Judgment Day for Franklin County's Prosecutor
The devilish details in the announced Lordstown deal, radical Republican could ban effective healthcare methods, and more.
Franklin County prosecutor Ron O’Brien, a Republican who will be tossed out of office next year, will announce today at 9 a.m. if Masonique Saunders, a 16-year-old charged with felony murder after Columbus police shot 16-year-old Julius Tate in a botched robbery sting in which all officers involved claim their body cameras malfunctioned, will be treated as an adult.
This wouldn’t happen to the daughter of wealthy family from Upper Arlington. You can help defend Saunders by donating to her defense fund and/or signing the petition to drop all charges against her.
PRESIDENT BUSINESS DEALS ANNOUNCES WIN MIDWAY THROUGH THE THIRD QUARTER
President Deals came to the Mahoning Valley and told a rally not to sell their houses because the jobs and factories are coming back. Since then, General Motors has closed its Chevy Cruze plant, which has also killed a transport company in business since 1903 (400+ jobs) and will trickle all the way to school funding.
Considering the Obama-voting district swung his way in 2016, the Lordstown issue is a liability for Trump entering 2020. So it makes sense the President made sure to announce a new company buying the plant before it actually bought the plant.
His proclamation earned 20.2K retweets and 90.2K likes. However, the Devil is always in the details — especially when considering the words of President Child Cages.
I’ve said before the best case scenario was a non-unionized company buying the plant and paying workers a slice of wages they made before.
Workhorse isn’t unionized and isn’t in any position to take over the a plant the size of Lordstown anytime soon:
The Workhorse deal rides on a potential $6.3 billion deal with the patriots at the United States Postal Service.
From Jackie Borchardt of cincinnati.com:
But the deal, and the future employment of Lordstown's workers, relies on the Loveland-based Workhorse Group scoring a $6.3 billion contract from the U.S. Postal Service to make next-generation postal trucks.
“If they get the contract, they are going to have the capital," said Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, also a Republican, said of the tentative sale. Without the contract? The Lordstown plant's future is murkier.
GM announced last year that the Lordstown plant would be placed in "unallocated" status. Production of the Chevrolet Cruze compact car ended March 6, and the plant was shuttered pending action by GM. The Northeast Ohio plant had employed 4,500 people at one time.
GM CEO Mary Barra told Trump and DeWine in phone calls that her company planned to invest $700 million into three Ohio plants in Toledo, Moraine and Parma. That's a commitment that Ohio's leaders and U.S. senators have waited months to hear.
Of course our populist, workers-first president didn’t mention any of this and said the only stipulation is agreement from the UAW, whom he will inevitably scapegoat should his magical deal fall through if the USPS decides against Workhorse.
The UAW didn’t meet the news with the same enthusiasm as the president and his supporters:
People will say, “Jobs are jobs.” Anybody who believes that is welcome to go work for minimum wage and try to feed their families. Wages and benefits matter when discussing jobs.
58-YEAR-OLD SEX-HAVER NOT AN EXPERT ON THE WOMAN BODY OR BIRTH CONTROL, STILL SPONSORING BILL ON BOTH SUBJECTS
Governor Mike DeWine just signed the most restrictive abortion ban in the country into law — a bill that would force rape victims to carry a baby to term.
The fanatics in the legislature aren’t satisfied. Private insurance is the he next target for the free-market-loving Republicans. Twenty percent of their statehouse caucus has already signed onto a bill that would also ban proven methods of birth control.
From Jo Ingles of wosu.org:
The bill would ban nontherapeutic abortions that include "drugs or devices used to prevent the implantation of a fertilized ovum.”
Becker says the bill also speaks to coverage of ectopic or tubal pregnancies where the fertilized egg attaches outside of the womb.
“Part of that treatment would be removing that embryo from the fallopian tube and reinserting it in the uterus so that is defined as not an abortion under this bill," Becker explains.
The self-proclaimed “most conservative member of the Ohio House” is an accountant by trade, which doesn’t involve women’s healthcare in any meaningful way.
Let’s see what the experts have to say.
“That doesn’t exist in the realm of treatment for ectopic pregnancy," argues says Jaime Miracle, deputy director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio. "You can’t just re-implant. It’s not a medical thing."
She says, under this bill, women would have to wait until their very lives were in danger to get an abortion in the case of an ectopic pregnancy.
“This bill will have grave impacts on Ohio’s infant and maternal mortality rates," Miracle says.
It’s hellish that men who passed sex education in 1975 are making these decisions. Somehow, it gets even worse.
That’s not all, Miracle says. She argues it will ban insurance from covering many popular methods of birth control.
“Birth control pills, IUDs and other methods of birth control like that – the bill states that any birth control that could act to stop a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus is considered an abortion under this bill," Miracle says.
Becker insists his bill does not target birth control.
“When you get into the contraception and abortifacients, that’s clearly not my area of expertise, but I suppose, if it were true that what we typically known as the pill would be classified as an abortifacient, then I would imagine the drug manufacturers would reformulate it so it’s no longer an abortifacient and is strictly a contraceptive," Becker says.
This is my beef with the “Right-to-Life” movement. Former governor John Kasich closed half the abortion clinics in the state, and abortions went up last year.
They will never ban abortion, just women’s access to a medical procedure that’s safer than child-birth.
If I were against abortion, I simply wouldn’t have one. But these ghouls enforce their religious dogma onto the rest of the population to the point they oppose proven methods at limiting abortions like funding for family planning and birth control.
It’s shameful, embarrassing, and cruel. I don’t fault any young person fleeing the state. I moved 1,880 miles away five months after turning 18. But I came back, and I’m never going to log off because the future doesn’t belong to people like John Becker.
NFL AND DAYTON TO INVESTIGATE CLAIMS OF INDIGENOUS BURIAL GROUNDS AT POTENTIAL SITE OF NEW FOOTBALL FIELD
Back in March, the NFL announced plans to build a $1 million turf field in Dayton at Triangle Park, the site of the NFL’s first game.
Those plans got iced in April when an indigenous people’s group raised concerns the site contains an ancient burial ground.
The NFL and Dayton will investigate the claim before proceeding.
From daytondailynews.com:
DAYTON — The City of Dayton has brought in a national consulting firm to further examine claims that Triangle Park is a Native American burial site, ahead of the installation of NFL-funded turf field, according to a media release from the city.
The firm, specializing in cultural heritage and historical preservation, will conduct archaeological testing at Triangle Park Wednesday at the site of a proposed turf field, funded by a grant from the National Football League, officials said.
I’m glad they’re bringing in experts to look into the claims.
Back in the day, I attended Indian Mound Elementary, named after the ancient Native Indian burial grounds found in the hills of the woods behind the school.
Except those hills actually turned out to be glacial deposits containing no burial remains. Marion City Schools, whose mascot is The Presidents, renamed the school after infamous Indian killer Benjamin Harrison.
SO YOU’VE ENCOUNTERED THREE PITBULLS FIGHTING TO THE DEATH
Living in Franklinton is always an adventure — from Johns in $70,000 cars prowling alleys for sex workers at all hours of the day to my neighbor buying a handgun at noon and dying by suicide with a single gunshot to the head at 4 p.m. on a Thursday.
Another chapter happened yesterday afternoon when screaming outside made me think a child had been set on fire.
After 10 seconds, I decided to investigate. Four doors down, two pitbulls were mauling a third one outside a house in a lawn of mud in front of four or five children. The mom came out of the house with a pan of water that she threw on the dogs to no effect.
My options seemed to be whisking the children away or watching a dog get murdered because up until then, I had never seen pitbulls in kill mood. It’s something I’ll never forget. Even the dog that was getting tag-teamed was fighting like a monster.
Out of nowhere, a guy stops in the middle of Rich Street. The angel turned out to be a pitbull whisperer.
“You need to choke the motherfuckers! They won’t understand anything else,” he said cooly while leaning against the fence and watching three dogs fight to the death.
The bewildered mom and the children didn’t seem capable of such a feat. Neither did I, to be honest.
“You got a belt?” the whisperer asked the blogger without a touch of irony. I ran back to my apartment and found two belts I’ve worn maybe twice in the last six months.
I entered the arena with one belt held at each end intent on roping one of the attacking dogs that way.
“No! No!” the whisperer instructed. “You gotta make a noose out of it!”
Not having expertise in making nooses, I passed the belt back to the whisperer who quickly made fashioned a noose of the belt and gave it back.
I wasn’t about to watch a dog die, so I entered the arena.
A little girl shouted the obvious, “Watch out! They bite!”
It took a couple attempts to lasso one of the dogs — not that they noticed — but the whisperer had the right of it. As soon as I hooked one and tightened the belt around its neck it came off its attack as if I were pulling it away from street trash during a casual walk.
[One half of the tag team, post fight]
Apparently the third dog belonged to the mom’s ex-husband and somehow escaped a locked room and wandered into the danger zone. He battled like a champion and somehow injured both attackers while fighting for 20 minutes.
I don’t know what would have happened hadn’t a man with experience raising pitbulls drove by at the exact time we needed his services, because those dogs weren’t stopping until one of them died. I wouldn’t have been able to do anything without those belts.
After I went home to wash off the dirt and pitbull blood from my hands, I went back to the scene and two of Columbus’ finest had finally arrived.
One of the little girls pointed at me and said, “That man saved our dog!” which made me feel good until one of the cop’s turned, looked at my Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez campaign shirt and said, “Well, I’m glad somebody in this neighborhood cares.”
Serve and protect, indeed.
THOSE WMDs. Inside the dark, lucrative world of debt collection… Animals rule Chernobyl three decades after disaster… What happened when my 13-year-old son joined the alt-right… I idolized my cousin until he tried to kill me… Senator introduces bill to ban loot boxes and pay-to-win microtransactions… The people who don’t drink water under any circumstance… Denver decriminalizes psychedelic mushrooms… Goldman Sachs, Patagonia, and the mystery of “business casual.”