Carla Hale, the 19 year teacher at Columbus Bishop Watterson High School who was fired after her mother’s obituary stated that she was “survived by Carla & her partner,” received word this week that the phony Catholic “Union” to which she has paid two decades worth of dues will not support her in her fight to be reinstated. In a public statement, the Central Ohio Association of Catholic Educators stated thru spokesperson Kathleen Mahoney they would not appeal her case to arbitration.

This will not affect her ongoing fight to reverse her firing at the hands of the Central Ohio Catholic Diocese, stated Tom Tootle, the attorney representing Ms. Hale. According to Mr. Tootle, “COACE has never in its history appealed any grievance for any of its members to arbitration.”

It was learned through confidential sources that a number of teachers, members of COACE at Bishop Watterson High School, had initiated a petition to decertify that group as representing the teachers at that school.

In reaction to the introduction of three Right-to-Work bills by right-wing GOP Ohio legislators which would strip unions of negotiating power, organized labor and the huge We Are Ohio coalition are holding a series of 17 mass meetings in the state. The 14th such gathering was an overflow crowd last week at the Carpenters Union Hall in Columbus.

“The treat is real,” stated AFL-CIO rep Joan Fluharty opening the meeting. “For years we’ve told people that there is a threat that corporate politicians would try to jam Right-to-Work legislation thru the legislature here. Well, it’s no longer a threat! They’ve introduced the bills. It’s up to us to get organized & fight. If we don’t they’ll take everything we have!”

Meanwhile, the crowd was still piling in, with folks having to park in nearby lots, streets, the alley near the hall.

The following statement is by Robert Fitrakis, Chair, Federal Elections Commission, Green Shadow Cabinet:
No one should be shocked that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is once again using its power to harass grassroots patriot groups and local Tea Party organizations, as reported in the news recently.

The real scandal is that the IRS did not go after Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, or the pro-Obama propaganda groups Organizing for America and Priorities USA. These are the four major tax-exempt “social welfare” organizations under the IRS code, who are deciding who is running our country.

The Obama administration’s IRS is adopting the same tactics used by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Obama’s IRS is auditing and investigating minor fringe players instead of major donors that uphold the two-party system. This is the same tactic the EPA uses to go after small independent gas stations who toss out oil, while ignoring egregious violations of environmental law by oil giants British Petroleum and Exxon.

In January, it seemed the restart of San Onofre Unit 2 would be a corporate cake walk.

With its massive money and clout, Southern California Edison
was ready to ram through a license exception for a reactor whose botched $770 million steam generator fix had kept it shut for a year.

But a funny thing has happened on the way to the restart: a No Nukes groundswell has turned this routine rubber stamping into an epic battle the grassroots just might win.

Indeed, if ever there was a time when individual activism could have a magnified impact, this is it (see  www.sanonofresafety.org and www.a4nr.org).

This comes as the nuclear industry is in nearly full retreat. Two US reactors are already down this year. Yet another proposed project has just been cancelled in North Carolina.  And powerful grassroots campaigns have pushed numerous operating reactors to the brink of extinction throughout the US, Europe and Japan, where all but two reactors remain shut since Fukushima.

In California, it's San Onofre that's perched at the brink. 

Most of the world's governments no longer use the death penalty. Among wealthy nations there is one exception remaining. The United States is among the top five killers in the world. Also in the top five: the recently "liberated" Iraq.

But most of the United States' 50 states no longer use the death penalty. There are 18 states that have abolished it, including 6 in this new millennium, including Maryland this week. Thirty-one states haven't used the death penalty in the past 5 years, 26 in the past 10 years, 17 in the past 40 years or more. A handful of Southern states -- with Texas in the lead -- do most of the killing.

The progress is slow and painful. Mississippi is right now having trouble deciding whether to spare a man just because he might be innocent. Maryland has perversely left five people waiting to be killed while banning the death penalty for any future cases. Next-door in Virginia we hold second place behind Texas and continue to kill.