Radioactive Nuclear Waste:  The August and November issues of The Columbus Free Press had articles about the dangerous nature of the depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) radioactive waste – contaminated with plutonium – at the Portsmouth Nuclear Site in Piketon, OH, and at the Paducah Nuclear Site in Kentucky.  This waste was generated from the gaseous diffusion uranium enrichment process that went on at the two sites for the better part of 50 years, starting in the 1950s and ending in 2001 at Portsmouth and continuing until 2013 at Paducah. Uranium was first enriched at both sites for nuclear bombs, then later for nuclear power generation.  The enrichment process separates the one percent of fissionable (able to generate a nuclear reaction) uranium isotope from the bulk of the uranium.  

Corroding Cylinders: Chemical reactivity is causing the cylinders that hold the DUF6 to rust and leak. Many of the corroded cylinders are over 60 years old. There are over 24,000 of these 14-ton cylinders at Portsmouth and 40,000 at Paducah.

It seems that the cleaning companies who employ janitors in Columbus have awakened to a new reality: they are dealing with a fighting union. On December 3 about 750 Columbus janitors ratified a new 3-year contract. Negotiations were concluded much more swiftly than for the previous contract, and the janitors’ employers made significant concessions.

The janitors, who are members of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1, will receive between $2000 and $3000 more in wages per year over the life of the contract. The contract also strengthens protections for members, including discrimination for sexual orientation and gender identity. It also adds funeral leave for the first time.

The cleaning companies probably didn’t want a repeat of 2013, when the janitors organized numerous protests, held rolling strikes in downtown Columbus office buildings, and were arrested during sit-ins at Fifth Third Bank and PNC Bank.

“How will the electronic vote count in the 2016 election be verified?” The answer is simple: “It can’t be.” ~ Fitrakis & Wasserman, March 31, 2016

Back in 2004, then Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb put it bluntly: “The greatest threat to American democracy is the belief that we have one.” That is so true today.

When candidate Donald Trump charged that the 2016 election was somehow being rigged, both establishment and progressive pundits erupted in unanimous outrage that the vaunted integrity of America’s “exceptional” electoral system was being impugned.

An Epidemic of Cognitive Dissonance and Denial

On the morning of the 2016 election, the New York Times, vaunted ‘paper of record,’ gave Trump a 15 percent chance of winning. So much for the NYT. The vaunted Washington Post is now claiming – with no evidence – that ‘Russian hackers’ gave the election to Trump. So much for the WaPo.

Christian Parenti speaks for many head scratching progressive commentators when he writes, “My point is not that we should like Trump but rather that the Left must understand why almost 60 million Americans voted for him.”

This year's election taught us that big money has taken over Ohio politics and that the news media's role in influencing election outcomes has become insignificant. Consider the following three cases in point:

1. Rob Portman and his backers spent $50 million in television ads making exaggerated, deceptive claims that Ted Strickland was a bad governor. Before the ads started to run, Strickland was ahead by 15 points. Three months later, Portman was ahead by 15 points and won going away. In other words, 30 percent of the Ohio electorate is so gullible that it can be swayed by a barrage of misleading unanswered ads.

Aside: Portman featured his wife in television ads. Jane Portman told the camera: "Rob has a good heart." Sorry, Jane, your husband Rob, who orchestrated $50 million in lies about Ted, has a "dark heart."

Trump. I’m just getting past the paralysis. For maybe the first time in my life I’m experiencing fear in a macro sense. I mean, I’ve had my fair share of acute terror, but nothing like this ominous dulling crush. Jesus fucking Christ. I’ve seen enough to understand that wholesale bigotry has never stopped frothing under the American surface. Candidly, before I took Trump seriously as a candidate I was somewhat appreciative of him for dragging this filth out into the light, even if it was for all the wrong reasons. But God, I never realized how bad it would shake me to see it out in the open. To actually see people performing the Nazi salute and screaming “heil Trump!” To see just how emboldened people are, how aggressive they have become about indulging their poison. One of those open carry freaks is now hanging out at Indianola and Olentangy, claiming the existence of a “menacing” homeless person. Jesus fucking Christ.