Ohio is on the frontlines to protect Roe v Wade

Today, as we celebrate the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade which legalized abortion in America, Ohio is making headlines for all the wrong reasons. We are at the center of the battle over whether abortion will remain legal for the next generation.

Senate President Niehaus announced this week that he would resume hearings on the so-called “heartbeat” bill. This is an extreme bill that would outlaw abortion before many women know they are pregnant. There are no exceptions for rape and incest survivors.

Write to Senate President Niehaus TODAY and tell him to defeat the so-called “heartbeat” bill.

Supporters of this bill have turned the Ohio statehouse into a circus, hiding their efforts to outlaw abortion behind cutesy slogans and theatrics. But make no mistake about it, if enacted, their legislation would endanger the health and lives of thousands of women every year. We need your help to stop them.

Alleged terrorist reveals stockpile of bomb-making chemicals in Bangkok

BANGKOK, Thailand -- When the United States Embassy issued a travel advisory about "foreign terrorists" in Bangkok last weekend, the warning may have prevented a massive car bombing in an area popular with Western tourists.

But in a surprising diplomatic rebuke, Thailand complained about the impact of Washington's counter-terrorism strategy on its economically crucial tourism industry.

Hussein Atris, an alleged Lebanese-born Hezbollah member traveling on a Swedish passport, led police on Monday (January 16) to a rented building packed with potential bomb-making ingredients after he was arrested in Bangkok on Friday (January 13).

"The suspect told us the bomb-making materials were not for terrorist attacks in Thailand, but were intended to be smuggled out of the country," National Police Chief Priewpan Damapong on Monday (January 16).

Police charged Mr. Atris, 47, with illegal possession of restricted chemicals, but said he may face additional charges.

The building held 9,656 pounds (4,380 kilograms) of urea fertilizer and 10 gallons (37.8 liters) of liquid ammonium nitrate, police told reporters.

Medical Cannabis Amendment certified by Ohio Attorney General

The OMCA2012 team is proud to announce that, on January 20, 2012, the Ohio Attorney General certified the Ohio Medical Cannabis Amendment of 2012. On January 12, 2012, the OMCA2012 proposed ballot language and summary were submitted to the OAG's office along with 212 petitions containing the signatures of almost 3,000 purported registered Ohio voters, 1,727 of which were deemed valid.

Certification by the OAG represents the first step in a process that will place this proposed amendment to the Ohio Constitution on the statewide ballot in the fall of 2012. After the OAG certified that the measure's summary is an accurate reflection of its full text, the OMCA2012 proposed ballot language was referred to the Ohio Secretary of State for determination by the Ohio Ballot Board that the amendment contains only a single issue. We are confident that our language will meets this requirement.

Watch the outsourcing of votes today in South Carolina!

The Free Press received an email from Bev Harris of Black Box Voting that stated: "100% of South Carolina election results will be routed through Barcelona-owned Scytl/SOE before being released to the public." This should not surprise anyone who follows the freepress.org or blackboxvoting.org. The 2004 highly-suspect Ohio election results were routed through Smartech in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the company under the control of Jeff Avebeck, a far-right Pentecostal Christian. This has not been properly investigated by authorities.

Black Box Voting also sent a video entitled "Video the Count: What to do on Election night." We're posting this to urge activists, especially in South Carolina, to watch the polls. Last November's elections in Franklin County, Ohio, home of Columbus -- the state's largest city -- the final poll tapes from the voting machines at all precinct sites failed to print, leaving no check or balance against the central tabulating and processing of votes in other locations.

Watch Black Box Voting video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3_xFb1sWKU

Corporations Are Not People. Money Is Not Speech.

Those two key ideas were written on protest signs and they were sung and shouted thru the 25 degree air when about 70 people of a variety of ages gathered near the federal courthouse on Marconi Boulevard. Columbus joined communities all over the country to mark the second anniversary of the US Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Three of our city's organizers for Occupy the Courts spoke with the Columbus Free Press recently. Two of them also spoke with WCRS Columbus.

Bob Krasen, Doug Todd, and Michael Greenman work with Move to Amend, Central Ohio. Krasen said the word about today's protest is out to a fairly good number of organizations.

"Nobody really knows how many are going to come, but we’re hoping for a crowd of a couple hundred.”

Krasen said the demonstrations against the Citizens United decision can also be celebrations of activists coming together in common cause to defeat this threat to our democratic republic.

Ohioans Call for Moratorium on Fracking

Cheryl Johncox of Buckeye Forest Council at protest in Columbus Ohio for a moratorium on fracking Cheryl Johncox said she and fellow activists with Buckeye Forest Council are not being perfectionists about the environment at the expense of society’s need for energy. She said they want better regulations. “I can’t believe they can put a pit with radioactive fluid a hundred feet from my house and not even have to fence it in.”

Johncox said that as of 2010, companies no longer have been required to submit a radioactivity log, and that fracking fluid from Marcellus shale and Utica shale contain radioactive particles at a thousand times the recommended limit

2012's civil liberties apocalypse has already happened

In case you missed it, President Barack Obama has signed a death knell for the Bill of Rights. It's a hell of a way to begin a year many believe will mark the end of the world.

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) makes a mockery of our basic civil liberties. It shreds the intent of the Founders to establish a nation where essential rights are protected. It puts us all at risk for arbitrary, indefinite incarceration with no real rights to recourse.

The Act authorizes a $626 billion dollar defense budget (which does not include the CIA, special ops, various black box items, etc). Obama's signing statement says it does address counterterrorism at home and abroad as well as Defense Department modernization, health care costs and more.

Steve Cannon, a blind poet and arts patron faces eviction

"One of the worst things about being blind is that you gotta trust people," said Steve Cannon recently on his couch at A Gathering of the Tribes, an alternative salon and performance space on the Lower East Side.

Cannon was mulling over news he had just received from his accountant that someone's been taking money from Tribes, possibly one of the many volunteers he depends on to run the arts organization, which he started as a literary magazine in his apartment over twenty years ago.

Cannon was also pondering his next move in a legal wrangle he has been having with his landlord, Lorraine Zhang.

In 2004, Cannon sold the three-story townhouse at 285 East Third St to Zhang for $950,000, having lived there since 1970, long before the area became gentrified.

Under the agreement they signed, and which was to be renewed after five years Cannon would get to stay as a tenant in the apartment until 2014.

Corporate personhood cannot withstand organized persons

There are many schemes now for undoing the doctrines under which corporations claim constitutional rights and bribery is deemed constitutionally protected "speech." Every single one of these schemes depends on a massive movement of public pressure all across the homeland formerly known as the United States of America. With such a movement, few of the schemes can fail. Without it, we're just building castles in the air. Nonetheless, the best scheme can best facilitate the organizing of the movement.

The U.S. Constitution never gave any rights or personhood to corporations or transformed money into speech. It ought not to be necessary to amend a document to, in effect, point out that the sky is blue and up is not down. If the Supreme Court rules that Goldman Sachs can send legislation directly to the White House and cut out the congressional middleman, will we have to amend the Constitution to remove the Goldman Sachs branch of government? Where will this end?

Church of the Dude, inspired by The Big Lebowski, sets up in Thailand

BANGKOK, Thailand -- People who intuitively perceive 2,500-year-old Chinese and Greek concepts, while knowingly nod to California's detached hippie philosophy and quote droll lines from The Big Lebowski movie, are joining a revelatory religion which illuminated its American founder in northern Thailand.

The Church of the Latter-Day Dude also invites "mellow, unflashy chicks who hang around in their bathrobes and take baths with candles and whale sounds," said the religion's Dudely Lama, Oliver Benjamin.

"Everyone feels oppressed by society's pressures. Everyone wishes they had more freedom. Everyone wishes they could be more carefree, to worry less about money and status," Oliver said.

His church is heavily influenced by the Tao of Lao Tzu (6th century BC), Epicurus (341-270 BC), and the The Big Lebowski movie, written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, which stars Jeff Bridges as a surreal, hilarious, ironic, marijuana-smoking, satirical, forty-something character nicknamed the Dude. (Dude)

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