Rooster: Ohio Wages War on Women
Columbus Education Association not playing games, bald eagles prospering, and more.
Eternally thankful for the Cleveland Browns, who will rule the pit of vipers known as the NFL for the next three decades, for giving me a 24-hour reprieve on the awful political realities in which we live.
Suppose this is a good enough time as any to remind free subscribers that as of tomorrow, the price for my searing insights will rise to $6 a month or $60 a year. Save yourself thousands of dollars by subscribing for $5 a month or $50 a year today.
ANTI-ABORTION NUTJOBS ONE STEP CLOSER TO MOVING OHIO BACK TO THE STONE AGE
The Religious Right used to view voting as an ungodly activity. That changed when the “Right-to-Life” movement militarized millions of Americans into one-issue voters.
Republicans quickly pounced on the newfound acolytes. In Ohio, they’ve spearheaded a campaign of misinformation to strike against not only a women’s right to abortion but also the family-planning services provided by Planned Parenthood.
President Business Deals’ historic pace of appointing judges paid off earlier this week when a federal court upheld Ohio Republican’s defunding of Planned Parenthood.
From Laura Hancock of cleveland.com:
Banned Parenthood: A federal appeals court has upheld Ohio’s law defunding Planned Parenthood. Cleveland.com’s Eric Heisig reports that the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, in a divided decision, overturned a lower court’s decision that a state law was unconstitutional that prohibits Ohio from entering into health services contracts with entities that perform or promote non-therapeutic abortions.
Ah, Banned Parenthood! Love to make puns on the banning of life-saving services.
While Republicans pretend Planned Parenthood does nothing but rip babies out of the wombs of women and throw them in the trashcan, the organization actually performs more vital services than abortion:
The ghouls didn’t stop there. Yesterday, the alleged “pro-life” members of the Senate passed legislation that enshrined a rapist’s rights to father children. I wish I were making that up.
From Laura Hancock of cleveland.com:
Abortions could be banned as soon as six weeks into a pregnancy, when heartbeats are sometimes detected. That’s before some women know they’re pregnant.
People would violate SB 23 if they performed an abortion when a fetal heartbeat has been detected or if they performed an abortion without determining whether there is a heartbeat. They could be charged with a fifth-degree felony, which can carry a penalty of six to 12 months behind bars and a $2,500 fine.
Physicians and other medical providers can additionally face civil lawsuits and sanctions on their licenses by the State Medical Board of Ohio.
An Ohio Senate committee cleared a bill for the chamber's floor that would punish people who performed abortions when a heartbeat is detected, which could be as soon as 6 weeks into a pregnancy.
There are exceptions if a woman is at risk of dying or could sustain an “irreversible impairment of a major bodily function” – which bill opponents called too burdensome.
Cases of rape and incest
There are no exceptions if a pregnancy is the result of a rape or incest.
There aren’t many times in my life I’ve been embarrassed to be from Ohio. The pandering to a minority of zealots is such a time, though.
In the old days, we could at least depend on a federal court striking down this nonsense. Unfortunately we live in the era of President Dementia, and that’s no longer a given.
To be clear: Republicans will never outlaw abortion. They’ll just punish poor women who can’t afford to travel to another state to access a safe medical procedure.
COLUMBUS TEACHERS UNION PRESIDENT PULLS NO PUNCHES
Wright State faculty went on strike and earned a more robust package of benefits. I predicted their courage would trickle down to other educators in Ohio.
The bug of defiance has apparently bit the Columbus Education Association. Its president came out this week with an internet sermon that let City Hall and the education bosses know the union is done playing games.
From Bill Bush of dispatch.com:
Breaking from past practice, the new president of the Columbus teachers union has kicked off contract negotiations by turning up the heat not just on the school board but also on City Hall, launching an internet campaign that signals the upcoming talks won’t be business as usual.
Instead of waiting for a collective-bargaining offer from the district, Columbus Education Association President John Coneglio has gone public with a list of demands, including higher pay and smaller classes. And — in a swipe at Columbus’ mayor and City Council members, all of whom are Democrats — Coneglio called for an end to “handouts to wealthy corporations.” The council approved tax breaks Monday for Abbott Laboratories and four other companies.
Coneglio wouldn’t discuss Tuesday whether the 4,300 union members are prepared to strike, saying, “We’ll talk about that later.”
Fuck. Yes.
For too long, the “progressive” Democratic machine that runs Columbus has shirked its responsibility to local schools in favor of throwing tax breaks at wealthy developers.
As a resident of Columbus, I’d take more pride in productive and fully funded schools than I ever would a new parking garage or downtown skyscraper.
BALD EAGLES BACK ON THE GRIND IN THE BUCKEYE STATE
I was driving down I-75 the other day and swore I saw a Bald Eagle. I didn’t believe my eyes at the time. Turns out, I should have.
From Jeff St. Clair of wosu.org:
The Brecksville eagles are one of more than 220 nesting pairs in Ohio, a remarkable return for a bird that 50 years ago was on the brink of extinction.
“This has been one of the most extraordinary conservation success stories ever,” according to Harvey Webster, chief wildlife officer at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
His team spent more than a decade breeding baby eagles in captivity and placing them in the few remaining nests near Sandusky, “so they would have both the imprint of real wild eagles and the geographic imprint to Ohio.”
That population has spread to all of Ohio’s major lakes and rivers, and along the way, adapted to the human landscape.
Hard to believe our state has the power to bring back beautiful beasts from the brink of extinction. But here we are, marveling at the majesty of predatory birds.
OHIO REAPS MILLIONS OFF SERVICE IT NO LONGER PERFORMS
Do you have one of those new-fangled drivers licenses Ohio mandated after a college dropout built an empire by selling fake IDs on the darkweb? You were ripped off.
From Randy Ludlow of dispatch.com:
The Bureau of Motor Vehicles has allowed its deputy registrars to charge Ohio motorists more than $3 million for a service the registrars no longer perform.
Each driver’s-license or identification-card issuance or renewal is accompanied by a $1.50 lamination fee to compensate registrars for encasing the cards in plastic.
However, with the switch to federally compliant driver’s licenses and ID cards, a BMV vendor — not local registrars — has produced and mailed the cards since July 2.
Based on the monthly average of the nearly 2.6 million driver’s licenses and 448,000 ID cards issued last year, an estimated 2 million Ohioans since have paid more than $3 million in lamination fees.
I blame myself most of all for not catching the hustle. I also blame the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles for creating an unaccommodating atmosphere that makes me want to leave as soon as I enter.
AUTHORITARIAN MAYORS DEMAND RIGHT TO ENTRAP CITIZENS WITH TRAFFIC CAMERAS
The Ohio House and I don’t agree on much. We do agree, however, that traffic cameras are horse shit considering you can’t cross-examine a camera in open court.
From Karen Kasler of wosu.org:
The Ohio House version of the transportation budget requires traffic camera disputes go through municipal courts instead of an administrative process. It would also require cities that use cameras to report income from them, which would then be deducted from their state funds.
Keary McCarthy with the Ohio Mayors Alliance said this is an attempt to work around an Ohio Supreme Court decision upholding cities’ rights to operate camera programs. He said it has no place in a budget that needs to be agreed upon by March 31.
“We can continue to debate the value of this policy, but having it included in what is already a difficult challenge in the transportation budget doesn’t make a lot of sense,” McCarthy says.
McCarthy suggests that legal action is possible if the provision remains in the transportation budget.
Get over yourself, mayors. If you want to entrap citizens, pay a pudgy cop to hold a radar gun like the rest of the speed traps across Ohio.
MID-LEVEL MAFIA ASSOCIATE PROFITEERS ON SHITTY COUNTRY BAND’S BRAND
Sharing a state with Rascal Flatts is almost as embarrassing as living in a state where political leaders virulently oppose a women’s access to legal and safe abortions.
Reading about a mid-level mafia associate squeezing Rascal Flatts-themed restaurants for every penny before leaving them in the dirt brought a tear of joy to my eye.
From Robert Anglen of azcentral.com:
Frank Capri didn't exist until 1999, when the federal government gave him his name, Social Security number and a 1967 birthday.
He was born Frank Gioia Jr., a third-generation mobster. He rose to become a "made man" in New York City's notorious Lucchese Crime Family. Mafia historians call him one of the most important government witnesses ever to testify against the mob.
His cooperation with law enforcement led to the conviction of more than 70 Mafia members — soldiers, captains, capos and bosses — in the 1990s and 2000s. He helped clear several unsolved murders.
In exchange for his cooperation, federal prosecutors erased Gioia’s past as a murderer, drug dealer, gun runner and leg breaker. They rewarded him with a new identity and enrolled him in the Federal Witness Protection Program.
The Republic in 2017 documented Capri's transition from gangster to witness to businessman.
Capri maintains stories about his past were "false and defamatory" but has offered no proof to support his claims. In a 2017 letter to the newspaper, he denied pocketing development money and described the Toby Keith closures as nothing "other than the product of a business failure."
Have some time to kill on your boss’s clock? Click that link for a truly wild story featuring Toby Keith!
THOSE WMDs. Celebrity admissions scandal exposes the racism at the heart of college sports… America invests too little in catching white-collar criminals… My deep, burning class rage… A bank robber made the most expensive gay porno of all time… Mansa Musa: the richest man who ever lived… Unvaccinated boy contracts Tetanus, accrues $800,000 hospital bill over 57 days.
thanks for calling out Capitol Letter on its stupid headlines (not to put you on the spot or anything)