pay to the credit card mafia.

COLUMBUS TAKES AIM AT HOMELESS WITH THE AUDACITY TO SLEEP IN PUBLIC

Columbus is a city with government that won’t waste any opportunity to label itself progressive right until it’s time to do some progressive work for people who can’t line their political coffers.

Homeless people aren’t known folks who donate to campaigns or even vote. And that’s why they make easy targets for city sachems to harass out of the public square lest some fucking suit being forced to lie eyes upon a transient and forced to reckon for six seconds with the existence of somebody who makes under $250,000 a year.

From Theodore Decker of dispatch.com:

On Monday morning, [Robert Campbell] sat on his red milk crate directly across Broad from the Statehouse, where you can find him on most every workday.

The seating on this block grew scarcer in recent days, when a construction crew tore off the tops of two low concrete walls that flanked the entrance to the surface parking lot next to the KeyBank building. Then they retopped the walls with slabs of jagged flagstone, standing upright so that they jut out of the concrete.

The medieval remodeling does not come with an explainer, but the motive is clear to anyone who passes by the spot with any regularity. The old wall was the perfect height to stop and rest a spell, and panhandlers found it equally ideal for its proximity to heavy foot traffic.

My attempts to reach the property owners on Monday failed, but Campbell saw the renovation for what it was. Everyone does.

“It was purposely done,” he said. “It’s pretty self-explanatory why they did it.”

I don’t pretend to have all the answers but one answer I do have is if my group were going to pull some shit like this and I were overruled I would say hey let’s at least put some signage around the new grotesque anti-homeless architecture to instruct our most vulnerable citizens to nearby shelters where we can get them on their feet.

But of course none of that happened because Columbus is just the latest city in America to take a dump on its homeless population thanks to the Republicans’ 30-year siege against the country’s social safety net to the point our most potent responses to homeless is putting spikes on benches and buying them a bus ticket to literally anywhere else.

Kudos to Decker on the article too. I’ve been hard on him in the past due to his deference to the cops and I clicked on this article expecting him to applaud the city “cleaning up” downtown but he nailed this take.

OHIO ALLOWS 16 AND 17 YEAR-OLDS TO BE CHARGED WITH PROSTITUTION

My deeply intelligent friend is down in Texas raising money for Democrats up and down the ballot and we were chatting yesterday and she assured me despite my grievances Ohio is lightyears ahead of the Lone Star State which made me feel better until I learned not even in Texas can a 16 or 17-year-old girl be charged with prostitution.

From James Pilcher of cincinnati.com:

In fact, Ohio's laws permit charging minors for prostitution, one of the reasons organizers chose to hold the seventh annual conference here.

Ohio is the only state in the nation where a 16- or 17-year old must prove they were coerced, forced or tricked into providing sex for money before another adult can be charged with juvenile sex trafficking. 

That goes contrary to the federal definition of juvenile sex trafficking, where any sexually exploited minor under the age of 18 is automatically considered a victim.

In addition, Ohio is one of 21 states where children can still be charged with prostitution even though they were forced into the activity by sex traffickers.

"We really want to encourage Ohio legislators to take a look at this," said Shared Hope Vice President and general counsel Samantha Vardaman. 

Think about what legislative ghoul enacted that statute into law. Forcing a 16-year-old girl to prove she’s a victim. I’m appalled but not surprise.

I mean even if the girl were “voluntarily” engaging in sex work imagine being cruel enough to think that a visit to America’s overstuffed carceral state was just the thing she needed to get her life in order. I need a drink.

20% OF VOTING PURGE VICTIMS WERE INNOCENT

America could have nice things like Automatic Voter Registration but Republicans don’t actually want people to vote because their leverage goes down as more people you vote. You might be thinking there goes our good friend The Rooster off the reservation again yet this is something Republicans readily admit.

One tool the GOP devised in Ohio is that of the voter purge despite the fact widespread voter fraud doesn’t exist in America. For years in Ohio the Republicans purged voters in secret. This year they publicly published the purge victims and oh whoops it looks like 20% of voters didn’t deserve their exile.

From Nicholas Gravy of nytimes.com:

This year, a group of elected officials in the state, mostly all moderate Republicans, tried to answer the concerns with an experiment of their own: Rather than purge the voter rolls behind closed doors as had been done in the past, the government released the full list of those to be removed this summer, and gave the list to advocacy groups. The groups said they found the list was riddled with errors.

The result: Around 40,000 people, nearly one in five names on the list, shouldn’t have been on it, the state determined. And it found out before anyone was actually turned away at a polling place largely because of volunteer sleuthing.

Few people had expected a problem at that scale.

Secretary of State Frank LaRose won’t do shit about it because it’s all hands on deck in defense of their orange criminal king lest the whole house of cards comes crumbling down.

But it’s staggering when you consider nobody should be kicked off the roles for not voting and then you add 20% in one year weren’t supposed to be off the list in the first place. When you view it through that scope we’re talking about election-deciding numbers.

It’s going to take action from the federal government to end this charade which won’t happen until a Democrat is in office.

LAWMAKER LOOKS TO PUSH SCHOOL START TIMES BACK

I was thinking last week how insane going to school as a child was. In no way shape or form at age 32 could I sit at a desk from 7:15 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. or whatever it was. Actually there is one way: I would need $1 million a day.

But all seriousness the start times were always insane to me. Not saying my 1.12 GPA would have fared better with later start times in high school but it wouldn’t have hurt.

From Jeremy P. Kelley of daytondailynews.com:

Ohio public schools would not be allowed to begin their school day before 8:30 a.m. if a newly introduced bill passes the Ohio legislature.

Sen. Sandra Williams, D-Cleveland, introduced Senate Bill 218 this week, days after California’s governor signed a related bill into law. The Ohio law would apply to district, charter and STEM schools at all grade levels.

While California’s law was based largely on research showing that teens need more sleep, that was a smaller part of Williams’ reasoning.

“We’ve seen in the news, children who have been hit by a bus while they’re waiting for their bus in the dark, or children being at risk of being kidnapped in the dark,” said Kierra Branch, senior legislative aide for Sen. Williams. “That definitely was a motivating factor.”

I agree with this idea. I assume the pushback will come in the form “We have to start school early so parents have time to send their children to school and get to work.” And it’s going to be hard to come back from that harpoon to the chest.

ROBBER WITH A GUN MEETS A CASHIER WITH A GUN

I worked at the Speedway across the street from my apartment for a couple months in college.

During training management high-key stressed if I were ever the victim of an armed robbery under no circumstances was I supposed to act a hero. I was to simply hand the bandit his loot.

I remember thinking uh no shit buddy it’s not like it’s my money in that drawer. I don’t care I’ll point the robber to the most valuable cartons of cigarettes too and carry his bag to the car.

But one Dollar General Clerk in Dayton had a different mentality.

From Jack Hadfield of nationalfile.com:

The family of an armed robber shot dead by a Dollar General clerk claim the clerk should have called the police instead of defending himself.

Roosevelt Rappley, 23, was shot dead by the clerk of the Dollar General on North Gettsyburg Avenue in Dayton, Ohio, on Wednesday, after entering the store brandishing a firearm and demanding money.

If you pull a weapon on somebody don’t be surprised if they take that threat seriously.

THOSE WMDs. How a massive Facebook scam siphoned millions of dollars from Boomers… How “the Five Love Languages” became the language we all know (and love)… When medical debt collectors decide who gets arrested… The Trump Organization had two separate books… The intentional fires of Northern California.