On Tuesday, February 15, Governor Taft signed the “Choose Life” license plate bill into law, ignoring the nearly 1,000 letters and phone calls from NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio activists urging him to veto the measure. When this law goes into effect in 90 days, the state of Ohio will begin raising money for fake clinics, commonly known as Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs). In 1993, Ohio Attorney General Lee Fisher found that five crisis pregnancy centers in the state “violate the law by advertising themselves as clinics when they are not medical facilities, provide no medical services and have no doctors on staff.” Many CPCs refuse to provide abortion referrals and discourage women from using birth control. Currently, there are more than 175 CPCs operating in Ohio.

What does this have to do with animal rights, you wonder? Ironically, while humans are promoting Right to Life license plates, trying to have more homo sapien babies born into this world, animal rights activists are promoting their own license plates in Ohio promoting prevention of too many cat and dog births.

On February 14, United States Senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin and 17 U.S. Representatives including Dennis Kucinich of Ohio joined U.S. Representative John Conyers in filing an amicus curiae brief opposing sanctions against the public interest attorneys. Cliff ARnebeck, Susan Truitt, Bob Fitrakis and Pete Peckarsky were primarily responsible for uncovering massive election irregularities in their challenge of the 2004 Ohio election. Ohio Attorney General James Petro asked the Ohio Supreme Court to sanction the election protection attorneys claiming the election challenge was “meritless” and “frivolous.” In Conyers memorandum to the court, he stated, “For over 200 years, one of the strengths of our democracy has been that citizens may question the results of an election. …under Ohio law, sanctions should be awarded against Ohio election contesters only in extreme circumstances, if ever, and are plainly inappropriate in this case.” Conyers asserts that contesters “protect the broader public interest.”

Now that they blatantly stole an election, lied about it, gloated over it, claimed it all went smoothly and got away with it – it’s no wonder they decided democracy isn’t important to the people of Ohio.

Substitute House Bill 1 was passed by a lame duck session of the Ohio General Assembly in an emergency “Special Session” just before the Christmas/holiday break without adequate notice or opportunity for the public and media to thoroughly understand its contents and impact. For the first time in nearly a century, the bill legalizes direct contributions from business corporations to certain political activities, including pro-corporate political ads.

No, that won’t influence Ohio lawmakers’ decisions if they win. Not now that the bill increases contribution limits 400% from $2500 to $10,000 for wealthy individuals and business corporations to political candidates of their choice.

Senator Bob Hagan (D-33rd District) introduced Senate Bill 74 which would allow doctors to recommend marijuana in certain cases, including with patients who suffer from HIV/AIDS, glaucoma, Multiple Sclerosis, cancer, nausea or chronic pain. The bill specifically does not authorize distribution of cannabis by primary caregivers or doctors and no insurance company can be forced to pay for medical use of marijuana. The introduction of this bill marks a victory for the Ohio Patient Network (OPN), the patient’s advocacy group behind state wide organizing. “Hopefully this bill will pass and the sick and dying can finally be taken off the battlefield in the War on Drugs,” said Joseph Zoretic, president of OPN.

The actual language of the bill uses the term “marihuana,” an interesting form of slang which yellow journalist William Hearst created and exploited in the 1930’s to demonize and ban Cannabis sativa. From 1850 to 1937, cannabis was used as the prime medicine for more than 100 separate illnesses or diseases in U.S. pharmacopoeia.

On January 30th at Whetstone Park, Columbus, Ohio there was a meeting of groups interested in election reform. The purpose was to, “Combine the efforts of the various election reform groups, as well as allow for communication between the groups so no one’s efforts are duplicated,” according to organizer activist Rady Ananda,

Among the 120 people present were members of CASE-Ohio, Ohio Vigilance, MeetUp, and Redefeat Bush. This cooperating group of organizations has dubbed themselves the “J30 Coalition.” Blackboxvoting.org’s Bev Harris encouraged each group to continue to work independently, in order to attack election problems from different angles, while at the same time keeping channels of communication open.

One of the problems that the J30 Coalition is addressing is conflict of interest in the electoral process due to party affiliations of members of the Board of Elections, and the privatization of voting machine contracts. Diebold is owned by a vocal Republican supporter, and Blackboxvoting.org revealed that ES&S is owned by Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb) and his campaign finance director, Michael McCarthy.