Kim K Wants Marion Prisoner Freed
Hemp legalization, Michigan picked to win the Big Ten for some reason, and more.
America passed another racist rubicon yesterday at a President Business Deals rally:
Seems bad, man. Not feeling great about the future either considering I can’t even log into Twitter without a dictionary sounding the alert of nascent fascism.
Moments later, I got a cheapoair.com alert on a flight to Mexico City for the low. I’ve always wanted to visit MDX as we locals call it, and I’m at the point in my life where I’m willing to buy airline tickets off a site called cheapoair.
My business advisors told me to hold what they have termed “a sale,” in which I sell my labor at cut-rate prices to entice free subscribers to throw gems at my feet.
$5 for a month (lowest Substack lets me go; I’m sorry) or $30 a year. You can also Venmo $20 to @warrengharding with your email attached, and I’ll manually add you.
And to anybody plotting to burgle me — You’d be disappointed. And that’s before Starcat murders you.
The Ohio Constitution demanded a two-year operating budget on June 30th. Republican leadership squabbled for two and a half weeks to produce a business-as-usual-bill.
This is what government looks like:
*reaches into bag* And here’s one awful piece of policy buried within:
Can’t watch to catch measles because some private school freak with braces coughed on me in a Subway line.
KIM KARDASHIAN WANTS WRONGLY IMPRISONED BUCYRUS MAN FREED
Kim Kardashian is currently apprenticing at a prestigious California law firm to study for the Bar Exam in 2022. She has taken an interest in perhaps the most noble line of lawyering—exonerating death row inmates.
Yesterday, Kardashian signal boosted a case of a Bucyrus man currently incarcerated at Marion Correctional Institute (yes, that Marion) for the execution-styled murders of three people.
I… had never heard this story? And yet it’s the most Bucyrus thing I’ve ever heard in my life.
From Eric Sandy of clevescene.com in November 2017:
According to that version: On the evening of Feb. 13, 1994, a 30-year-old black man named Kevin Keith entered Apartment 1712 at the Bucyrus Estates complex on the edge of rural Bucyrus, Ohio. Inside, while a basketball game flashed on the living room television, he shot and killed two women and a girl: Marichell and Linda Chatman and 7-year-old Marchae Chatman. Three survivors — a man and two young children — also sustained serious gunshot wounds. The victims all were black, except for the man, and they were all acquaintances of Kevin; he even babysat the little ones every now and then.
He was arrested two days later during a SWAT raid at his home, though the Bucyrus Police Department has no record of any statement from Keith nor any official interview before the cuffs came out. During the trial that spring, Kevin provided multiple alibi witnesses who placed him miles away from the murder scene. (He did not testify himself, a common practice in murder trials.) What little physical evidence that was available pointed to an alternate suspect, but numerous records and details were hidden from the public in 1994. The trial came and went quickly, and the conviction sealed Kevin's fate. Within four months of the shootings, he was sentenced to death by a Crawford County jury.
"I didn't start out to prove his innocence," Charles says today. "Just show me where he's guilty, and I'll have to leave it alone," he'd ask to anyone who might be able to answer.
"So I'm looking, because he's already been found guilty. 'Let me see if I can find something,'" he says. "I cannot; I literally tore their case apart. I set out to find out how he was guilty."
Spoiler: Prosecutors and police worked in concert to frame an innocent black man for a crime he could not have possibly committed.
Props to Kim K for highlighting this case, too. A source of a source says Keith’s lawyers were initially skeptical of Kardashian’s involvement, but she made clear from the jump she would only do what they asked of her. And she’s kept her word every step of the way.
LET THE CBD FLOODGATES OPEN
Better late than never: Ohio finally caught a majority of America yesterday when the House and Senate finally passed a bill legalizing Hemp and CBD. In the least shocking development, critics say the state is regulating entry into the industry on a corporate-only level.
From Laura Hancock of cleveland.com:
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Ohio General Assembly sent a bill to Gov. Mike DeWine on Wednesday that would allow farmers to grow industrial hemp and stores to sell products with its ingredient, known as CBD.
Senate Bill 57 passed the House and then returned to the Senate for concurrence on a number of changes the House made. The Senate OK’d the changes.
The federal government allowed states to implement hemp programs in the 2018 Farm Bill and Ohio is one of the few states without a program, said Rep. Kyle Koehler, a Springfield Republican.
Hemp is used for building materials, energy, textiles, paper products, food and household goods, he said.
Under state law, hemp is lumped in with marijuana drug laws. SB 57 would decriminalize hemp.
…
Despite loosening some restrictions on the plant, critics described some changes made by the House as burdensome.
Ohio Farmers Union President Joe Logan said financial, equipment, land and facility requirements to get a license from the state were unnecessary and would keep many producers out of the industry.
Beat Mike DeWine to lighting a spliff in celebration: My friend who works on an independent hemp farm in Oregon will send you all the CBD products you need to your mailbox for an agreeable price.
And no, I didn’t get any money for that plug. Although Worldwide Hemp wanted to pay me $100 for my services, I’d accept it.
2019 WRITERS GET LAZY, REINTRODUCE WEST NILE VIRUS
West Nile Virus used to seem like a public health crisis in a simpler time in American history. I had honestly forgotten it was a thing before reading the disease had once again appeared in Ohio.
From Briana Rice of cincinnati.com:
Mosquitoes in the Greater Cincinnati area have tested positive for West Nile virus and officials are urging people to take precautions.
The West Nile virus is a viral disease that affects the central nervous system. It can be passed from mosquitoes to humans.
Mosquitoes with the virus were recently trapped on Union Cemetery Rd. in Symmes Township, according to Hamilton County Public Health.
Officials will be conducting surveillance activities in the area where the mosquitoes were collected. Staff will be looking for areas of standing water, applying larvicide and making sure swimming pools are operating properly.
Just your daily reminder we should exterminate every mosquito on earth.
MICHIGAN FAVORED OVER OHIO STATE AGAIN, YOU SAY?
A contingent of Big Ten media nerds, ahead of their annual beer hajj to Chicago for Big Ten media days, got together to declare they haven’t been paying attention the last decade.
From the newly anointed GOAT of the Ohio State beat, Jim Naveau of limanews.com:
Michigan was favored over Ohio State to win the Big Ten East division and go on to win the conference’s football championship game in a poll of 34 media members who cover the Big Ten.
The Wolverines got 20 first place votes and Ohio State received 14 in the East Division voting. Michigan State was third, followed by Penn State, Indiana, Maryland and Rutgers in the poll, which was announced Wednesday.
In the West Division, Nebraska and Iowa each got 14 first-place votes but the Cornhuskers were the favorite on the strength of 11 second place votes, compared to six for the Hawkeyes.
Between the Buckeyes and Browns, America won’t like Ohio come October, let alone January. I’ll compliment Jim Harbaugh for 30 straight newsletters if Michigan finishes higher than Ohio State. More likely he falls to 0-5 against his arch rival, an event that might finally break Wolverine football forever.
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