ohio 2 bak

===

MERRI OK

see main for older

see rust belt rural

see nuclear power graft

new 919

== =

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an sn 11 25

If Ohio was a wholly owned subsidiary of Trump World, faithfully executing the corrupt orders of an unforgiving boss, would Ohioans even blink an eye?

Trumpian taskmasters in the Ohio Statehouse already execute public policy based on the dictates of the MAGA king. So, what is the difference?

Unquestioning obedience to the convicted felon drove Ohio Republicans (with obliging Democrats) to intensify congressional district manipulation and give Trump the gerrymandered advantage he demanded ahead of the 2026 elections.

The boss also ordered red states to make it harder for voters to cast ballots in the midterms. Less turnout is less threatening. Trump fears the results of a referendum on his regime.

The Ohio Senate is in his corner.

State Sen. Theresa Gavarone, as usual, leads the anti-voter brigade on the pretense of election integrity.

She doesn’t even come up with new excuses to erect barriers to voting anymore.

The Bowling Green Republican, behind one of the strictest voter ID laws in the country, longs to get on right-wing radar by going more extreme than MAGA Republicans in Congress to disenfranchise voters with made-up election fraud remedies unsupported by evidence.

Last week, the Ohio Senate passed one of Gavarone’s bills in record time. But Ohio Senate Bill 293 was a rush order from Trump World.

It came with an explicit warning: get rid of mail-in voting or risk the wrath of Trump’s Department of Justice in court.

The only U.S. president who conspired to overturn an election he lost, with lies about widespread mail ballot fraud, is laying the groundwork to delegitimize another election with the same fantastical and false claims about vote-by-mail fraud.

He is again sowing baseless doubts about secure mail-in voting systems used by nearly 1 in 3 Americans in 2024.

All it took for Ohio Senate Republicans to go along was a little federal pressure/extortion.

For no compelling reason, they voted to stop counting legitimate mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day in Trump-friendly legislation that mirrored his legally shaky executive order in March.

The EO decreed ballots received post-election invalid and commanded voters produce birth certificates or passports as proof of eligibility — *to create unwarranted obstacles for millions of Americans who simply want to vote.

Gavarone co-sponsored correlating legislation, Ohio Senate Bill 153, to impose the same burden on Ohioans.

It appears to be on the fast track for passage.

Meanwhile, Ohio Senate Bill 293 is headed to the Ohio House to become another voter suppression law in the state.

It would arbitrarily eliminate the mail-in ballot “grace period” in Ohio and cause legal ballots to be thrown out.

But the eminently absurd Gavarone insisted, “we want all valid votes to count, and the process needs to be done on Election Day” or we will turn into pumpkins at the close of polls.

Republican lawmakers who previously shortened the deadline (from 10 to four days) in which those late-arriving ballots, postmarked by Election Day, were counted now embrace Trump’s edict not to processany ballot received past Election Day — lest unchecked power be checked by incoming ballots.

In 2024, almost 10,000 mail-in ballots from eligible Ohio voters arrived in the four-day window that would be eliminated in SB 293.

That’s 10,000 citizens, enough to flip a race, summarily disenfranchised.

Tough luck if you’re a registered voter in good standing, particularly one who is elderly or disabled or lives in rural areas, and postal delays beyond your control cancel your vote.

It’s crazy. Over a million Ohioans used mail-in ballots to vote in the last presidential election. That’s about 17% of the nearly 5,900,000 votes cast.

More registered Republicans voted by mail in Ohio in 2024, than Democrats did.

Voters 65 and older, Ohio’s biggest age demographic, were far and away the biggest users of mail-in voting, returning roughly 520,000 ballots by mail a year ago.

Why not vote from the convenience of home and bypass lines at the polls?

Voting by mail, which surged to record rates in the 2020 election, is still pretty popular and a majority of Americans favor allowing the option to make it safer, easier and more reliable for people to cast ballots.

They don’t buy Trump’s ravings about mail voting fraud which, in truth, is exceedingly rare.

But after Democratic victories in off-year elections last week Trump again railed baselessly about “rigged” mail voting and called on congressional Republicans to ban it outright “except for military, far away military, and people that are very sick.”

He is seeding the ground for rejection of midterm election results he doesn’t like in a throwback to 2020.

We’ve seen this movie before.

Ohioans should know the part their Statehouse politicians are playing in the Trump sequel, how they dutifully execute legislative assaults on voting rights (or else) to enable rule by fiat not the ballot box.

So is the Statehouse is working for Trump World instead of us?

Mia Lewis, of Common Cause Ohio, asked Trumpian taskmasters directly in recent testimony against SB 293.

“Senator Gavarone often asks, ‘Isn’t even just one instance of fraudulent vote too many?’ Of course. It could theoretically skew the result. Luckily, this is so vanishingly rare it has not had and could not have had any impact. *But if someone who is eligible to vote — who wants to vote, does everything legally to vote — if they have their voted ballot cast aside uncounted, isn’t that too many, Senator Gavarone?”

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an 1 25

Following our reporting on a proposal by Republican leadership in Ohio to cut public school spending, which resulted in the lawmakers facing backlash, half a dozen GOP legislators personally reached out, vowing to protect K-12 education.

Those six, and at least 15 others we have spoken to in recent weeks, say that one of their main priorities is supporting public schools.

This comes as Gov. Mike DeWine would not commit to supporting the current bipartisan funding formula, telling us that “difficult choices” will need to be made.

Recap

Ohio’s history with school funding isn’t the brightest. The Ohio Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that the way the state funds schools is unconstitutional, relying too much on property taxes.

Throughout the next three decades, lawmakers went back and forth on policy in an attempt to fix the unconstitutionality. The Ohio Education Association, as well as lawmakers on each side of the aisle, have deemed that it has been unconstitutional since then. However, some Republicans argue that because they are no longer using the struck-down policy, and since nothing else has been deemed “unconstitutional” in court, they argue that, by definition, it can’t be considered unconstitutional.

Either way, there has been a bipartisan effort for years to fix the funding system.

House Bill 1, introduced by state Reps. Bride Rose Sweeney (D-Cleveland) and Jamie Callender (R-Concord), in 2021, required $333 million additional dollars a year for K-12 education funding — or about $2 billion overall. It is called the Cupp-Paterson Fair School Funding Plan.

Their bill mirrored the policy that passed the House but not the Senate in the General Assembly prior, which was created by former Speaker Bob Cupp (R-Lima) and former state Rep. John Patterson (D-Jefferson). House Bill 1 was finally passed and signed into law.

The rollout was supposed to take six years and is meant to change how public dollars are provided to K-12 schools. It would give additional support to local districts so they can rely less on property taxes.

The first two years were partially fully funded, the second two years were fully funded, and there are just two years left to go.

But that may not happen.

Tuesday’s story

It was comments made by new House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) that angered viewers, readers, parents and education leaders across the state.

“I don’t think there is a third phase to Cupp-Patterson,” Huffman told reporters Monday evening. “As to the expectation that those things are gonna go in… I guess the clear statement I can say is I think those increases in spending are unsustainable.”

The G.A. from four years ago shouldn’t be able to “bind” what the future lawmakers can do, he said.

Huffman explained that this year’s budget is going to have significantly less money due to the federal COVID dollars drying up. And for him, public education is on the chopping block.

“That’s often how a lot of projects go — early on it doesn’t cost very [much] money — but some other governor or General Assembly will have to figure out how to pay for it,” he continued. “As it turns out, I am the other General Assembly years in the future, or possibly am, and I don’t think the spending is sustainable.”

In short, Huffman proposed cutting at least $650 million in public education spending in this G.A.’s budget.

After we aired his comments — and Parma City Schools Superintendent Charles Smialek’s frustration — Ohioans started calling their lawmakers.

The next day, half a dozen Republicans reached out to us to share they would fight for school funding — and they didn’t want to be lumped in with leadership “trying to take it down.”

“They’re hearing from their constituents, they’re hearing from their residents that ‘Hey, listen, we don’t want our teachers taking pay cuts; we don’t want class sizes of 32, 33; we don’t want to go back to pay for play of $700 and $800 for extracurricular opportunities,'” Smialek said.

Apparently, residents have been leaving angry messages, posting on social media, and calling offices.

“I think the more that you can spotlight this issue and the importance of funding public education… It shows that the people understand that we have to have a thorough and efficient means of educating all of our students,” the superintendent said. “I’m very heartened to hear that people have had the reaction that they have.”

However, the legislators who reached out had or said they would have supported H.B. 1 if they had been in the legislature at that time.

Within the Statehouse, there seem to be three types of lawmakers. Some prioritize public school funding, others prioritize private school vouchers or “school choice,” and then there is a mix of the two.

One of the only Republicans to go on the record and speak out against Huffman’s comments was, unsurprisingly, Callender.

“Fully funding the Fair School Funding Plan — it is a rising tide that will lift all ships,” Callender said.

In the FSFP, the formula supports not just public traditional education but all sectors, whether it’s vouchers, charters or districts.

To not fully fund the plan could cause the schools to rely heavily on property taxes, which will then lead to more levies, which will then be shut down due to already having high enough property taxes. Callender said this would be detrimental to families and schools.

Former House Majority Floor Leader Bill Seitz (R-Cincinnati) may have been termed out this January, but at the Statehouse Wednesday, he said not following the funding plan was a bad idea.

In an interview Thursday, he said he wasn’t sure how Huffman didn’t know that the FSFP had three tranches, considering that was the whole point and that it was so “widely advertised,” plus there is “abundant evidence” to prove that.

Seitz, who is credited for being the most efficient lawmaker at getting each chamber to agree or for bringing two parties together, explained that the House had already done its due diligence.

As we reported in 2023, the House passed its budget with a fully-funded public education system. The Senate refused, instead being “adamant that they wanted universal school vouchers,” Seitz continued.

“We were equally adamant that we thought we had a moral obligation, not a legal obligation — a moral obligation — to follow through on the second tranche of funding,” he said.

To get a bill passed, the House and Senate collaborated and both wishes were granted.

Seitz continued that the best way to preserve or even expand the speaker’s voucher program would be to implement the third phase of the FSFP.

“You would have achieved what people did not think was possible — namely, for once and for all, a school funding formula that whether you are on the left or on the right, you have agreed that that is fair and constitutional,” he said. “So if you do that and if you pass that, then you can smile very sweetly at the public school advocates and say, ‘Okay, you got yours, so please do not bother us because we believe in school choice.'”

We called Cupp, of the Cupp-Patterson plan. He declined to comment at this point but did say that he would speak with his Lima neighbor Huffman.

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Budgeting

It’s not just the lawmakers who have a say in the budget.

During a press conference Wednesday, we questioned DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted on if they wanted to fully fund education.

“Sometimes these are very, very difficult, difficult choices,” the governor responded, noting that the state’s budget isn’t as plentiful this time around.

There are many factors he has to take into consideration, including two very expensive issues: “mental health” and “drug problems.”

He added that education, including colleges, is important and that those discussions will take place. He said something has to give, but he doesn’t know what.

“It would be unfair of me at this point to come out here and say we need to do this, this, this and this,” the governor responded.

Husted jumped in, giving a more straightforward answer.

“Funding for the education of children will continue to be a huge budget priority going forward as… He’s made sure of in the past,” the LG said.

Superintendent Smialek sighed with relief at the Husted’s response.

“To hear, especially the lieutenant governor’s comments is absolutely encouraging to us,” he said, noting that the LG has previously visited Parma’s schools.

He also understands what DeWine was saying about mental health and drug addiction.

“If we think about brain development and when the brain develops, we’re talking about early childhood education,” Smialek said. “We want to be the preventative antidote to those issues and to those societal plagues that we all deal with.”

But Richmond Heights School District Treasurer Cooper Martin doesn’t believe the lawmakers. He criticized Huffman for his championing of the private school voucher system, with the state spending nearly $1 billion in public money to send kids to nonpublic schools.

“You can’t say that public education is unsustainable when you’re spending that money,” Martin said.

Huffman and many GOP politicians believe spending that much on private school vouchers is necessary in order to have the money “follow the child” or have the students avoid poor-performing public schools.

“There’s no educational system where one size fits all works for everyone,” Husted said, addressing different types of schools.

But for public schools, the voucher program is siphoning money from them.

“Every dollar that goes to a voucher, it’s a dollar that’s taken from public education,” Martin said.

Smialek said this sets districts up for failure.

“It absolutely becomes sort of that downward spiral where you defund us, and then somehow expect us to meet expectations and parameters that only continue to increase,” the superintendent said, adding that public schools are graded much harsher than nonpublic.

Several GOP lawmakers, such as Callender, all said they would look at other institutions to cut funds from before directly going to education.

For the Northeast Ohio Republican, he thinks that legalized marijuana may solve the problem.

“Why don’t we look at all the folks that are in our state prisons and jails that are there solely or primarily because of marijuana offenses — which are no longer illegal,” Callender, the marijuana enthusiast lawmaker who helped lead the charge of recreational use, said. “We could have a 20% savings.”

Callender wants to work together with Huffman to find a way to support public education while making sure the budget is balanced. And Smialek hopes that Ohioans will continue to share their voices with state representatives and senators.

“This is really resonating with the population,” the superintendent said.

This article was*originally published*on News5Cleveland.com and is published in the Ohio Capital Journal under a content-sharing agreement. Unlike other OCJ articles, it is not available for free republication by other news outlets as it is owned by WEWS in Cleveland.

Follow*WEWS*statehouse reporter Morgan Trau*on X*and[Facebook

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Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David Dewitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com.

an 1 25

In the 2024 presidential election, Democratic strategists and Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign were hoping that their "Blue Wall" in the Rust Belt — Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — would shield them from a Donald Trump victory. But President-elect Trump won all of those states after losing them in 2020.

While Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin have fluctuated between Trump and the Democratic nominee in presidential elections, Ohio has been Trump's strongest Rust Belt state: He won Ohio three elections in a row.

In an article published on January 13, The Guardian's Andrew Gumbel examines the loyalty that many Rust Belt voters have had to Trump even though he didn't bring about the manufacturing revival he promised in 2016.

READ MORE:['Fascist ideology': Veteran actor slams 'orange idiot' Trump for 'nonsense' claims about LA wildfires

A resident of the Youngstown, Ohio area told The Guardian, "We feel left behind. People who've lived here all their lives are working two or three jobs just to pay their bills."

Sonja Woods, a former General Motors worker and a United Auto Workers (UAW) official, told The Guardian, "We've been lied to, let down. It’s disappointing…. Nobody showed up in Youngstown this time, not Trump or Kamala. There are a lot of bitter people, and I'm one of them."

Gumbel explains, "Trump…. comes across as someone who doesn't pretend to be anything other than what he is, and that perceived authenticity counts for more with many Youngstown voters than his character flaws or even his policy positions. They'd rather have his gut instincts, ugly as they often are, over the carefully scripted messaging of a Democrat like Kamala Harris or even a mainstream Republican."

Dave Betras, a former Democratic county chair in Ohio, believes that his party has a major image problem in the Buckeye State.

Betras told The Guardian, "American voters have a unique ability to smell b------t, and they smell b------t with the Democrats…. Most Americans think the system is rigged. And Trump shuffled the deck on us. Not only does Trump say this thing is rigged, but he says: 'I know, because I rigged it. I was part of the rigging.'"

Tim O’Hara, a former UAW president in Lordstown, Ohio, agrees that Democrats have let the working class down in the Rust Belt but stresses that supporting Trump is not the answer.

O'Hara told The Guardian, "I never liked Trump even when he was only a builder in New York.… because he stiffed union workers and he generally seemed like a douchebag. One thing I wasn't then and I'm not now is a racist, misogynistic, uninformed dips--t who enjoys supporting a rapist, felon, traitor.… These people have no clue yet what they've done, but they will find out."

6 24 greg C going after corp charter Ohio MTA first Energy?

Fossil fuel interests are working to kill solar in one Ohio county. The hometown newspaper is helping.

drilled 10 24

**"Fossil fuel interests are working to kill solar in one Ohio county. The hometown newspaper is helping."** by Miranda Green, Jennifer Smith Richards, and Priyanjana Bengani for Floodlight, ProPublica, and the Tow Center for Digital Journalism.Terrific reporting on a retired gas industry executive, a shadowy 'grassroots' group and a controversial media company working to spread misinformation about solar in Ohio while turning residents against a proposed solar farm — and each other.

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started w pix of goose from another town? BS about apt takeover by gangs?

For the second day in a row, elementary school children in Springfield, Ohio, were forced to be evacuated due to threats: a bomb threat on Thursday and an unspecified threat on Friday. The threats come after Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio U.S. Senator JD Vance, have repeatedly spread lies about Haitian immigrants in Springfield this week, including that they are stealing residents’ cats and dogs and eating them.

Thursday’s bomb threat specifically mentioned the false claims about Haitian immigrants eating people’s pets, USA Today reported.

“Three schools in Springfield were evacuated or closed Friday, based on guidance from police, school officials said,” local NBC affiliate WLWT reports. “Officials with the Springfield City School District said that based on information they got from the Springfield Police Division, students at Perrin Woods and Snowhill Elementary were evacuated and moved to another district location.”

A Springfield middle school was also ordered closed Friday morning, before classes began, and “at least one Springfield location of the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles is closed.”

On Thursday, a bomb threat targeting Springfield city hall and an elementary school forced evacuations of those buildings.

“Police Chief Allison Elliott said that due to the seriousness of the threat, officials evacuated multiple buildings in addition to City Hall, including BMV Springfield Driver’s Exam Station, Ohio License Bureau Southside, Springfield Academy of Excellence and Fulton Elementary School.”

Despite the reports of the bomb threat on Thursday, hours later Donald Trump used his Truth Social platform to promote the Republican nominee working to unseat Democratic U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, by spreading more anti-Haitian immigrant racism.

IFrame Content

“Bernie Moreno has a very good chance of winning Ohio against a Radical Left Democrat, Sherrod Brown, with what is happening in Springfield, and other parts of the State,” Trump declared Thursday afternoon, referring to the far-right extremist Republican who is currently leading in the polls by low single digits.

Trump then invoked his racist Haitian immigrant lies.

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NOTE MTA NAT’L CORP CHARTER REVOKE FIRSTENERGY? 6 24

An analysis by OpenSecrets revealed in March that "dark money groups are spending at record levels in their efforts to influence the outcome of the 2024 U.S. elections."

Ohio Republican Governor Mike Dewine, however, was ahead of the times.

According to Cleveland.com, "newly revealed text messages and other documents suggest" the GOP leader "personally solicited" a portion of dark money he received to boost his gubernatorial campaign in 2018 from FirstEnergy CEO Chuck Jones, who has since been indicted on bribery charges.

"Chuck. Can u call me?" DeWine wrote Jones on Oct. 13, 2018, according to the report, noting "that a teachers’ union gave a million dollars the day before to a group backing his Democratic rival."

After Jones forwarded the message to Mike Dowling, a FirstEnergy senior vice president, Dowling wrote, "Chuck – go ahead and call Mike DeWine on the $500k. It’s going to RGA’s C(4) called State Solutions. All set."

RGA refers the "pro-DeWine Republican Governor’s Association," according to Cleveland.com.

The news outlet reports, "Records show FirstEnergy had already spent millions backing DeWine, including its subsidiary giving $500,000 to" RGA "just two days prior. By Oct. 16, 2018, the FirstEnergy men agreed to a 'dark money' contribution, which are unlimited in size and not publicly disclosed.'"

Cleveland.com reports:

*When DeWine came looking for a boost with his October 2018 text message to Jones, FirstEnergy’s top executives wondered if they had already done enough. The company had done 'more than anyone,' Dowling told Jones in a text message. Dowling, FirstEnergy’s top lobbying agent, texted Jones that DeWine 'already knows about' the $500,000 contribution that FirstEnergy’s subsidiary provided to the RGA that week. The two mulled how to respond but made up their mind to provide another donation by Oct. 16. Jones told Dowling he’d call DeWine that evening to tell him.

===

lotta lunacy out of midwest 521? illinois? alec-kocha lypse?

https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/dewine-2653101245/

~ vax lotto

===

AN 4 24

Next to gerrymandering, the biggest institutional driver of dangerous and destructive political misrepresentation in Ohio and across America is the U.S. Supreme Court’s disastrous 2010 Citizens United ruling allowing unbridled, dark money, pay-to-play corruption, which has now led to the biggest political bribery scandal in state history.

The central feature of that criminal racketeering scheme was the use of 501(c)(4) dark money groups by FirstEnergy and now-imprisoned former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder to launder campaign donations and prop up the candidacies of politicians who would support an unnecessary $1.3 billion bailout for the utilities industry at the expense of consumers.

Corporate dark money largess

Householder’s dark money group, Generation Now, has pleaded guilty to participating in the conspiracy, and was used by FirstEnergy to funnel more than $60 million worth of bribes to Householder’s political machine to make him Ohio House Speaker and pass the bailout. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed the bailout the same day it was passed.

$15 million of the Generation Now came via another dark money group, Partners for Progress. FirstEnergy gave $25 million to Partners for Progress between 2017 and 2019. A FirstEnergy lobbyist named Dan McCarthy was listed as the principal of Partners for Progress in 2017, later leaving to become DeWine’s legislative affairs director where he lobbied to pass the House Bill 6 bailout. Certain FirstEnergy executives were also involved in choosing the three directors of Partners for Progress, two of whom were FirstEnergy lobbyists.

FirstEnergy also gave $1 million in 2017 to a dark money group called Freedom Frontier supporting Jon Husted as he made a Republican Party primary bid for the nomination to run for governor. The group then supported DeWine after Husted dropped out of the primary race to become his running mate.

In 2018, FirstEnergy donated $2.5 million to a Republican Governors Association-affiliated dark money group called State Solutions backing DeWine for governor. In 2019, they gave $300,000 to another dark money group called Securing Ohio’s Future, for a grand total of nearly $4 million in dark money to support DeWine/Husted.

Leaving no pocket unfilled, FirstEnergy also made a $300,000 contribution in 2019 to a dark money group called Liberty Ohio, which a FirstEnergy lobbyist tied to now-Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman, calling it “the Huffman C4.”

As far as traditional campaign spending, now-indicted former FirstEnergy executive Chuck Jones hosted a fundraiser for DeWine at his home. The company also gave nearly $1 million in traditional campaign money to legislators, other officeholders, candidates and political parties. This included FirstEnergy’s largely employee-funded political action committee, which gave $25,202 to the 2018 DeWine campaign and $10,000 to his inaugural committee. Alongside Jones providing $12,700 in food and beverages for the DeWine fundraiser, the total in traditional funding comes to $47,902. After the scandal broke in 2020, DeWine pledged to donate $35,000 of that, noting at the time that FirstEnergy executives had not been charged.

Influence peddling

Shortly before winning the 2018 race for governor, DeWine met with FirstEnergy executives at an RGA fundraiser in downtown Columbus on Oct. 10, 2018, the Dayton Daily News first reported. Shortly after, FirstEnergy Solutions donated $500,000 to the Republican Governor’s Association, according to tax records.

Shortly after winning the 2018 race for governor, on Dec. 18, 2018, DeWine, Husted, Jones and now-indicted FirstEnergy executive Michael Dowling met at the Columbus Athletic Club. That same night, Jones and Dowling went from that dinner to the German Village condo of FirstEnergy lobbyist Sam Randazzo, where they seem to have negotiated a $4.3 million payment that FirstEnergy has admitted in a deferred prosecution agreement was a bribe.

When Randazzo was indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice in December 2023 on 11 felony counts of bribery and embezzlement, the charges included allegations that Randazzo had a corrupt relationship with the FirstEnergy executives stretching back to 2010, allegedly serving as general counsel to the Industrial Energy Users of Ohio while secretly being paid as a consultant for FirstEnergy: Randazzo settled disputes over electricity rates on terms acceptable to the energy companies, then channeled the settlement money through shell companies where he skimmed off a portion, the indictment said.

Between 2016 and 2019, FirstEnergy paid $13 million into Randazzo’s shell companies, a state-level indictment of Randazzo said. Of that, Randazzo passed $7.75 million to the industrial users and pocketed the rest, it said. DeWine’s chief of staff, Laurel Dawson, was married to a man who had been a paid lobbyist for FirstEnergy — and who had received a $10,000 loan from Randazzo in 2016, the indictment said.

In January 2019, as Randazzo was being vetted to chair the PUCO, he told Dawson, DeWine’s then-chief of staff, about the $4.3 million payment, but he did not tell her about the other millions he had received from FirstEnergy, the indictment said. Randazzo didn’t report any of the payments to the Ohio Ethics Commission, it added.

A former aide gave DeWine a 198-page dossier reporting shady financial connections between Randazzo and FirstEnergy on Jan. 28, 2019. But the governor’s office says that Dawson never told the governor about the $4.3 million payment before DeWine nominated Randazzo to chair the PUCO on Feb. 4, 2019.

According to the state indictment, Randazzo spent the rest of the year and part of the next helping to draft and openly lobby for the corrupt bailout. The bailout was passed and signed in July 2019.

Householder and four others were arrested in July 2020. But it wasn’t until the following November — when the FBI searched Randazzo’s condo — that Dawson says she told the governor about the $4.3 million payout.

DeWine has staunchly defended Dawson, just as he defended McCarthy, the former aide and FirstEnergy lobbyist with the dark money bribery pass-through group. McCarthy resigned his position in September 2021, but DeWine has kept Dawson on staff as an advisor earning more than $180,000 per year. In September 2023, DeWine appointed McCarthy to the state racing commission.

What’s happened since?

After the scandal broke, the nuclear part of Ohio House Bill 6 was eventually repealed, but the law’s gutting of the state’s renewable energy portfolio still stands, as does the bailout of two 1950s-era coal plants, one of which is in Indiana.

Householder and former state GOP Chairman Matt Borges are serving 20 years and five years respectively in federal prison for their roles. Two other lobbyists cooperated and are awaiting sentencing, while a third died by suicide wearing a “DeWine for governor” t-shirt in June 2021. Randazzo died by suicide on April 9, 2024.

FirstEnergy shareholders have filed a lawsuit, an ongoing case in which DeWine has been subpoenaed and Husted has been called on to give a sworn deposition.

Asked this week about the Oct. 10, 2018 RGA fundraiser meeting with FirstEnergy executives, DeWine claimed, “I don’t remember that. I’m not disputing it. I just don’t remember. I don’t remember the meeting.”

As for the Dec. 18, 2018 dinner with FirstEnergy executives, DeWine has said he doesn’t recall Randazzo’s name coming up.

Asked this week about the $4 million that FirstEnergy spent in dark money supporting his bid for governor, DeWine claimed he didn’t know about it.

*Sure, Jan.

After the death of Randazzo, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has said the state’s prosecution will proceed, and Jones and Dowling, who have pleaded not guilty, will still have to face their day in court.

U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio Ken Parker has said his team will also continue to pursue the widespread corruption case.

Citizens United

Deploying one of the most absurd, naive, and destructively dumb statements I’ve ever read in a U.S. Supreme Court ruling from my lifetime, then-Justice Anthony Kennedy in 2010 authored the landmark campaign finance decision in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission:

“(W)e now conclude that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption. … The fact that speakers (i.e., donors) may have influence over or access to elected officials does not mean that these officials are corrupt. … The appearance of influence or access, furthermore, will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy,” Kennedy claimed.

What combination of delusional hallucinogenics was Kennedy on what he made that obnoxious declaration?

As then-Justice John Paul Stevens obsesrved in his decent, the majority’s Citizens United ruling is “a rejection of the common sense of the American people.”

This entire dark money political bribery and money laundering scheme in Ohio was made possible exactly because a narrow majority of Republican justices on the U.S. Supreme Court declared that for the purposes of the constitution, corporations are people and money is speech.

They followed the Citizens United ruling with several others that removed any and all accountability for dark money political spending, including upholding the SpeechNow.org v. FEC appellate ruling months after Citizens United, and their McCutcheon v. FEC ruling in 2014 by another 5-4 vote.

Combined, these decisions have cleared the way for wealthy individual donors, corporations, and other moneyed special interests to spend unlimited dark money on elections. And oh boy, have they ever.

Outside groups have poured billions of dollars into influencing American elections since the Citizens United ruling.

Take just our races in Ohio for one of our seats in the U.S. Senate, and just outside spending for or against candidates: According to OpenSecrets.org, in 2004 the amount was just over $45,000. In 2010, it was nearly $3.5 million. In 2016, it was more than $54 million. In 2022, it was just shy of $100 million dollars.

Restoring representation

This is all so far beyond ridiculous there’s nary a word for it. Gerrymandered rigging of district maps to guarantee supermajority party power goes hand-in-hand with a system of campaign finance that allows for this kind of pervasive pay-to-play corruption infecting government.

If voters are ever to truly save Ohio and the American Republic by restoring true representation of the people and the people’s interests, poisonous gerrymandering and corrupt political spending have to be addressed as first priorities.

This should have been done here in Ohio nearly four years ago when the FirstEnergy scandal first broke. But supermajority Republican lawmakers, with DeWine by their side, instead spent 2021 and 2022 imposing more unconstitutionally gerrymandered maps. And while they’ve found time to indulge every culture war distraction on the extremist right-wing menu, they’ve done absolutely nothing to address widespread public corruption.

This relentless, belligerent misrepresentation of the people of Ohio and our best interests has only led to miserable public outcomes, and for myself, as a seventh generation Ohioan whose family moved here in 1805, it all embarrasses us deeply in the eyes of the nation.

11 23 ohio 7th state refererendum on abort, 7 wins 57%despite aug 60% BS

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2nd big midwest abortion loss after kansas

no lnxOhio’s GOP secretary of state brutally mocked after his amendment goes down in flames

Brad Reedand Raw StoryAugust 09, 2023

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose put a lot of political capital on backing "Issue 1," a ballot initiative that would have raised the threshold for future ballot initiatives to succeed from 50 percent to 60 percent.

Voters in Ohio subsequently rejected the measure by 14 points -- but that didn't stop LaRose from issuing a defiant statement blaming out-of-state spending for the loss.

"We were dramatically outspent by dark money billionaires from California to New York, and the giant 'for sale' sign still hangs on Ohio's constitution," he complained. "Ohioans will see the devastating impact of this vote soon enough."

Many critics were quick to mock LaRose for his statement, including Rachel Petri, the campaign manager for Sen. Sherrod Brown, who wrote on Twitter that "you can't spell 'a loser' without 'LaRose.'"

Atlantic editor Ronald Brownstein, meanwhile, noted that LaRose's defiant statement didn't even mention the role that protecting abortion rights played in the amendment's defeat, which he said reflected Republicans' "uncertainty on how to handle abortion backlash."

Shannon Freshour, a Democrat who is running for Congress in Rep. Jim Jordan's (R-OH) district, celebrated the win and argued LaRose got exactly what he deserved.

"It's best to fight on the side of history, of democracy, of the people," she wrote. "Thankfully Ohio understands that."

Former Democratic Ohio candidate Paul Filippelli, meanwhile, mocked LaRose's suggestion that keeping the old ballot initiative process would put Ohio's state constitution at risk.

"Frank LaRose hates the Ohio Constitution and thinks it has a "for sale" sign on it because it... allows voters to make decisions about how our state is governed," he wrote.

And Tristan Rader, a progressive city councilman from Lakewood, Ohio, gave LaRose a sarcastic "thank you" for blowing his election.

"Thank you for your incompetent leadership on all the worst issues," he wrote. "Keep it up!"

'Everything will get worse': Former Republican predicts dire future for GOP

'The motion for recusal stage': Cannon blasted after she 'comes out swinging at' Jack Smith

Ohio voters reject GOP 'power grab' aimed at thwarting abortion rights amendment

Trump signs document acknowledging he cannot retaliate against or intimidate witnesses

'In charge': Judge rejects Trump’s attempt to delay election case

'They blew up my life': Fox News, a hidden camera and threats to an Indiana school administrator

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

GOP tries to keep abortion rights off ballot after major losses: 'Can’t win, so they cheat' ›

'Corrupt': OH Secretary of State admits proposal would avert abortion rights after denying for months ›

Injecting Waste in Geologically “Unsuitable” Locations

The oil industry’s largest trade group, the American Petroleum Institute,claims that injection wells aresafe and environmentally reliable, in part because the waste is going so far beneath the ground and far below sources of groundwater. But that assertion assumes the wastewater stays put.

In 2019, wastewater injected into the Redbird #4 well in Washington County in southeast Ohio resurfaced through a couple of entirely separate oil and gas wells located five miles away, moving far outside of the permitted area.

“We’ve seen an increase in incidents recently where oil and gas waste is migrating underground and returning to the surface,” Hunter, the Earthjustice attorney, said. “If you have something traveling that far underground and then coming back up, then the shallower [groundwater] aquifers can be at risk.”

Brine hauler and class II injection well. Morrow County, OH. Ted Auch, FracTracker Alliance, 2015. (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

A technical analysis, commissioned by Earthjustice and conducted by Robert Rossi and Dominic DiGiulio, two research scientists with PSE Healthy Energy, a nonprofit energy science and policy research institute, documented a long list of problems with both the permitting and due diligence of ODNR regulators overseeing injection wells. The analysis looked at six injection wells, and the results of the study were submitted to the EPA along with the Earthjustice petition as evidence of ODNR’s failures.

Wastewater is supposed to be injected beneath an impermeable layer of rock, which would seal it off from drinking water aquifers higher up in the subsurface. But the scientists found that ODNR was allowing injection wells in shale formations that had a fractured network of rock, which allows wastewater to find fissures and travel far away from its intended location. The geologic conditions were therefore “unsuitable” for wastewater disposal, the analysis concluded.

Because the Redbird well’s wastewater traveled five miles laterally and almost 2,000 feet vertically, the report concluded, “it is exceedingly clear that the injection formation was not isolated and begs the question of if the geological suitability of this formation was even considered by the ODNR during permitting.”

A second finding was that ODNR was allowing too many wells to be located near each other, resulting in “overpressurization” of the subsurface.

“There’s so much injection occurring, that [the formation] just can’t support injection any longer and you’re seeing things rise to the surface as a result of that,” Hunter said. Instead of looking at the cumulative impact of so much high-pressure wastewater shoved underground, ODNR assesses permits individually.

In a statement to DeSmog, Stephanie O’Grady, a spokesperson for ODNR, said that the U.S. EPA “has consistently reaffirmed that Ohio operates an effective regulatory program that meets federal standards and protects public health, safety, and the environment. The Division takes our responsibility to protect Ohio’s groundwater, surface water, and environment seriously, as demonstrated by our rigorous permitting process, regular inspections, and enforcement.”

New rules issued by ODNR at the start of 2022 dial back the approved pressure and volumes allowed for injection wells. But they still permit injection in the exact same shale formation that saw wastewater escape and migrate long distances underground. If toxic waste is moving so far beyond its intended locations, then sources of drinking water could be at risk, the petition alleges.

“How is it affecting us?”

Even when everything goes right, the day-to-day of living next to a wastewater injection well has its downsides.

Michele Garman lives in a rural area north of Youngstown, Ohio, not far from the Pennsylvania border. About six years ago, with very little public notice and against community opposition, a local company called Kleese Development drilled an injection well adjacent to her property and visible from her house.

Class II injection well in Vienna, OH. Credit: Ted Auch, FracTracker Alliance, 2016. Aerial support provided by LightHawk. (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

She said trucks bringing the wastewater for disposal run frequently and sometimes at odd hours. “I notice them more at two or three in the morning,” Garman told DeSmog. And she recalls, at one Fourth of July party, “We watched the trucks come in and out all day.”

In addition, Garman said that at times there are terrible oily odors wafting from the well pad. While she opposed the injection well when it went in, she has largely learned to live with the trucks and smells. But those aren’t her only concerns. “The worrisome part is what’s going on underneath us. The stuff you don’t see or hear,” she said.

Very little public information exists revealing specifically what is in the waste destined for injection wells like the one next to Garman’s land, but what is known is concerning.

“We know that the waste in the Marcellus/Utica region in particular is radioactive, highly radioactive,” Hunter said. “We know that it has PFAS in it. Of course, we already know that it is extremely salty and that it has heavy metals and other organics that are dangerous and harmful to human health and the environment.” (PFAS are also known as “forever chemicals” due to their long-lived nature and are linked to various potential health impacts.)

But there is no requirement for operators to detail or disclose any specifics. Moreover, there are no studies on the human health impacts of wastewater injection wells, so the hazards are largely unknown.

For Garman, all the uncertainty surrounding fracking wastewater is disconcerting. “Where is it all going? How is it affecting us?” she said.

A brine hauler in Ashtabula County, OH. Credit: Ted Auch, FracTracker Alliance, 2015. (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Nearly a decade ago, eastern Ohio resident Tom McKnight said he saw people who were hauling brine bringing in paychecks that were “pretty doggone respectable.” With three kids to support, he decided to get into trucking as well. He worked as an oil and gas brine hauler in Ohio between 2014 and 2018, and in the first year made $70,000.

However, McKnight believes he was exposed to radiation from his years trucking fracking waste. “The most dirty, dangerous water I think that I’ve ever been around is what they call the ‘flowback’ while they are bringing a new well online. That is some nasty, dirty stuff,” he said. Flowback is the water and chemical mixture that shoots up out of an oil and gas well after it has been fracked and the well is in the process of coming online.

He recalled one time when he was sucking wastewater out of some tanks, and he opened up the manhole and stuck his head in. “At the end of the day, between my gloves and my shirt sleeves, and my face and my v-neck on the chest, I looked like I had been out in the sun all day,” he said, thinking that his reddened skin was the result of exposure to radiation. “So I’m pretty sure I got a pretty good dose that day.”

McKnight no longer works because he has Thymoma, a form of cancer of the thymus, a gland in the chest. He had several operations to remove part of his liver and a six-pound tumor from his chest.He also had throat cancer. But it’s not easy to definitively link workplace exposures like McKnight’s, and the appearance of cancer. “It could have come from anything, or the accumulation of everything,” he said.

“It Was Going in Whether We Wanted it or Not”

When Garman voiced opposition to the project next to her home in 2015, she felt like neither the company nor the state cared. “It was going in, whether we wanted it or not. That’s my general feeling,” she said.

When a waste company applies for an injection well permit, its approval is essentially a foregone conclusion, environmental experts say, and whatever public notice happens appears to be lacking.

“Typically, communities wouldn’t even know they’re getting an injection well until a drilling rig shows up,” said Mills of the Buckeye Environmental Network.

Even when communities are aware of a proposed project and push back, the state agency largely ignores the complaints.

“The problem with the [public] hearing is that even though the public provides input on safety issues and concerns with injection wells, the ODNR director has no discretion. As long as the permit is correctly filled out, their permit gets granted,” Lenny Eliason, Athens County (Ohio) Commissioner,said on a call with reporters in October. “So why have a public hearing? Why involve the public in a sham process when you’re not going to do anything about acting on the information that’s provided during that public hearing?”

In a statement to DeSmog, O’Grady, the ODNR spokesperson, said that the agency “does believe that its permitting process has adequate public notification and input.”

DeSmog followed up with specific questions asking for documentation on how many times the agency has denied injection well applications and enforced violations. O’Grady said the agency has denied 12 applications this year, but when asked for documentation, she sent denials to only four applications, and said ODNR could not comment further. ODNR also did not respond to a request for documentation on its history of enforcement.

EPA vs. State “Primacy”

The governance of wastewater injection wells falls under the Safe Drinking Water Act. While it is a federal law, it gives states leeway to apply for “primacy,” which is the ability for states to govern their own injection wells. Ohio successfully obtained primacy back in 1983, and as a result, has overseen the proliferation of injection wells over the past two decades with the boom in fracking.

Pennsylvania, on the other hand, has federal EPA supervision over its injection well program.Both states have extensive fracking operations, but because it is much easier to dispose of fracking waste in Ohio, convoys of brine trucks often haul toxic and low-level radioactive waste from drill sites in Pennsylvania across the border to Ohio.

McKnight trucked waste to and from well sites across much of eastern Ohio, as well as from oil and gas wells in southwest Pennsylvania to injection wells in Ohio. “It’s a big industry. It’s a big employer,” he said.

In fact, more than 40 percent of the waste injected underground in Ohio actually comes from out of state, according to datafrom FracTracker.

“Our state legislators will stand at the state line and just wave them on in. ‘Come on in. We love ya,’” Mills said, characterizing Ohio’s willingness to take huge quantities of waste from Pennsylvania.

Class II injection well. Mahoning County, OH. Credit: Ted Auch, FracTracker Alliance, 2019. Aerial support provided by LightHawk. (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

But geologically speaking, there’s no reason Pennsylvania can’t dispose of its own fracking wastewater, said Ted Auch of FracTracker. He said the industry doesn’t have much interest in applying for permits in Pennsylvania because “they can rely on Ohio to dispose of its waste.” That puts added pressure on Ohio regulators to deal with this flood of fracking wastewater and the injection wells needed for its disposal, and the environmental and community coalition filing the petition to the EPA thinks the state isn’t keeping up with that responsibility.

The coalition is calling on the federal agency to initiate a rulemaking process that would eventually lead to Ohio losing its “primacy” and having regulatory oversight revert back to the federal government. The process is lengthy and could take several years, if it succeeds at all.

Ohio is not necessarily unique in this regard. Other states, including Idaho, Michigan, and Oklahoma, have wrestled with whether or not the state or the federal government should have primacy over injection wells. But revoking state primacy due to poor regulatory oversight would be unprecedented.

In the meantime, the army of brine trucks will continue hauling fracking waste to injection wells in Ohio.

Auch says the petition for the EPA to take over is “kind of the last hope” for reforming the problems documented with Ohio’s injection wells.

“We know that the state doesn’t collect good data. We know that the state rubber stamps injection wells,” he said. Looking at Pennsylvania, which has a more methodical permitting process due to EPA oversight, Auch said, “it’s like, maybe we should sign up for that.”

POLITICS AND POLICY ENERGY SOCIAL JUSTICE

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ohio gop

https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/vaccine-mandate/

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an 6 22

in Ohio, much of the focus on former President Donald Trump’s endorsements of Republican candidates has been on “Hillbilly Elegy” author J.D. Vance, who is competing with Rep. Tim Ryan, the Democratic nominee, in Ohio’s 2022 U.S. Senate race. One Trump-endorsed MAGA candidate and GOP nominee in Ohio who hasn’t received nearly as much national attention as Vance isJ.R. Majewski, a full-fledged QAnon conspiracy theorist running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives via Ohio’s 9th Congressional District.

Majewski is hoping to unseat the Democratic nominee, long-time Rep. Marcy Kaptur. If the 43-year-old Majewski managed to defeat Kaptur, it would be a political shocker; the Ohio Democrat was first elected to the U.S. House in 1982. Kaptur, now 75, has the distinction of being the only woman who has been serving in that branch of Congress for almost 40 years.

Kaptur survived the red waves of 1994 and 2010 and was reelected both years. But thanks to gerrymandering, it isn’t out of the question that Majewski — even with his support of QAnon — could win.

The Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt, in an article published on June 13, observes, “This is no quixotic campaign…. The 9th District has been redrawn for 2022, and is now rated as a toss-up by**the Cook Political Repor**t, ahead of elections in which Republicans are increasingly hopeful of winning the House and the Senate. If that happens, (President) Joe Biden will face extreme difficulty in passing any meaningful legislation for the rest of his first term.”

Majewski is among the extremists who buys into the Big Lieand doesn’t believe that Biden legitimately won the 2020 presidential election — never mind the fact that numerous recounts confirmed the fact that he did. The Ohio Republican marched with fellow Big Lie promoters in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021, although he wasn’t part of the mob who broke into the U.S. Capitol Building.

The Big Lie isn’t the only conspiracy theory that Majewski believes. QAnon has been claiming that the United States’ federal government has been hijacked by an international cabal of pedophiles, child sex traffickers, Satanists and cannibals and that Trump was put in the White House to fight the cabal.

Majewski, Gabbatt notes, repainted a pro-Trump sign on his front law so that it was changed into a sign promoting QAnon.

“The sign repainting wasn’t Majewski’s only dalliance with QAnon — a baseless right-wing conspiracy theory which has been labeled a potential domestic terror threat by the FBI — and which states, among other things, that a cabal of Democrats and liberals are engaged in child trafficking,” Gabbatt reports. “In a television interview about the sign, Majewski was wearing a QAnon t-shirt — and Media Matters, a media watchdog, documented multiple instances of Majewski posting images and hashtags relating to the baseless conspiracy theory.”

Majewski has also called for red states to secede from the United States. In a video posted on the Periscope app, Gabbatt notes, Majewski said, “I didn’t want to be a hype beast, but I’ve had it in my back pocket to say that every state that went red should secede from the United States. I don’t think it sounds out there.”

https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/gop-congressional-candidate-ad-rifle/

no lnx twt pix djt sharpie liar aoc

GOP congressional candidate shows images of Democrats and wields rifle in ominous campaign ad

Brandon Gage February 24, 2022

A Republican candidate for the United States House of Representatives released a campaign ad on Thursday in which he displayed images of President Joe Biden, Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) and Ilhan Omar (D-Illinois), and ex-quarterback Colin Kaepernick that preceded footage of him wielding a rifle and pledging to "do whatever it takes to return this country back to its former glory."

JR Majewski of Ohio's 9th Congressional District, which includes Toledo, is an Air Force Veteran who supports former President Donald Trump and wants to "make Ohio and America great again." His area of expertise is managing projects within the nuclear power industry.

In his 60-second spot, Majewski accuses Democrats of "pushing unsustainable environmental solutions that waste taxpayer dollars on useless government subsidies that are killing our jobs. They're not creating new energy besides the energy to run their mouths."

Pictures of AOC, Omar, Kaepernick, and Biden provided the backdrop for Majewski's remarks.

He then declared that liberals "will undoubtedly destroy our economy" and that "we are losing our country and every classroom, every county, every police station, every company, and with every illegal vote."

The progressive agenda is "bringing America to its knees," Majewski added, which led into him carrying a firearm and promising to "do whatever it takes to return this country back to its former glory."

Watch below via PatriotTakes:

PatriotTakes – an account that monitors right-wing hate speech on social media – condemned Majewski's "implied threats of violence."

PatriotTakes also pointed out that Majewski was in Washington, DC during the January 6th, 2021 Capitol insurrection.

"Everyone who helped incite, plan, or participate in the January 6th riot should be banned from political office," PatriotTakes said.

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no lnx twt

‘A huge setback for the GOP': Republicans suffer a blow in their fight for control of the House

Alex Henderson January 14, 2022

Between President Joe Biden’s weak approval ratings, gerrymandering and voter suppression, many pundits have been predicting that Republicans will retake the U.S. House of Representatives in November. But that remains to be seen, and Republican gerrymandering was dealt a blow in the Midwest this week when the Ohio Supreme Court — including Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor — struck down the congressional map that Ohio Republicans had in mind for the Buckeye State.

On top of that, Rep. John Katko of New York State has announced that he won’t be seeking reelection — which is more bad news for the GOP. Katko is one of the Republicans who is moderate enough to fare well among centrist Democrats and swing voters in his state. Neither of these problems is necessarily decisive for control of the House, but if 2022 ends up being close, a few seats on the margin could make all the difference.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled, 4-3, that the map violated the state’s constitution by drawing the districts to unfairly favor one party over another. Columbus Dispatch reporters Jessie Balmert and Laura A. Bischoff note that the map “could have given Republicans as much as a 12-3 advantage in a state that voted for President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump twice.”

Ohio Supreme Court Justice Michael Donnelly, who was part of the majority opinion, argued, “When the dealer stacks the deck in advance, the house usually wins.”

READ: Here's what it would really mean to prosecute Trump]

Now, lawmakers in the Ohio State Legislature, according to Balmert and Bischoff, will have 30 days to “craft a new map.”

The Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman, in response to the ruling, tweeted:

Meanwhile, in New York State, Katko’s decision not to seek another term takes away a GOP candidate who isn’t a polarizing figure among centrist Democrats and swing voters. Katko, who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump following the January 6, 2021 insurrection, is conservative but not extreme.

Not surprisingly, Trump sees Katko’s decision as good news, as he considers the congressman a RINO: Republican in Name Only.

READ: 'To defy Trump's wishes is to defy God's plan': The scary truth about modern right-wing misinformation]

But outside of the MAGA bubble, political analysts are saying that Democrats just got some good news in New York State. Two of them are Cook's Wasserman and Kyle Kondik of Sabato's Crystal Ball:

Here are some more reactions to Katko’s announcement:

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/supreme-court-ruling/

question gov in gerry case

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Move to Amend Ohio’s Quarterly Statewide Gathering (Virtual Event)

Guest Speakers

Cynthia Brown, DeEscalate Ohio Now Coordinator

Charles Peterson, Chair of Africana Studies, Oberlin College

Professor Charles Peterson will interrogate the post-Civil War’s Fourteenth Amendment, from its lofty promises of full citizenship and “equal protection of the laws” for all Americans to its hijacking by powerful interests. Providing current context of what this means for Ohioans today, Cynthia Brown, Ohio’s leading advocate for the state’s Repeal Qualified Immunity campaign, will discuss the doctrine that perversely grants immunity to officials who violate citizens’ rights, including those guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Background: Within twenty years of the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification in 1868, Big Money successfully claimed that corporations are people (“constitutional persons”) that likewise deserved constitutional “We the People” rights. Since then, successive Supreme Court rulings have granted corporations other U.S. Constitution rights, all based on the Fourteenth Amendment. This important session will illustrate how powerful forces have subverted its guarantees of full citizenship for emancipated black people to instead legitimize laws that put property rights over black lives.

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/ohio-voter-fraud/

by gop official?!

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/larry-householder/

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621 biden 80 mill then 500 mill doses to who; kpfa 40% med ppl reluctant, tho not so much dr and nurses; rw lawyer --> scotus

https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/antivax-testimony/

new civ rtd

Ohio lawmakers debating a bill Tuesday that would allow anyone to refuse any vaccine for any reason and would give them the "right" to not be "discriminated" against or even asked about their vaccination status, heard from Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, recognized as**one of the world's top spreaders of vaccine disinformatio**n.

After falsely claiming that 5000 Americans have died from the coronavirus vaccine, Dr. Tenpenny told lawmakers that the injections, which have saved countless lives around the world, make people magnetic.

"Right now we're all kind of hypothesizing," a fast-talking Tenpenny said, after being asked about the "EMF frequencies," also known as electromagnetic frequencies,she "hypothesizes" are associated with the COVID-19 vaccine.

"I mean what is it that's actually being transmitted that's causing all of these things? Is it a combination of the protein which now we're finding has a metal attached to it?" Tenpenny posited to lawmakers.

"I'm sure you've seen the pictures all over the internet of people who've had these shots and now they're magnetized, and put a key on their forehead, it sticks, they can put spoons and forks all over them and they can stick because now we think that there's a metal piece to that," she claimed, not saying who "we" refers to. There is exactly zero proof this is legitimate.

She also pushed the false claim that vaccinated people are shedding unknown properties onto unvaccinated people.

"There has been people who've long suspected that there was some sort of an interface," she continued, using air quotes, "yet to be defined in the interface between what's being injected in these shots, and all of the 5G towers. Not proven yet, but we're trying to figure out what is it that's being transmitted to these unvaccinated people."

The name of the Ohio bill, HB 248, is the "Vaccine Choice and Anti-Discrimination Act," to protect science-denying unvaccinated Ohioans from discrimination.

As far as Dr. Tenpenny goes, the Center for Public Integrity reports "Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, who offers a $595, eight-week course in anti-vaccine talking points despite a federal judge having found her 'unqualified' to weigh in as an expert witness on a vaccine-related lawsuit ('Television interviews do not an expert make,' he wrote)."

Ohio Capital Journal reporterTyler Buchanan posted the video, below. His colleague at the Journal, Jake Zuckerman, who he says has "followed the anti-vax movement in Ohio closer than anyone over the past year," posted this today:

Handed to me outside the statehouse today https://t.co/XqTyVJvunz

— Jake Zuckerman (@Jake Zuckerman) 1623173646.0

Watch the video:

Testimony going off the rails now. Tenpenny is claiming there is metal in the vaccine that causes forks to stick… https://t.co/TRBqBwZXXx

— Tyler Buchanan (@Tyler Buchanan) 1623166665.0

From Your Site Articles

r

epublicans to ask Supreme Court to restrict voting by mail in Pennsylvania in post-Ginsburg appeal

:{:{IGOR DERYSH:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}::(style="box-sizing:border-box;text-transform:uppercase"):}:

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920 an

ohio GOP sticks voters with $3 million bill after refusing to fund postage for mail-in ballots

Igor Derysh / Salon

https://www.invisiblehandfilm.com/

INVISIBLE HAND is a “paradigm shifting” documentary about the creation of ‘Rights of Nature.’ The defining battle of our times where nature, democracy and capitalism face off in rural America.

SHORT SYNOPSIS

Produced by award-winning actor Mark Ruffalo, INVISIBLE HAND takes you behind the curtain of the global economy where ‘Rights of Nature’ becomes “capitalism’s one true opponent.”

In the fall of 2014, for the first time in United States history, an ecosystem filed to defend itself in a lawsuit claiming its ‘right to exist' in Grant Township, Pennsylvania. For attempting such a radical act, Grant’s rural community of 700 people were sued by a corporation, then by the state government, and are now locked in a battle to defend the watershed they call home through civil disobedience. The water they drink, the Rights to Nature laws they've passed are all on the line in this exclusive story.

In Toledo, Ohio an earth-shattering vote was passed to enact the Lake Erie Bill of Rights (LEBOR), granting personhood to international waters.

Half a continent away in Standing Rock, North Dakota, the same industry threatening Grant Twp. is using militarized force against indigenous tribes and allies fighting to protect Mother Earth.

Activists leaving Standing Rock are rejoined on the Pennsylvania and New York border where the Seneca Nation of Indians aligns with communities in the Triple Divide to stop radioactive fracking waste from entering Ohi:yo’ waters. Terry Pegula, owner of Buffalo Bills and Sabres, threatens to sue INVISIBLE HAND filmmakers and whoever continues to speak out about his oil and gas company and their efforts.

The four, Grant Township, Lake Erie Bill of Rights, Defend Oh:yo’ and Standing Rock, are joined in an international fight to protect more than just water. They fight for their community, democracy, and for Nature as a living entity unto itself.

In the end, "Who will speak for Nature?"

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/how-a-gop-corruption-scandal-in-ohio-might-help-biden-win-the-state-columnist/

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22072020/inside-clean-energy-ohio-bribery

Last October, I went to the public library in my Columbus, Ohio, neighborhood and saw a woman standing outside the front entrance, asking people to sign a petition.

The signatures were for a proposed ballot measure to repeal an Ohio law, passed a few months earlier, that provided taxpayer-funded bailouts for nuclear and coal-fired power plants. The legislation also got rid of Ohio's requirements that utilities meet annual targets for renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Two people standing near the petition gatherer were "blockers," paid operatives there to discourage me and any other passers-by from signing it. They were handing out postcards from a dark money group saying that the campaign to repeal the law was part of a Chinese government plot to harm the United States.

as of Tuesday, the world knows that the campaign to pass the Ohio law and the attacks on the effort to repeal it were part of what prosecutors call the largest bribery scheme in Ohio history.

The $61 million scheme was bankrolled by the utility FirstEnergy, the Akron-based company that was the main beneficiary of the bailout legislation, and the money went to accounts controlled by Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder for his political and personal use, prosecutors said.

Householder, a Republican, and three lobbyists have been arrested and charged. Also charged was a dark money group, Generation Now.

I wrote extensively about the battle over the law before it was passed. With Tuesday's events, the shocking thing for me is not the brazen nature of the wrongdoing or its scale. It's that much of this scheme—most of it even—was legal and indicative of the way energy and utility policy is done in Ohio and other states.

Before I started at InsideClimate News in 2018, I covered Ohio energy and utilities for The Columbus Dispatch for about a decade. I have written about this subject for long enough that I have mostly lost my ability to be shocked by the ways that utilities, legislators and regulators often solve political and financial problems by dumping costs onto the public.

The 82-page charging document from the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Ohio case reads like a novel, using wiretap recordings and recovered emails and text messages to tell the story of a shameless and successful plan by an elected official to get a utility to finance his personal piggy bank in exchange for passing a bailout for that company.

Householder got $61 million. FirstEnergy got a bailout of more than $1 billion to subsidize money-losing nuclear plants, courtesy of Ohio ratepayers.

You can read the full document, and I encourage you to do so.

But here is some of what was done in public that I and other reporters thoroughly documented:

FirstEnergy was unable to get the Ohio General Assembly and the governor to sign a nuclear plant bailout in 2017 and early 2018. So the company spent heavily on Republican primary elections in 2018 for seats in the Ohio House to elect a group of lawmakers who would support Householder's bid to become speaker and support the bailout. At least nine Householder-backed candidates won in these races, and FirstEnergy's donations were substantial and publicly reported.
Even after helping to elect pro-Householder and pro-bailout legislators in 2018, Householder didn't have enough support in the House from Republicans to become speaker, so he approached Democrats for help. Democrats gave Householder the decisive votes to become speaker as part of an agreement in which Householder pledged not to bring forward legislation that would curb the power of labor unions, among other concessions.
When Householder unveiled the bailout measure, House Bill 6, he surprised some environmental advocates by revealing that the bill would include a cancelation of rules that say utilities must invest in renewable energy and energy efficiency. Despite getting rid of clean energy mandates, he and his colleagues described the legislation as a "clean air" measure because the main point of the bill was to subsidize nuclear power, which has almost no emissions.
Supporters of the bailout bill were struggling to get the votes they needed in the Ohio House, so they amended the bill to also include a bailout of two coal-fired power plants owned by Ohio Valley Electric Corp. With this change, the clean air bill supported some of the dirtiest power on the market.
The bill narrowly passed in the House and Senate and was signed by Gov. Mike DeWine last summer. Immediately, a group tied to owners of competing power plants said it was launching a petition campaign to let voters decide on the law. Supporters of the bailout responded by hiring "blockers" who impeded the work of petition gatherers and a media campaign that said, without evidence, that the repeal effort was part of a plot by the Chinese government to take over Ohio's electricity supply. In the face of this opposition, the repeal campaign failed to get enough signatures.

The charging document tells the story of what was happening behind the scenes of the public story, how FirstEnergy's publicly reported donations was just a small part of a much larger effort carried out through dark money groups, and how Householder controlled the dark money spending even though he claimed he had no responsibility for the groups' outlandish claims and actions.

Now we focus on what happens with the prosecution, and look for additional arrests, including potentially of other government or company officials.

But what risks being lost is that elected officials and a utility went through this whole process with seemingly little thought about what the energy future ought to look like, and how they can play a role in getting there.

They scrapped clean energy standards almost as an afterthought, and have yet to replace them with any sort of strategy for how Ohio's energy economy can avoid being left behind by states that have been much more aggressive in attracting jobs and projects related to solar, wind and battery storage.

The alleged shenanigans of Householder and company to win an election and pass a bill have consequences that will last a few years. But the lack of a plan for the future is much more damaging, the kind of thing that could sting for generations.

https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2020/07/02/koch-backed-groups-fight-to-block-ohio-covid-19-bailouts-despite-crushing-pandemic-deficits

In early May, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced $775 million in state budget cuts, including $210 million from Medicaid and $355 million from education programs. The state amassed a large deficit as tax revenues took a nose dive because of the coronavirus’s effects on Ohioans’ economic activity. Ohio’s 2020-21 projected budget shortfall is at $2.4 billion.

Ohio municipalities are also struggling, and mayors say they need federal aid. A Brookings Institution report published on March 31 predicted that, due to reliance on tax revenue, the region hit the hardest economically by the COVID-19 crisis would be the Heartland, and four out of the five hardest-hit cities in the U.S. would be in Ohio—Columbus (hit the worst), Cincinnati, Toledo, and Cleveland.

Columbus is $41.5 million short of its 2020 budget and has cut $26 million worth of expenses. Cincinnati has budget shortfalls of $15 million in 2020 and an estimated $91 million in 2021, one-quarter of the city’s budget that year. The city furloughed 1,700 workers in March. Toledo could face a shortfall of up to $50 million, and it put 300 city employees on temporary emergency leave starting in April. Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, faces a $76 million loss in revenue.

But despite the mounting pandemic-induced fiscal crisis, Koch-funded groups like Americans for Prosperity Ohio and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are lobbying hard to block any relief from the federal government. Americans for Prosperity wants state and local governments to sort out their huge budget deficits on their own, citing “chronic structural fiscal problems” and claiming that officials have “spent lavishly, borrowed excessively, and ignored looming pension debt.”

The Koch-backed groups appear to be taking advantage of the crisis to advance their ideological goals and further undermine public education and public employee unions.

Collectively, U.S. state budgets will endure budget shortfalls totaling $615 billion over the 2020-22 fiscal years, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and local government deficits will total billions more. States possess only $75 billion in their rainy day funds.

Congress is considering a new relief package, which may include funds to bail out struggling state and local governments. But the Ohio branch of Americans for Prosperity (AFP), not satisfied with the significant state cuts, wants to prevent federal aid from helping the state or its local governments from squaring their budgets.

The Koch-funded advocacy group, which has always fought against government spending, taxes, and regulation, has been campaigning against a provision of the HEROES Act, which passed the House on May 15 and includes nearly $1 trillion to help state and local governments close budget holes. The bill is stalled in the Senate.

The national AFP has run ads on Facebook and Instagram decrying the state and local bailout provisions of the HEROES Act and urging people to sign an anti-bailout letter. AFP Ohio has posted a number of videos of Ohioans opposing the bailouts, is urging people to contact Ohio’s senators to urge them to vote against a bailout, and has also posted a link to an anti-bailout letter.

As of April 29, the mayor of Lancaster, Ohio had laid off 18 firefighters and 15 police officers because of a budget crunch. But a letter written by AFP encourages people to “tell the state governors and local communities to STOP exploiting their firefighters, teachers and other state workers to justify these bailouts.”

Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley said budget cuts will be steep if the city doesn’t get federal help. Basic city services will face “drastic” cuts, she said.

Gov. DeWine’s cuts include a $300 million loss for Ohio’s K-12 public schools, and 20 school districts are losing $304 per pupil. Franklin County, home to Columbus, will lose $32.6 million in school funding, or 4 percent of its budget.

According to AFP, state and local governments have made irresponsible spending decisions in the past, so, during a once-in-a-century economic crisis, taxpayers shouldn’t bail them out.

The group’s “Federal Budget Assistance for State and Local Government” report says that instead of receiving bailouts, state and local governments should use their so-called “rainy day” funds and cut spending.

Americans for Prosperity is largely funded by the Stand Together Chamber of Commerce, a dark-money trade group founded by Charles Koch and his political network. Koch’s enormous wealth—his current net worth is $50.7 billion—comes from Koch Industries, his private, industrial conglomerate. According to its website, Koch Industries employs 860 people in Ohio through its companies Georgia-Pacific, Infor, Koch, and Koch Engineered Solutions.

Over the years, Koch Industries has received $527 million in state and local subsidies, including in Ohio, where pulp and paper product company Georgia-Pacific received over $1 million in 1994, according to Good Jobs First. That’s on top of $9 million in federal grants and tax credits.

AFP isn’t the only Koch-backed group campaigning against a federal bailout of state and local governments.

In May 12 letter, the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a pay-to-play operation that writes model state legislation with the help of corporate lobbyists, urged federal politicians not to bail out the states, claiming that such a bailout “would be harmful to taxpayers, federalism, and ultimately the states themselves.”

Three Ohio legislators—Reps. George Lang (R-West Chester), Thomas Brinkman (R-Cincinnati), and Scott Wiggam (R-Wayne County)—signed the ALEC letter along with AFP Ohio’s director, Micah Derry.

In 2002, the Cincinnati Post dubbed Brinkman, who represents parts of Cincinnati, “Dr. No,” meaning “no taxes for men and no rights for women,” according to a Wikipedia citation. In 2018, Brinkman was the only dissenter in a House vote to end the tax on women’s hygiene products.

Leaders from dozens of right-wing groups, including a number directly funded by the Charles Koch Foundation, signed a May 8 letter from the Conservative Action Project that urged Congress to reject state and local bailouts. The Conservative Action Project is an arm of the secretive, right-wing Council for National Policy, which helped coordinate protests of the coronavirus-caused lockdowns.

Signatories include former Ohio Congressman Bob McEwen, who is executive director of the Council for National Policy; Khadine Ritter, President of the Eagle Forum of Ohio; Jessica Anderson, executive director of Heritage Action for America; Lisa Nelson, CEO of ALEC; James Martin, founder of the 60 Plus Association; Charlie Copeland, president of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute; and Morton Blackwell, president of the Leadership Institute.

Ohio Government Invites Employers to Secretly Report “Work Refusal” Due to Coronavirus

Aída Chávez

Workers who stay home out of concern for unsafe conditions at work may be investigated and potentially stripped of unemployment benefits.

intercept 520

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/cnn-exposes-controversial-trump-associates-reportedly-buying-rally-attendance-and-votes-for-cash

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CNN exposes controversial Trump associates reportedly buying rally attendance and votes for cash

Written by Tom Boggioni / Raw Story February 16, 2020

On Sunday morning, CNN took a deep dive into reports that groups allied with President Donald Trump are funneling cash to potential voters in the hopes that they will turn out in November in what is expected to be a close presidential election.

The report centers on Darrell Scott, a pastor from Cleveland who is a prominent ally of the president and has been running a possibly illegal program designed to win over black voters for the president that literally involves handing them envelopes stuffed with cash at mini-rallies.

“At the center of the controversy is a new charity called the Urban Revitalization Coalition led by Ohio Pastor Darrell Scott,” the report states which has, “Raised red flags saying the cash events may violate tax laws that bar nonprofits from engaging in political campaign activities and could jeopardize the group’s tax-exempt status. In an interview, Scott said he’s careful to follow the law., but groups like the NAACP accuse him of trying to buy support for President Trump.”

CNN shared clips from the rallies where the envelopes were handed out and, in one, a rally organizer can be seen exhorting attendees to attend the next rally by saying, “Come back in February when we give you $50,000.”

You can watch the video below:

https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/how-ohios-fascist-pro-nuke-attack-on-democracy-threatens-the-referendum-process-across-the-nation/

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How Ohio’s fascist pro-nuke attack on democracy threatens the referendum process across the nation

Written by Harvey Wasserman / Common Dreams October 20, 2019

A terrifying series of gestapo-style assaults, petiton buying, bribery, mass media manipulation and systematic intimidation has smacked into the attempt of Ohio citizens to repeal a billion-dollar bailout for two dangerously failing atomic reactors on Lake Erie.

The unprecedented assault threatens the referendum process in Ohio and across the nation.

It also threatens to keep on line two very old, dangerously decayed reactors where melt-downs and explosions could forever contaminate the Great Lakes region and more. (For a full explanation, hear this one-hour discussion).

The story may end Monday, October 21, when signatures are due to qualify an anti-nuclear referendum for the fall 2020 ballot.

It begins with the July passage by the gerrymandered Ohio Legislature of HB6, a massive bailout scheme designed to subsidize the Perry and Davis-Besse nukes, plus two fifty-year-old coal burners, one of them in Indiana. HB6 does support ten small solar facilities. But it also kills an extremely popular, effective energy efficiency program along with larger subsidies for wind and solar energy in general.

The bailout is vehemently opposed by a large majority of Ohioans, including most of its usually pro-corporate media. Commercial, industrial and environmental groups did mount a massive campaign meant to stop the bill from passing. But with help from Democrats in both houses, the Legislature narrowly approved the bailouts.

Almost immediately, a referendum was filed for repeal. With 265,000 signatures due by October 21, Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts began hiring canvassers.

Ohio’s GOP Secretary of State delayed the process as long as possible. He waiting a full 20 days before turning down the first petition submission. He then waited another 20 to certify the second.

But as soon as the referendum supporters began gathering signatures, pro-nuke forces attacked with a fascist assault unlike any other in US history.

First they began running an astonishing wave of TV ads claiming the referendum was a plot by Chinese Communists to take over Ohio’s electrical grid. The ads feature (they are still running!) hordes of goose-stepping Chinese soldiers, sinister footage of China’s dictator, shuttered US factories, and more.

Accompanied by high-gloss mass mailings, the pro-nuke forces are also running saturation radio ads warning Ohioans to shun all signature gatherers lest they be tracked by sinister communists out to ruin their lives and credit. A toll-free number is offered to those willing to call in the location of any repeal supporters.

But the pro-nuke gestapo has also leapt from mere media manipulation to physical intimidation. When the referendum-gatherers hit the streets, they were confronted by industry “blockers” to tangibly prevent them from doing their job. In one case (as filmed on a security camera) a blocker smacked the cell phone out of the hands of a signature gatherer as he tried to photograph her. Gatherers have widely reported close-up verbal assaults. In some cases as many as three paid blockers have surrounded a single signature gatherer to prevent anyone from coming near to signing a petition.

Because many of the signature gatherers are hired employees, they’re required to register contact information with the state. The pro-nuke mob has assaulted them with threatening phone calls. In some cases they’ve reportedly offered substantial cash payments and airline tickets if they leave the state. One signature gatherer reported being offered $2500 (!) for the day’s accumulated sign-up sheets, which would presumably then be shredded.

Under the circumstances, many now wonder if the pro-referendum forces have been able to accumulate the required 265,000 signatures, plus the many more needed for a traditional cushion. The Republican Secretary of State is certain to discard as many signatures as he can, especially with the micro-managed scrutiny of the nuclear industry.

The ramifications of such an outcome are staggering. It could signal the death of the popular referendum, a cornerstone of the democratic process.

It could also mean two old, uncompetitive, uninsured, un-inspected crumbling atomic reactors highly likely to explode will continue to threaten the entire Great Lakes region for years to come.

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Youngstown Newspaper Publishes Its Last Edition After 150 ...

https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com › 2019/08/31 › youngstown-the-vindicator-...

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:{Aug 31, 2019 - :{YOUNGSTOWN:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, :{Ohio:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: (AP) – The :{Vindicator:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: in Youngstown has published its final edition, ending an era that began with the :{paper's:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: founding ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

Missing: liberator ‎| Must include:

https://www.alternet.org/2019/09/ohio-to-purge-more-than-200000-voters-using-list-flagged-with-numerous-errors/

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Ohio to purge more than 200,000 voters using list flagged with numerous errors

Written by Igor Derysh / Salon September 9, 2019

Ohio is set to purge nearly a quarter-million people from its voter rolls Friday despite journalists and voting rights groups finding repeated mistakes on the state’s list.

Republican Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose published a list in August targeting 235,000 voters the state says are inactive, meaning voters who have not voted for the past six years that the state was unable to contact.

The list of voters was fraught with errors. The secretary of state’s office announced hundreds of changes to the list almost immediately. Two weeks later, voting rights groups discovered that 4,000 people had been erroneously added to the list, the Columbus Dispatch reported. The paper reported days later that another 1,600 people had been incorrectly added to the list because of an error by a software vendor.

The list also included thousands of people who were apparently unaware they had been targeted for removal, even though the state is required to attempt to contact them. More than 11,800 people included on the list have updated their voter registrations so they won’t be canceled, HuffPost reported.

Ohio removes people from the rolls if the state suspects they have moved or died. The list includes people who have not responded to an address confirmation mailing and people who have not voted or participated in any board of elections activity for six years. But voting rights groups say the purge lists are filled with errors that could disenfranchise thousands of legitimate voters. Ohio has already purged 265,000 voter registrations this year, and at least 17 million people have been purged from voter rolls around the country since the 2016 election, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

The Ohio Democratic Party sued to try to stop the state from carrying out the purge, citing the repeated errors on the list. LaRose’s office argued that the errors had been fixed and that the office was taking additional steps to contact people on the list. A federal judge on Tuesday rejected the Democrats’ lawsuit seeking to halt the purge, despite acknowledging problems with past purges. The Supreme Court last year ruled that Ohio’s “supplemental process” that targets voters it suspects have moved or died was legal despite putting eligible voters at risk.

“As we prepare to finalize this process, we’re confident that there has never been a more intensive review of Ohio’s voting rolls, and we’re satisfied that the proper safeguards are in place to ensure any eligible voter will have the opportunity to have their voice heard,” LaRose spokeswoman Maggie Sheehan said in a statement to HuffPost.

But Democrats say that the dubious process all but guarantees that eligible voters will be removed.

“Someone asked me on a call today, ‘Well, what’s the margin of error that’s acceptable in this purging?’ And I said, this isn’t a poll. This is voting. You should not ever be limiting people from the rolls by government error,” Ohio Democratic Party chairman David Pepper told WOSU.

The party’s executive director, Greg Beswick, told Cleveland.com that it was “disturbing” that LaRose planned to go forward with the purge despite admitting to “errors that resulted in thousands of Ohio voters being improperly … and unlawfully flagged to be removed from the rolls.”

“The specter that any active voters are purged due to government error, and no fault of their own, is unacceptable,” he added.

With no legal recourse left, voting rights groups like All Voting is Local are scrambling to contact as many people as possible to encourage them to update their registrations.

“Thousands of voters at risk of being purged have already alerted the state that they are still very much alive and wish to vote,” Mick Brickner, the group’s Ohio state director, said in a statement. “This shows how deeply broken the purge process is and the need for voter registration modernization now.”

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https://theintercept.com/2019/08/29/lake-erie-bill-of-rights-ohio/

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HOW OHIO’S CHAMBER OF COMMERCE KILLED AN ANTI-POLLUTION BILL OF RIGHTS

H. Claire Brown

August 29 2019, 5:00 a.m.

In partnership with

EARLIER THIS SUMMER, environmental activists in Ohio were alarmed by the passage of a mysterious state budget amendment that would close a new avenue for residents to sue polluters. The provision invalidated a landmark anti-pollution initiative passed by Toledo voters just a few months before. Now, emails obtained in a public records request reveal that the Ohio Chamber of Commerce secured the cooperation of a key Republican lawmaker in a successful effort to slip the amendment into an appropriations bill at the eleventh hour.

The emails depict the chamber’s environmental policy director requesting a last-minute meeting with state Rep. Jim Hoops to discuss the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, the newly minted ballot initiative allowing citizens to sue polluters on behalf of Lake Erie. A legislative aide responded quickly, scheduling a same-day meeting. Despite the chamber director’s admission that his proposal would need to be submitted after the legislature’s deadline, the aide produced draft amendment language to share with him three weeks later. The chamber’s subsequent revisions made their way into the final bill, effectively nullifying the Lake Erie Bill of Rights.

“This shows the influence of the Chamber of Commerce writing our laws and undermining the democracy of the people of Toledo,” said Bill Lyons, a board member of the Ohio Community Rights Network, an environmental advocacy organization. After the May vote, Lyons filed a series of public records requests to try to figure out which lawmaker introduced the amendment. The emails were provided to The Intercept and The New Food Economy by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, an affiliate of the Ohio Community Rights Network.

FILE - In this Aug. 3, 2014 file photo, a sample glass of Lake Erie water is photographed near the City of Toledo water intake crib on Lake Erie, off the shore of Curtice, Ohio. Scientists are predicting a "significant" algae bloom will form this summer on western Lake Erie, a continuing health hazard in a region where algae toxins forced a temporary tap water shutdown in 2014. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari, File) A glass of water sampled near Toledo’s water intake crib on Lake Erie, off the shore of Curtice, Ohio, on Aug. 3, 2014. Photo: Haraz N. Ghanbari/AP

IN FEBRUARY, MORE than 60 percent of participants in a special election in Toledo voted to establish a Bill of Rights for Lake Erie. It was a unique ballot question that would grant Lake Erie the right to “exist, flourish, and naturally evolve.” The intent was to give Lake Erie and its human allies legal standing to file lawsuits against polluters.

Organizers in Ohio launched their efforts to pass the initiative after a toxic algal bloom — caused by fertilizer and manure runoff from upstream farms — rendered Toledo’s water undrinkable and largely unusable (some residents were advised not to shower) for a few days in 2014. Tish O’Dell, a state organizer for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, said residents spent two years trying to persuade the state government to take action to prevent future issues.

In Ohio, however, the farm runoff largely responsible for polluting Lake Erie is minimally regulated. Farmers in the state also benefit from key legal protections that limit their vulnerability to pollution-related lawsuits. Ohio has a so-called right-to-farm law, which dramatically limits neighbors’ ability to win lawsuits alleging that farm pollution unfairly impacts their quality of life. (Hoops appears to have introduced another amendment that expands the definition of farmland protected under the state’s right-to-farm law; that amendment passed this summer as well, further narrowing the legal pathways advocates might use to limit agricultural runoff.) And at the federal level, the Clean Water Act has long exempted most agricultural operations from robust regulation.

For all these reasons, advocates came to believe that existing legal frameworks would never sufficiently protect the lake and those who live near it. By 2016, they were ready to try something new. After O’Dell and her colleague Thomas Linzey gave a presentation on so-called rights-of-nature laws at Bowling Green University, Toledo activists approached them about devising a plan for Lake Erie. The group headed to a nearby pub.

“That’s actually how the Lake Erie Bill of Rights hatched,” O’Dell said. “It was on a cocktail napkin at the bar.”

After its passage, the Lake Erie Bill of Rights was immediately challenged in federal court. The next day, the Drewes Farm Partnership had filed a 24-page lawsuit arguing that protections for the lake could mean financial ruin for the farm’s business. That lawsuit is ongoing. Then, in May, the eleventh-hour amendment invalidating the lake’s rights found its way into the House version of the state’s budget.

The Chamber of Commerce asked for the addition of text that would more directly refute the Lake Erie Bill of Rights.

It all started with an email from the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. The chamber’s director of energy and environmental policy, Zack Frymier, wrote to request a meeting with Hoops, the state House representative, on April 11, a few weeks before the vote. (Hoops is chair of the Ohio House Finance Subcommittee on Agriculture, Development, and Natural Resources.)

“I’m hoping to find some time (like everyone else) to run something by Chairman Hoops regarding the Lake Erie Bill of Rights that passed in Toledo in February,” Frymier wrote. “We have some language that we’d request to be considered for the budget. Though obviously it would have to be submitted after tomorrow’s deadline we’d still like to have a conversation.”

A legislative aide replied promptly, arranging a meeting with Hoops for 4:00 p.m. that day. Despite the short notice — it was already nearly 3:00 p.m. — Frymier quickly and enthusiastically responded that he’d be there.

A few weeks later, the aide got back to Frymier with draft text of the amendment, asking if the wording made sense to him. Frymier then asked for the addition of text that would more directly refute the Lake Erie Bill of Rights.

“Language in this amendment stating that [nature and ecosystems] do not have standing is essential to what we’re trying to accomplish,” Frymier wrote on May 2.

The amendment’s final text includes the additional statement Frymier asked for: “Nature or any ecosystem does not have standing to participate in or bring an action in any court of common pleas.”

The amendment was reported by local media on May 8. The next day, the state House passed its version of the bill. Lyons, the Community Rights Network board member, later testified in front of the state Senate, asking legislators to strike the amendment from the final budget. His efforts were unsuccessful and, after a few weeks of negotiation, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine signed the measure into law.

Lyons said he was surprised by the degree of collaboration between the Chamber of Commerce and Hoops’s subcommittee. “The fact that they would run that language specifically by them — I mean, who else gets that opportunity?” he said. (Neither the Ohio Chamber of Commerce nor Hoops’s office responded to requests for comment.)

Business advocates — primarily the fossil fuel giant BP, which has fracking interests in the state — spent more than $300,000 to campaign against the Lake Erie Bill of Rights prior to its passage in Toledo. The coalition advocating in its favor, Toledoans for Safe Water, spent less than $6,000, according to Great Lakes Now.

Municipalities around the nation have been slowly adopting rights-of-nature ordinances for more than a decade. Pittsburgh banned fracking using this legal framework in 2010. More recently, a county in Oregon voted to ban aerial pesticide spraying the same way.

Rights-of-nature laws likely face a long road ahead. If the Lake Erie Bill of Rights is any indication, many may be tied up in lawsuits for years to come.

For O’Dell, the Ohio organizer, the Lake Erie Bill of Rights is already a win regardless of its fate. “The people kept fighting to get it on the ballot. They defeated big corporate money. They won, and they’re still fighting,” she said. “So I don’t care what happens — they have ignited interest all around the world.”

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icn 719

Ohio Governor Signs a Coal and Nuclear Bailout at Expense of Renewable Energy

BY: DAN GEARINO

Ohio homeowners and businesses are now stuck paying more to keep old, uneconomical power plants running, and money-saving energy efficiency programs will likely disappear.

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23072019/ohio-coal-nuclear-bailout-law-signed-cuts-renewable-energy-efficiency-programs-governor-dewine

Opponents fear the law will send the growing wind and solar industry to neighboring states while Ohio homeowners are stuck boosting old, uneconomical power plants.

Dan Gearino

:{BY :(style="box-sizing:inherit"):}:DAN GEARINO

JUL 26, 2019

Updated July 26 with FirstEnergy Solutions announcing that, with the state bailout for its nuclear plants, the utility will now have funding to keep an aging coal plant also running.

In a year when several states have taken big steps to embrace a future that runs on renewable energy, Ohio is taking a leap in the opposite direction.

The Ohio legislature passed a measure Tuesday that cuts renewable energy and energy efficiency programs while adding subsidies for nuclear and coal-fired power plants—a policy cocktail that opponents say is backward-looking and harmful to the economy, consumers and the environment.

Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, signed the bill into law within hours.

Opponents were unable to match the political power of FirstEnergy Solutions, the owner of the state's two nuclear plants, and its allies.

While much of the debate was about nuclear power, the law may end up functioning as more of a coal bailout.

On Friday, FirstEnergy Solutions said it had decided to cancel plans to close the W.H. Sammis coal-fired power plant, an eastern Ohio plant that has been described as a "super-polluter." The plant, previously scheduled to shut down in 2022, is not covered by the bailout law, but the windfall from the bailout money is improving the company's finances enough to make moves unrelated to the nuclear plants.

The new law is in line with Ohio's recent history of hostility to renewable energy, while also making the state an outlier as several other states have increased their support for renewable energy, including plans to move to 100 percent carbon-free or renewable electricity, most recently in Maineand New York.

"This is one of the worst pieces of energy related legislation we've seen," said Dan Sawmiller, Ohio energy policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

His group was one of many across the business and political spectrum that fought the bill, a rare moment in which environmental advocates such as the Sierra Club were on the same side as the American Petroleum Institute.

"We are bailing out a corporation, a failing corporation," while harming the growing wind and solar industries, said Rep. Casey Weinstein, a Democrat.

He said the legislation would steer solar and wind investment away from Ohio and toward neighboring states such as Michigan. Other states, including South Carolinaand Georgia, are being much more forward thinking about renewable energy, he said.

capt 319

battleground on energy, old vs new gas, solar v coal

seems to have more than its share of dark $,

Kasich only survivor of 4 gov horsemen of alec-koch-a lypse, watch this space: gearing up for 2020, termed out

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31052019/ohio-nuclear-bailout-coal-plants-kills-renewable-energy-efficiency-standards

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Ohio’s Nuclear Bailout Plan Balloons to Embrace Coal (while Killing Renewables Rules)

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/ohios-republican-attorney-general-is-going-to-war-with-trump-to-try-and-save-obamacare/

Trump is forcing his Justice Department, over the objections of his own attorney general, to support the position of a coalition of right-wing states suing to strike down the Affordable Care Act, aka “Obamacare” in its entirety.

But at least one GOP state attorney general is among those fighting back. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, Ohio’s Dave Yost is advising a federal court to throw out the lawsuit:

Yost said in an interview he agrees that the individual mandate to buy health insurance is unconstitutional but disagrees that the rest of the law is also therefore invalid.

Yost plans to file a friend-of the-court brief in the5th Circuit Court of Appeal. The brief will argue the individual mandate can be removed from the law without eliminating protections for pre-existing conditions, insurance caps and other parts of the law. About 1.9 million non-elderly Ohioans have pre-existing conditions, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The lawsuit is rooted in the GOP tax bill passed at the end of 2017, which among other things eliminated the ACA’s individual mandate, and in the Supreme Court’s 2012 decision in National Federation of Independent Businesses v. Sebelius, which said the mandate was constitutional under Congress’ power to tax. Since the mandate no longer exists, the lawsuit argues, it is no longer a tax, and therefore the entire law — pre-existing conditions, community rating, insurance exchanges, essential benefits, tax credits, Medicaid expansion, Medicare reforms, all of it — must be struck down.

The lawsuit is broadly considered ridiculous even by conservative experts — most of the law’s provisions have nothing to do with the individual mandate, and when Congress eliminated the mandate while keeping everything else, they were clearly establishing the mandate is severable from the rest of the law. Nevertheless, the lawsuit found sympathetic ears in Judge Reed O’Connor, an extremely partisan federal judge in Fort Worth with ties to Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX). O’Connor ruled in favor of the lawsuit, but his ruling is on hold and under review by the Fifth Circuit — and Trump’s DOJ is trying to persuade them to uphold it.
20 GOP state attorneys general, led by Texas AG Ken Paxton, initially brought the lawsuit, but Ohio was never among them. Despite being firmly in Republican control for nearly a decade, the state has benefited hugely from the ACA — it adopted the Medicaid expansion, and relies heavily on ACA programs to keep rural hospitals afloat and combat the opioid crisis. Losing all these programs would be adisaster for Ohio,and Republicans there know it.
In addition to Yost’s brief, over a dozen Democratic state attorneys general led by California’s Xavier Becerra are mounting a defense of the ACA.

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Ohio Weighs a Nuclear Bailout. Will It Boost Renewables, Too?

BY: DAN GEARINO

The powerful utility FirstEnergy has been pushing for federal and state nuclear subsidies for years. It spent big in the last Ohio election and won a power shift in the legislature.

https://www.alternet.org/trump-country-turnaround-why-presidents-faux-populism-could-return-rust-belt-its-democratic-roots

Politically, the Rust Belt has been one of the most volatile parts of the United States.While New England and the West Coast lean Democrat and many of the southern states have been reliably Republican, the Rust Belt has generally had a mixture of blue states and swing states (with Indiana being the most GOP state in the Rust Belt). But in 2016, President Donald Trump’s faux-populism not only resulted in a victory in the swing state Ohio—Trump also flipped three states that usually go Democrat in presidential races: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is still fuming over the fact that Hillary Clinton was the first Democrat to lose Wisconsin in a presidential election since Walter Mondale in 1984.

The 2018 midterms, however, found Democrats regaining a lot of ground in parts of the Rust Belt—and between now and 2020, the DNC will no doubt be spending considerable time trying to figure out ways to avoid another Rust Belt debacle like the one two years ago.

In 2019, this is what the political environment will look like in four Rust Belt states that were carried by Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 but by Trump in 2016.

Michigan

Saying that Michigan is a blue state does not mean that Michigan residents vote Democrat exclusively in major races—only that they are, on the whole, more likely to vote Democrat. During the Obama years, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder campaigned as a self-described “pro-life, pro-2nd Amendment, pro-family” Republican and won in both 2010 and 2014. It was under Snyder’s watch that the appalling Flynt water crisis occurred, but even that tragedy didn’t prevent Trump from carrying Michigan in 2016 (making him the first GOP presidential candidate to do so George H.W. Bush in 1988).

In 2018, however, Democrat Gretchen Whitmer defeated Republican Bill Schuette by 10% in Michigan’s gubernatorial race. Incumbent Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow was reelected, defeating Republican John James by 7%—and Michigan Democrats flipped two GOP-held seats in the U.S. House of Representatives when Elissa Slotkin defeated incumbent Rep. Mike Bishop and Haley Stevens defeated Lena Epstein in the 11th Congressional District. Meanwhile,

Democrats didn’t obtain a majority in Michigan’s state legislature in 2018, although they decreased the GOP majority in the Michigan House and the Michigan Senate.

2. Pennsylvania

Although Pennsylvania and Ohio are both Rust Belt swing states, Pennsylvania has been more favorable to Democrats in presidential elections—especially when there is a heavy voter turnout in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. But in 2016, Trump managed to flip Pennsylvania with a strong turnout in the central part of the state (which Democratic strategist James Carville famously described as “Alabama in between”). Altoona, Johnstown and other areas of Central Pennsylvania that Pennsylvanians jokingly refer to as “Pennsyltucky” or “Pennsissippi” came out for Trump in droves, making him the first Republican to carry Pennsylvania in a presidential race since 1988.

Democrats, however, enjoyed double-digit victories in the 2018 midterms when Gov. Tom Wolf and Sen. Bob Casey, Jr. were reelected. In Pennsylvania, Democrats flipped three GOP-held seats in the U.S. House of Representatives; of the 18 House seats in Pennsylvania, there will be nine held by Democrats in 2019 and nine by Republicans. However, Republicans still control Pennsylvania’s state legislature (110-92 in the Pennsylvania House, 29-21 in the Pennsylvania Senate).

3. Ohio

Some elections were very easy to predict in 2018. Republican Mitt Romney’s chances of losing the Utah Senate race were slim and none, as were House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s changes of not being reelected in the San Francisco Bay Area. And in New York City, Congresswoman-Elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez enjoyed so much support that voters hardly knew anything about her Republican challenger Anthony Pappas. But countless races in the 2018 midterms were major nail biters, from Texas to Florida to Virginia—and Ohio had its share of nail-biters this year.

Ohio is a swing state where Democrats can perform well (Obama carried Ohio in both 2008 and 2012) but have to work extra hard, as Hillary Clinton was reminded when she lost to Trump in the Buckeye State in 2016. And this year, Democrats were disappointed in Ohio once again when Democrat Richard Cordray lost to Republican Mike DeWine by 4% in the state’s gubernatorial race—although Sen. Sherrod Brown was reelected, defeating Republican challenger Jim Renacci by 7%.

Republicans maintained a strong majority in Ohio’s state legislature(both the Ohio House and the Ohio Senate) this year, and 12 of Ohio’s 16 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives will be held by Republicans in 2019. As Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley asserted in a November 23 piece for the New York Times, Ohio has not turned into a red state but is a state where Democrats will need to find their “path out of the wilderness.”

4. Wisconsin

When President George H.W. Bush enjoyed an electoral landslide over Democrat Mike Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election, Wisconsin was one of the states Dukakis managed to win. Wisconsin, all things considered, is still a blue state, but far-right Republicans enjoyed some important victories in Wisconsin during the Obama years. House Speaker Paul Ryan was elected via Wisconsin, and Gov. Scott Walker won two terms. Ryan and Walker became stars of the far-right. But Ryan opted to resign from the House, claiming that he wanted to spend more time with his family (which is nonsense—Ryan was worried about a blue wave). And Republicans suffered a painful loss in Wisconsin when Walker failed to win a third term in 2018 and was defeated by Democrat Tony Evers, who Obama had campaigned for aggressively. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, defeating Republican Leah Vukmir, was reelected by 11%. Those were important wins for Democrats, although Republicans will still control five of Wisconsin’s eight seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2019.

Ohio Republicans move to make childbirth mandatory — and lay bare the deep sexism that motivates the anti-choice movement

In Ohio, Republican Mike DeWine, the state attorney general, defeated Democrat Richard Cordray, a former state attorney general and the first director of the Federal Consumer Protection Bureau. Cordray's loss is a blow to clean energy advocates who had hoped to see a counterweight to a Republican-controlled legislature that has been hostile to renewable energy.

https://www.alternet.org/under-assault-trumps-gop-and-supreme-court-unions-lead-massive-get-out-vote-effort-midterms-we-vote

In the face of a coordinated, corporate-funded assault on their very existence by President Donald Trump, Republicans at the federal and state level, and the right-wing Supreme Court, labor unions nationwide have mobilized massive numbers of struggling workersto turn out for Tuesday's critical midterms with the goal of defeating anti-union candidatesand electing politicians willing to fight for progressive policies that benefit the working class like Medicare for All, a higher minimum wage, and the fundamental right to organize.

"The Culinary Workers Union registered 10,300 voters for the midterms. This union really gets it done. Still impressed by what I saw reporting on them in Vegas."

—David Jamieson, Huffington Post

"We don't know any other way," said Geoconda Arguello-Kline, the Secretary-Treasurer for the Culinary Workers Union in Las Vegas, which has registered over 10,300 new voters ahead of Tuesday's midterm elections to defeat Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.). "For us, it's a very natural way to survive here in Las Vegas: organize, organize."

With the rallying cry, "We vote, we win!" the union has provided resources for workers to learn about the candidates on the ballot, spread the word about the issues at stake in the midterms, and find the closest polling site. The Culinary Union's get-out-the-vote efforts have been replicated throughout the nation, including in so-called "right-to-work states," where Republican legislatures have barred unions from collecting dues from all workers they represent in collective bargaining efforts to raise wages and improve working conditions.

"Things aren't changing for the better like they thought would happen. Real wages are not keeping pace with inflation. We haven't replaced the well-paying manufacturing jobs that we lost."

—Tim Burga, Ohio AFL-CIO

In Southern states like North Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, and Georgia, the Communications Workers of America (CWA)—which represents 700,000 workers nationwide—say it organized canvassing, mail, and phone bank operations that resulted in over four million door knocks."

In the Midwest, where workers have suffered from decades of deindustrialization, corporate outsourcing, and neglect from politicians who so often claim to care about their plight, the AFL-CIO says it has convinced thousands of union workers who backed Donald Trump in 2016 to turn out for progressive Democrats on Tuesday.

"About half of union households that voted for Trump said they are planning to vote for Democrats in two key statewide races," Vox reported on Monday, citing figures from the Ohio AFL-CIO. "That includes 51.4 percent of Trump voters who plan to cast a ballot for progressive Democrat Richard Cordray for governor and 49.9 percent of Trump voters who favor incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown—the only Democrat currently holding statewide office."

Tim Burga, president of the Ohio AFL-CIO, said many union workers who initially backed Trump have realized after two years of plutocratic policies and stagnant wages that the president and his billionaire-filled cabinet are not on their side, and never were.

"Things aren't changing for the better like they thought would happen," Burga said. "Real wages are not keeping pace with inflation. We haven't replaced the well-paying manufacturing jobs that we lost."

With a historic number of House Democratic candidates backing Medicare for All, National Nurses United (NNU)—the largest organization of registered nurses in the U.S.—has also been tirelessly canvassing and phone banking in Maryland, Florida, and the many other states where candidates are standing up to America's disastrous for-profit healthcare industry.

See NNU's full list of all 225 House Democratic candidates running on Medicare for All here.

https://www.propublica.org/article/jobs-alliance-tries-to-block-gas-plants

Three years ago, a group of residents in West Virginia’s northern panhandle formed a new group, the Ohio Valley Jobs Alliance, and declared themselves a “voice for local jobs.”

A few months later, however, the group’s first major action was aimed not at creating jobs, but at blocking them.

In November 2015, the alliance, known as the OVJA, filed a legal appeal to challenge a key permit for construction of the Moundsville Power project, a natural gas-fired plant in Marshall County.

The move was puzzling. Backers of Moundsville Power said the project would be a significant boost for the area, providing 500 jobs annually during a three-year construction period and 30 permanent jobs once it was operational. Supporters said the project was a way for residents to capture more economic gains from West Virginia’s booming natural gas industry.

The legal action, it turns out, was funded by Murray Energy Corp., one of the nation’s largest coal producers, one of the group’s leaders testified in a deposition in the case. Murray Energy’s founder and CEO is Robert E. Murray, who is among the nation’s best-known advocates for reviving the coal industry and cutting regulations related to it.

The OVJA also is seeking to stop two other natural gas power plants proposed for West Virginia, and Murray Energy has acknowledged paying “certain legal fees” for the group. Like the Moundsville plant, the facilities proposed for Harrison and Brooke counties would provide hundreds of construction jobs for several years and then about 30 permanent positions. All told, the three plants would cost more than $2 billion to build.

Power plants need several kinds of government permits, and the jobs alliance has focused its legal attacks on air-pollution permits issued by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and utility “certificates of need” permits handled by the state Public Service Commission.

Testimony in the power plant cases before both agencies doesn’t reveal details about Murray Energy’s funding for the OVJA lawyers, and current financial records for the alliance aren’t publicly available.

In pursuing their cases, the lawyers paid, at least in part, by Murray Energy have relied on the same kinds of government regulations that Robert Murray has railed against. In the Moundsville plant case, those lawyers challenged a permit partly because it allowed an increase in carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming. Murray global warming is a “hoax.”

Construction has not begun on any of the three projects, at least partly, because of litigation-related delays, developers say.

“It’s been very frustrating,” said Drew Dorn, president of Energy Solutions Consortium, the company that was originally behind the Moundsville plant and continues to promote the Harrison and Brooke projects.

OVJA officials and lawyers did not return calls and emails seeking comment. Robert Murray, through a spokesman, declined a request for an interview. The spokesman would not answer questions, pointing to a prepared statement:

“The Ohio Valley Jobs Alliance is a grassroots organization that seeks to preserve coal jobs in the Ohio Valley,” the statement said. “While we certainly support their mission, we have not provided financial support to the organization, other than assisting them with certain legal fees. OVJA members have the welfare of the people in the Ohio Valley as their first priority, as they work to preserve these jobs and family livelihoods. We are pleased to support their efforts.”

The influence of Murray and his company on the coal industry’s future is far-reaching. He is a funder and confidant of President Donald Trump. Trump has pledged to revive the coal industry, and Murray has praised the administration’s efforts. During an August rally in Charleston, the president — typically a supporter of large energy projects — touted coal as superior to natural gas. He played up the risk of terrorist attacks on gas pipelines and extolled the virtues of coal.

“We love clean, beautiful West Virginia coal,” the president told a crowd sprinkled with miners holding “Trump digs coal” signs. “And you know that it’s indestructible stuff in times of war. You can blow up those pipelines.”

But the OVJA’s approach — fighting against an industry competitor of coal — risks stopping developments that could diversify West Virginia’s economy.

The gas plants the OVJA has been fighting would make up for the closure of numerous coal plants across the region that were old, inefficient and unable to comply with modern air pollution limits.

The OVJA is certainly right about one significant point: The gas-fired power plants would employ far fewer workers than a large coal-fired power plant. Appalachian Power’s Mitchell Plant, a coal-fired facility south of Moundsville, has about 270 full-time employees, according to a company spokeswoman, compared to about 30 when the Moundsville plant is operational.

But Anne Blankenship, executive director of the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association, argued in a recent newspaper commentary that comparisons with coal ignore the broader economic benefits of the gas industry. It was an unusually direct response from one local fossil fuel industry to another.

...

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28092018/aep-solar-energy-appalachia-ohio-coal-just-transition-utility-regulatory-battle

Appalachian Ohio, a region hurt by the decline of coal, may become home to one of the largest solar projects east of the Rockies.

American Electric Power submitted a plan Thursday evening to work with two developers to build 400 megawatts of solar in Highland County, Ohio. It would more than triple the state's current solar capacity and be a big step forward for solar energy in a part of the country where renewable energy has been slow to develop.

AEP says the plan would save consumers $218 million over 20 years because solar power from the project would be less expensive than conventional energy sources.

"This is something that Appalachia needs," said Dan Sawmiller, Ohio energy policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "The jobs of this renewable energy economy are going to go somewhere and I think it's important that they go where they're needed."

But the project's structure would break the established regulatory mold in Ohio, a state where utilities don't own power plants and generators compete with each other to supply the cheapest power to the grid.

The savings and the jobs promised are a turnaround from the arguments state officials listened to when they rejected clean energy proposals in recent years. If the new plan is approved by Ohio regulators, it could serve as a template for other new projects in Ohio and in other states.

'Just Transition' in Appalachia

The decision to put the project in Appalachian Ohio, which covers the southern and eastern parts of the state, is part of an attempt to bring economic development to an economically depressed region.

"It's a really hopeful move," said John Quigley, director of the Center for Environment, Energy and Economy at Harrisburg University, who has written about so-called "just transition" for poor communities affected by the shift from fossil fuels to the new green economy.

"It's an eye-opener for policymakers that there's a huge economic development opportunity for solar, especially in communities negatively affected by the energy transition," he said.

Another recent example is Xcel Energy's plan to close its coal-fired power plant in Pueblo, Colorado, and build renewable energy projects there.

Highland County, Ohio, where AEP and its solar developers chose to build, has an unemployment rate higher than the state average, and nearby counties have some of the highest unemployment rates in the state. AEP says its plan would bring 3,900 new jobs, most of them in construction, plus 113 full-time jobs in solar manufacturing. Details on the manufacturing jobs were not immediately disclosed.

The plan is part of a boom in solar development that is happening across the country. Some other big solar projects have also been announced in the region but not yet built, including a 150 megawatt solar farm being developed by Invenergy in Hardin County, Ohio. The AEP project would go into service in 2021 if approved.

Challenging Ohio's Regulatory System

This project is unusual for Ohio because a utility, AEP Ohio, would benefit financially from an electricity generation project. That would be normal in much of the country, but Ohio has a separation between utility companies and the owners of power plants.

AEP's proposal is seeking to make an exception to this rule by having solar developers operate the solar farms on behalf of AEP Ohio. The costs would be passed on to the utility's consumers, which AEP says is justified because of benefits to the environment and the local economy.

Opponents likely will argue that this violates Ohio's open market for electricity generation. In the market, owners of power plants compete to offer the lowest prices and utility companies do not own power plants. More than a dozen states similarly have open markets for electricity generation, including much of New England and the Great Lakes region, and Texas, among others.

Ned Hill, an economist at Ohio State University, says that having a utility pay for certain power plants could stifle investment in competing projects—including other renewable energy projects. He has opposed previous proposals by energy companies and utilities to subsidize coal and nuclear plants, and says this plan is bad for some of the same reasons.

The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio will decide whether to approve the plan in a process that will unfold over the next few months and that likely will focus on the types of questions Hill is raising.

Sawmiller, from NRDC, said he can understand why there are concerns about what this project means for the competitive market, but he thinks the market is structured in a way that has held back renewable energy development.

"If you rely exclusively on the market you lose some of the innovative economic development that's laid out in this filing," he said.

PUBLISHED UNDER:

CLEAN ENERGY

COAL

NERN - MIDWEST

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29102017/renewable-energy-ohio-rps-law-fossil-fuel-political-donations-coal

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part of choke hold series icn

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29102017/renewable-energy-ohio-rps-law-fossil-fuel-political-donations-coal

COLUMBUS, Ohio—On March 30, Bill Seitz, a charismatic Republican, took to the floor of the Ohio Houseto make a case for gutting a 2008 law designed to speed the adoption of solar and wind as significant sources of electricity in the state. The law, he warned, "is like something out of the 5-Year Plan playbook of Joseph Stalin." Adopting a corny Russian accent, he said, "Vee vill have 25,000 trucks on the Volga by 1944!'"

Nine years before, Seitz and his colleagues, Republicans and Democrats alike, had voted overwhelmingly for the measure he now compared to the work of a Communist dictator. It made Ohio the 25th state to embrace requirements and inducements to lure utilities away from coal, a major contributor of the gases fueling global climate change. Studies suggested the law would help create green energy jobs and boost the Ohio economy—and it has.

Now, Seitz said, it was obsolete. Natural gas, rapidly displacing coal, was the resource Ohio ought to foster, he said. He also argued the law gives an unfair advantage to wind and solar when the state's last nuclear plant is fighting for its life. Most important, Seitz insisted, the government had no business telling anyone what kind of energy to buy. By the time he was done, he had secured a veto-proof majority to undo key parts of the law.

What happened to turn lawmakers so decisively against a statute they'd adopted 93-to-1 less than a decade ago?

The answers begin with the 2008 financial crisis, which hit Ohio hard and greatly depressed energy demand, and they include the shale gas boom, which benefited Ohio producers and made coal uncompetitive.

But there's more to the story, too.

As fossil fuel interests mobilized at the national level to fight proposals to mitigate climate change that would undercut their profits, they made Ohio a priority for fighting clean energy policy at the state level. Beginning in earnest in 2011, a network of coal companies, utilities, think tanks, nonprofit foundations and political action committees coalesced to roll back Ohio's alternative energy initiatives.

Industry-supported think tanks provided highly questionable research purporting to show big job losses. An industry group claiming to represent consumers—and accused of using fraudulent tactics before regulatory agencies—advised Seitz's staff on how to water down the definition of alternative energy. And industry sources donated to the campaigns of state politicians, like Seitz, who've kept the repeal-and-replace bills coming, even after Republican Gov. John Kasich vetoed a similar effort.

This network includes Americans for Prosperity, a foundation funded by the energy magnates Charles and David H. Koch; the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based advocacy group known for its criticism of climate change science; and the American Legislative Exchange Council(ALEC), another conservative nonprofit in Washington with Koch ties that frequently spoon-feeds draft legislation to state politicians.

Seitz is on ALEC's national board of directors, but he bristles at the suggestion that he relies on the council for guidance. "ALEC doesn't drive me," he told InsideClimate News. "If anything I drive ALEC." Either way, in 2012, ALEC adopted an "Electricity Freedom Act" that reads like a declaration of war against the kind of energy rules on the books in Ohio and calls for the effort to reject them that Seitz leads.

The Rise of Clean Energy Scare Studies

Once a major coal producer, Ohio has a lesser-known history with fuel-free electricity. In the winter of 1887-88, Charles F. Brush constructed the world's first electricity-generating wind turbine on a 60-foot iron mast behind his Cleveland mansion. Brush held more than 50 patents, and his company joined with several others to form General Electric. In 1984, physicist Harold McMaster first demonstrated in his Toledo basement the potential for thin, non-silicon-based films to capture the sun's energy. Glasstech, now called First Solar, has led the conversion of Toledo into a solar manufacturing hub. The University of Toledo trains engineers for the many photovoltaic companies in the region, and, in 2007, it added the Wright Center for Photovoltaics Innovation and Commercialization to transfer what's in its labs to nearby factories.

...

"Ohio has a legitimate claim to being a leader in renewable energy, which is what makes the effort to stymie renewables here all the more ironic," said Bill Spratley, former executive director of Green Energy Ohio, an advocacy organization in Columbus. He said if the Seitz bill became law, "we might end up supplying everyone else with these wonderful technologies while we don't get to benefit from them ourselves."

Spratley testified against Seitz's bill. He noted that there are roughly 80 companies making parts for wind power systems in Ohio and scores of engineers and sales representatives installing solar, "and those jobs aren't going anywhere," he said. "Those are local jobs."

Ten years ago, more Ohio politicians embraced Spratley's message. In 2007-08, as the "Energy, Jobs and Progress" plan made its way toward law, energy demand was strong, prices were expected to remain high, and awareness of coal's contribution to climate change had peaked. The law committed Ohio to cutting energy consumption by 22 percent by 2025 and diversifying sources so that 12.5 percent of its electricity would come from alternative energy sources—geothermal, biomass, wind, solar.

Demand and prices fell with the recession and the shale gas boom, but the promise of more jobs and less global warming continued to resonate. Or it did until studies started showing up that warned that the law would do more harm than good.

In 2011, the former American Tradition Institute, now the Energy and Environment Legal Institute, commissioned an analysis of the economic impacts of Ohio's energy standards. Based in Washington, the EELI receives funding from Peabody Energy and Arch Coal, the two largest suppliers of coal in the United States. The Beacon Hill Institute, then an affiliate of Boston's Suffolk University and a frequent publisher of papers critical of climate-related policies, undertook the study.

In its report, Beacon Hill forecast that the Ohio energy standards would result in the loss of 9,750 jobs, wipe out $1.1 billion in disposable income every year, and force Ohioans to pay $8.6 billion more for electricity in 2025. The authors, among them BHI's executive director, David G. Tuerck, reached this conclusion based on an economic model that ignored the rapidly declining cost of electricity generated by wind and solar. Beacon Hill later lost its Suffolk University affiliation because, a university spokesman told The Boston Globe, its research lacked rigor and tended to reach conclusions sought by its underwriters.

...

no link

Cost claim and rebuttal.

On April 13, 2011, ALEC sent the Beacon report to all its members in the Ohio legislature, warning that the energy rules were "a blueprint for economic misery."

RPS cost claim and savings rebuttal.

Citing the study, state Sen. Kris Jordan introduced a bill five months later to repeal the alternative energy standards. The measure didn't make it out of committee, but Jordan, Seitz and others kept at it, until, in 2014, they managed to secure a two-year freeze on meeting the annual benchmarks established under the 2008 law.

Cost claim and rebuttal

More scare studies followed. In 2015, the Institute of Political Economy at Utah State University published a paper suggesting Ohio's energy rules would kill off 29,000 jobs. Last spring, the Buckeye Institute, a free-market think tank across the street from the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, modeled four economic scenarios; the rosiest estimated that the renewable and energy efficiency standards would cost Ohio 6,800 jobs and $806 million in GDP by 2026.

RPS jobs claim and rebuttal.

"Those studies are completely bogus," said Terrence O'Donnell, a lawyer representing renewable energy developers at Dickinson Wright, a Columbus law practice. "The Utah one is the most ridiculous, because it blames everything that happened to the economy during the recession on the renewable portfolio standards. It's laughable. There's not one policy maker I know of who still refers to it." The Buckeye Institute, he added, assesses "a fictitious Ohio law, not the one on the books." For example, the Buckeye economists assume "that the cost containment provisions in the law simply won't kick in if prices for renewable energy rise. But they don't say why." And the price of solar electricity hasn't just fallen a little bit; it's less than half of what it was three years ago.

Several other studies have concluded that Ohio's energy rules have, on the contrary, created jobs and improved the economy. One, published by Ohio State University's Center for Resilience, found that in 2012 alone, the law stimulated a modest .04 percent, or $160 million, in GDP growth statewide. According to the Ohio Environmental Council (OEC), the state added more than 2,300 renewable energy projects and 25,000 clean energy jobs since 2009. Not minus 29,000 jobs, but plus 25,000 jobs, and not based on a model, but on payroll and labor statistics.

Renewable Portfolio Standards, State by State

Trish Demeter, the OEC's managing director of energy, said the 2008 law benefits the state in another way. Its energy efficiency provisions are saving money. For every dollar invested in efficiency, she said, "Ohio ratepayers are saving between $1.10 and $4.20 on their utility bills, depending on what kind of consumer they are." She said this data came from actual receipts, not models, and had been reviewed by the Ohio Consumers Council and the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).

So whose numbers are right? On behalf of Gov. Kasich's office, Matt Cox, a Ph.D. from MIT and founder of Greenlink, a consulting practice in Atlanta, modeled three scenarios to try to determine if Ohio's energy rules were too aggressive. Overall, Cox found that the rules generated more jobs, more GDP and, in time, lowered electrical bills.

Ohio State Rep. Bill Seitz

Seitz told InsideClimate News that Cox ought not to have factored public health impacts of air pollution into his study. Cox responded, "How can you do a cost-benefit analysis and not factor in a cost that is borne, not by the utility, but by everyone else?"

Dave Anderson is policy and communications manager for the Energy & Policy Institute, a watchdog group headquartered in San Francisco. He and his team note that all three of the organizations behind the Ohio scare studies—Beacon Hill, Utah State and Buckeye—have received donations from the Koch brothers or their affiliates. For example, the Buckeye Institute receives funding from the Koch-backed Donors Capital Fund and Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundations, as well as directly from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation.

Passionate Opposition to Wind Power

The bill that froze Ohio's energy rules in 2014 also created an Energy Mandates Study Committee to determine whose numbers were best and what to do next.

To staff the committee, Seitz turned to Sam Randazzo, general counsel for a consortium of electricity purchasers large and small called the Industrial Energy Users of Ohio. Randazzo has been deeply involved in shaping Ohio's energy policy for five decades and, like Seitz, opposes the 2008 standards.

On Aug. 8, 2016, as the freeze neared expiration and the EMSC was due with its findings, Seitz wrote to 10 utility, gas and coal lobbyists, as well as Randazzo, that "we should be meeting as a small group to figure out what that report is going to say." (The watchdog group EPI obtained this email through a public records request.)

The EMSC counted 12 elected officials, among them Seitz, as members. These 12 collectively received $830,000 in campaign contributions from utilities, oil and gas interests, and coal mining companies, according to an investigation by the National Institute on Money in State Politics. Contributions from electric utilities to Seitz more than tripled after he began trying to dismantle the state's renewable energy standards.

Following the Money

Randazzo disputed any notion that the committee was stacked by the fossil fuel industry. "This was a legislatively appointed body with representation by both Republicans and Democrats," he said. And, it was "absolutely open to all stakeholder positions."

In an interview, Seitz was blunt about whose interests he was looking out for. "Coal is moribund and crowded out by natural gas. If there's anyone I should have an affinity for it's the natural gas guys. ... The old saying is, you dance with who brung you to the dance. In Ohio, natural gas is who brung us to the dance."

Seitz despises wind turbines, and his dedication to rolling back Ohio's energy standards stems in part from his passionate opposition to wind power. In fact, the only reason he voted for the standards back in 2008, he said, was a promise by the Senate president that he could write the language on turbines. Over time, Seitz has been behind restrictions that have wiped out any large new projects. "There will be no wind farms!" he said, with satisfaction.

Turbines, Seitz said, take up too much room, don't work when the wind doesn't blow, and are not a good fit for his district, in the far corner of the state where it borders Indiana and Kentucky. His neighbors love spending time in their yards and don't want any turbines wrecking their "view sheds," or chopping up bats and birds, he said. And it doesn't help matters that "it seems to be a cabal of urban millennials who love wind [power] and want to inflict the damage on rural landscapes—stick it out there in the country where all the bumpkins can't do anything about it. That's not very nice. So I'm not a big fan of wind."

Gov. John Kasich

The final Energy Mandates Study Committee report was a gift to incumbent utilities and gas and coal interests. It recommended an indefinite extension of the freeze on renewable standards and more or less mirrored a bill Kasich vetoed on Dec. 22, 2016, saying the measure could undermine the state's improved business climate and prevent businesses and homeowners from saving money by saving energy.

Undeterred by Kasich's veto, HB 114, the bill that passed on March 30, contains much of the EMSC wishlist.

Seitz's staff also received advice from the Consumer Energy Alliance on expanding the definition of what counts as an alternative form of energy. The CEA is comprised of few consumers, operates out of HBW Resources, a Washington-based lobbying firm, and is backed by major oil and gas companies, such as Chevron, ExxonMobil, Marathon, Shell and Norway's Statoil. It's a lobbying group that has been challenged before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for submitting public comment letters from individuals who later said in sworn statements that they never signed them. The CEA withdrew a petition in Wisconsin after a local reporter found that some people who signed it actually opposed the utility rate changes CEA was pushing.

Seitz laughed at the notion that he is the face of a well-funded industry campaign. "As I've made clear 20 times, I find mandates philosophically obnoxious," he said. "Look, I'm an antitrust lawyer by background and training. Antitrust lawyers tend to favor competition and not be a big fan of monopolies, and tend to believe that government interference ought to be kept to a minimum."

His bill is now in the state Senate, where it may face an uphill fight. John Fortney, spokesman for the Republican majority caucus and Senate President Larry Obhof, said any legislation will have to be a compromise acceptable to both houses and Kasich. Kasich's office did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.

Andrew Kear, an assistant professor of political science and environment and sustainability at Bowling Green State University, said HB 114 can't survive without substantial changes. He said any measure will have to recognize that renewable energy is an economic driver in parts of the state. "They have to get beyond the false dichotomy that it's environment versus economy," he said.

In Ohio, the Environmental Protection Agency has fined Energy Transfer Partners—the company behind the Dakota Access pipeline—$400,000 for spilling millions of gallons of drilling chemicals and fluids onto the land amid construction of another pipeline, the $4.2 billion gas Rover Pipeline, which is slated to stretch from Appalachia to Ontario, Canada. There have been at least 18 spills, including one of up to 5 million gallons of fluids that has contaminated a previously pristine wetland. Ohio EPA Director Craig Butler said this spill will "kill just about everything in that wetland." Officials are currently trying to clean up the chemicals with a vacuum and by hand.

http://www.acluohio.org/blog-posts/blog-titledoj-end-its-use-of-private-prisons-but-what-about-ohio

8/16

week, the Department of Justice announced an end to using private prisons to hold federal prisoners. This decision followed a scathing report which highlighted that private prisons are less safe, provide less services and programs, and do not substantially save on costs. This is a major victory for those who have fought to end prison privatization.

But don’t write off private prisons just yet.

The process will happen gradually over the next five years, as the DOJ advises the Federal Bureau of Prisons to decline contract renewals or substantially reduce the scope of contracts. Plus, this decision only affects federal prisoners.

At its highest capacity, the Federal Bureau of Prisons used private prisons to house approximately 15 percent of its population, just under 30,000 prisoners.

What Does This Mean For Ohio?

08.23.16

The DOJ Is Ending Its Use of Private Prisons: But What About Ohio?

By Jocelyn Rosnick

Last week, the Department of Justice announced an end to using private prisons to hold federal prisoners. This decision followed a scathing reportwhich highlighted that private prisons are less safe, provide less services and programs, and do not substantially save on costs. This is a major victory for those who have fought to end prison privatization.

But don’t write off private prisons just yet.

At its highest capacity, the Federal Bureau of Prisons used private prisons to house approximately 15 percent of its population, just under 30,000 prisoners.

What Does This Mean For Ohio?

While the DOJ’s announcement is a clear warning to all states using private prison operators, it only goes so far. The policy change does not apply to immigration detention centers run by the Department of Homeland Security, or to state prisons with private operators or owners.

In Ohio, the Bureau of Prisons had already declined to renew its contract with the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) for the privately-owned Northeast Ohio Correctional Center in Youngstown, Ohio. This decision wasn’t surprising―the facility had been riddled with problems since it opened in 1997. Within the first 14 months, the facility experienced 13 stabbings, two murders, and six escapes. Youngstown officials even sued CCA for its mismanagement of the facility. As a result, it temporarily shut down, only to later re-open again under CCA control. In 2014, the BOP decided not to renew its contract with CCA after multiple protests at the facility objecting to unsanitary food conditions, inadequate access to programming, and lack of medical care. Unfortunately, the U.S. Marshal Service still pays CCA to hold hundreds of detainees at this prison.

Ohio’s Failed Experiment with Prison Privatization

Ohio was the first, and is still, the only state to sell a prison to a private operator. Privatization was seen as a way to cut costs for our bloated prison system.

Ohio prisons hold over 50,000 people in a system built for less than 38,000.

Simply put – the experiment failed. The first 18 months that Lake Erie Correctional Institution was under CCA control were a failure. Drug use was rampant throughout the facility, contraband was being tossed over the perimeter fence, violence increased, and medical care deteriorated. It’s taken years for the facility to stabilize, and there are still problems.

Privatization is only in the best interest of those who make a profit. It does not benefit the staff, prisoners, local community members, or the state. The DOJ voiced these concerns loud and clear when it announced it will no longer contract with private prison operators.

So why is Ohio on a dangerous path to sell another prison to a for-profit company?

Ending Prison Privatization in Ohio

Ohio now plans to sell a second prison to a private company. Last year, in a legislative sleight of hand, the sale of the North Central Correctional Complex in Marion, Ohio was inserted into an unrelated bill right before summer recess. Concerned citizens were given no opportunity to submit testimony or engage in public discussion, and the bill passed with little media coverage at the time.

**http://www.ecowatch.com/firstenergy-bailout-puco-2043994096.html**

The Ohio Public Utilities Commission (PUCO) approved a scheme Wednesday that will force FirstEnergy's customers to hand over approximately $200 million annually to the company and its shareholders for the next 3-5 years. Customers will receive virtually nothing in return for this massive subsidy, which could ultimately reach $1 billion.

Under Wednesday's order, FirstEnergy will begin to receive hundreds of millions of dollars, with effectively no strings attached. Although characterized as a "distribution modernization rider," nothing in the commission's order requires that these customer dollars be invested in modernizing Ohio's electrical grid or in any way be spent to benefit Ohio customers. Instead, the dollars can be siphoned off from FirstEnergy's Ohio utilities and used to bail FirstEnergy Corp. out of its poor coal investments while boosting the profits of corporate shareholders.

"Today's decision takes hundreds of millions of dollars out of customers' pockets in order to create a massive slush fund for FirstEnergy Corp. and its shareholders," said Shannon Fisk, attorney at the non-profit environmental law firm Earthjustice.

"And the fact that FirstEnergy asked for billions more does not make this decision any less unreasonable. Rather than forcing customers to prop up profits for a corporation that made a bad bet on aging coal plants, the commission should be looking after customers and ensuring investments in job-creating renewable energy, energy efficiency and smart grid initiatives."

Through Wednesday's decision, the commission has aided FirstEnergy's efforts to sidestep a recent order of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that raised serious questions about FirstEnergy's previous bailout proposal. Under that proposal, customers would have directly assumed all of the financial risk of financially struggling coal and nuclear plants owned by FirstEnergy Corp.'s unrelated competition generation business.

In late April, FERC ruled that FirstEnergy's previous bailout proposal—which PUCO had approved a month earlier—may violate federal safeguards concerning transactions between public utilities and their unregulated affiliates. FERC blocked FirstEnergy's bailout scheme pending a federal review. Rather than submit its proposal for FERC review, FirstEnergy concocted a new scheme intended to bypass the FERC order. Although the bailout ultimately approved by PUCO is structured a bit differently and Wednesday's order mentions grid modernization in passing, the fact remains that this bailout poses the same risk to customers that the FERC order sought to prevent.

"In this long-awaited and complicated decision, PUCO missed a critical opportunity to seriously focus FirstEnergy on the more diversified, cleaner energy future that tens of thousands of customers wrote the commission asking for," said Dan Sawmiller, senior representative for Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign in Ohio.

"A few months ago, FirstEnergy took an important step in moving beyond coal when it announced closure of four units at its Sammis coal plant. With PUCO's decision now issued, we hope to be able to work with FirstEnergy to accelerate its path beyond coal and nuclear and toward new investments in clean energy, energy efficiency and other modern grid initiatives like infrastructure for electric vehicles."

Wednesday's order marks the latest development in a more than two-year effort by FirstEnergy to obtain a customer-funded bailout. Throughout that time consumer groups, industrial customers, independent power producers and environmental non-profits have united in challenging FirstEnergy's efforts as contrary to law and bad for customers. Challenges before the Ohio Supreme Court and FERC to the commission's approval of the bailout are expected.

https://dianeravitch.net/2012/11/24/checker-finn-opposes-the-for-profit-model-in-education/

edison fail ohio

===

kasich promised fix, but big funders

Columbus Dispatch wrote recently of the academic failures of the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow (ECOT) where the graduation rate of 38% is among the worst of any school in the state. Among Ohio’s 613 traditional public school districts , the lowest graduation rate is 60.9%. In addition, ECOT received all Fs and one D on the state’s most recent report card.

Despite its abysmal performance record, ECOT continues to expand. More than 14,500 children are currently enrolled, making ECOT the equivalent of the 10th largest school district in the state. The Dispatch story noted that ECOT founder William Lager has donated more than $1 million to Ohio politicians in the last five years as his school has grown exponentially.

Failure at What Cost?

Information at KnowYourCharter.com helps clarify the burden that local public schools must bear to cover the costs of students who chose to attend ECOT. Kids in all 88 Ohio counties are impacted. More than 95% of school districts – 586 of 613 districts – have students and money being transferred to ECOT. As one of the state’s 9 statewide e-schools and one of the country’s largest for-profit K-12 schools, ECOT’s poor performance is exacerbated by its extraordinary financial impact on children throughout the state.

According to state data located at KnowYourCharter.com, more than 90% of the districts that had students and funding transferred to ECOT in the 2012-2013 school year[[1]](http://knowyourcharter.com/2015/01/09/ecot-cost-failure/#_ftn1) had more money go to ECOT than the state would have paid the district[[2]](http://knowyourcharter.com/2015/01/09/ecot-cost-failure/#_ftn2). That forces districts throughout the state to subsidize ECOT with local tax revenues to make up those per pupil state funding differences – differences that in two cases topped more than $10,000 per pupil[[3]](http://knowyourcharter.com/2015/01/09/ecot-cost-failure/#_ftn3).

The average difference between what the state would have paid districts for the kids attending ECOT in the 528 districts was $2,897 per pupil less than what was paid to ECOT. That means local taxpayers had to subsidize the difference to make up for the larger payments to ECOT.

For districts that had at least 1 full-time student transfer to ECOT during the 2012-2013 school year, here are the biggest per pupil funding differences between what ECOT was paid and what the state paid the district in the last school year:

Many of these school districts are among the state’s highest performers, and they are losing significant per pupil funding from the state to a school that graduates students at a 20 percent lower rate than the worst traditional public school district. Consider as well that all this money goes to a school that doesn’t have a building, lunch ladies, buses, a gym, or any one of myriad expenses endured by brick and mortar schools.

Here are some more facts from KnowYourCharter.com:

The $6,440 per student that ECOT received during the 2012-2013 school year is more money per pupil than was received by 91% of Ohio’s traditional public school districts this last school year – nearly $1,000 more than Cincinnati and Columbus together received from the state.

Nearly 3 out of 4 dollars sent to ECOT came from money meant for districts outside the state’s major urban centers.

The all Fs and one D that ECOT received on the state report card data that can be found at KnowYourCharter.com was not matched by any Ohio school district. Only 3 of 613 Ohio school districts received all Fs and one C – and ECOT received between $1,100 and $3,600 more per pupil than those districts.

Since ECOT opened in the 2000-2001 school year, Ohio taxpayers have paid ECOT nearly $690 million. But nearly half that total – $328 million – has come in the last four school years.

ECOT received more than $570,000 from the 25 highest performing school districts on the state’s performance index score. These districts all had scores that were more than 1/3 higher than ECOT’s.

http://www.prwatch.org/comment/36416#comment-36416

Ohio state education officials are now admitting that Ohio has almost ten times as many failing charter schools as the state initially claimed.

This revelation comes as Ohio tries to hang onto a $71 million federal charter school grant in the wake of scandals over misleading the grant application reviewers and breaking state law by altering charter school performance statistics. That was the largest grant award by the U.S. Department of Education last year.

Ohio newspapers and the Center for Media and Democracy reported last October that the Ohio Department of Education's claims about the excellence of the state's charter-school system were intentionally misleading.

In the state's July 2015 grant application, education officials reported that in the 2012-13 school year Ohio had no "poor performing" charters, even though about a third of the schools didn't meet any of the standards on state report cards and 60 percent earned D's or F's on a measure of how students perform on state tests.

The grant application also said an automatic-closure law would shut down any failing charter schools without disclosing that the law will not be in effect for several years.

Meanwhile, it turns out that then-Ohio charter school chief David Hansen, who drafted the grant application, also rigged charter school sponsor evaluations to improve their ratings. Hansen resigned July 18, two days after submitting the grant request to the feds and several days after admitting he broke the law by excluding failing grades for some charter schools in the evaluations.

Hansen's wife, Beth Hansen, is Ohio Governor John Kasich's former chief of staff and the manager of Kasich's newly surging presidential campaign. She left her government post for the campaign in the midst of the scandal as the pre-primary season was beginning. Kasich has not been asked about the charter school failures in the national debates.

In the latest news, Ohio's Department of Education now says there were actually 57 poor-performing charter schools in the state in the 2013-14 school year, not six.

Its July grant application claimed there were only six.

Conversely, the state said there were 93 "high-performing charter schools" in July and now it says there are just 59.

These performance statistics are for 290 brick-and-mortar charter schools and still do not include online charters (which Hansen omitted). 

These numbers were included in a January 29 letter to the federal regulators who put a hold on Ohio's charter-school grant amid the concerns. The 20-page letter is signed by interim state superintendent Lonny J. Rivera, and was the state's third response to questions from federal regulators since the review was opened.

Part of the reason Ohio won the grant in the first place was a glowing endorsement from the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA)—an organization that had previously referred to the charter system in Ohio as "broken."

But NACSA rethought that assessment as it signed a $40,000-a-year agreement with the Ohio Department of Education to lend assistance to the state's charter school authorizers. The deal was brokered by former NACSA senior executive and lobbyist Hansen before he resigned as head of the Ohio Office of Quality School Choice.

During his time as NACSA's top lobbyist, Hansen represented the organization at meetings of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), touting "high quality" charters. That's the post he took after he left the "Buckeye Institute" and before Kasich put him in charge of charters for the state of Ohio.

Hansen previously led the Buckeye Institute, an Ohio "think tank" that is part of the controversial "State Policy Network" (SPN). SPN special interest groups amplify ALEC's lobbying agenda, which includes numerous bills to siphon money from traditional public schools to charters and for-profit enterprises. It should be no surprise that a virtual school corporation, K12, sits on ALEC's corporate board and has co-chaired its education task force where corporate lobbyists and special interest groups vote as equals with state legislators on bills, behind closed doors at posh resorts with fancy private parties. Before Hansen became Kasich's point person on charters, NACSA sent Hansen to ALEC to advance its charter school agenda there.

Cleveland's Plain Dealer reported last June that Hansen intentionally left F grades for online charter schools out of academic evaluations of charter school oversight agencies. Those F grades for schools run by major Republican donors would have dragged down the rating of the oversight agencies.

One of the largest such agencies in the state is the Ohio Council of Community Schools, which collects about $1.5 million in sponsor fees a year from students attending Ohio Virtual Academy and the Ohio Distance and Electronic Learning Academy (OHDLA), an online school run by a company owned by David Brennan, a big Republican campaign donor in Ohio.

Ohio has hoped to use the $71 million in federal aid to give grants of up to $700,000 to applicants seeking to open new charter schools. That's nearly a million dollar giveaway per charter to experiments, which have often failed, while traditional public schools are facing budget cuts that hurt school children and their learning environment.

But, as CMD revealed in its "Charter School Black Hole" report last October, out of the 88 Ohio charter schools created by planning and implementation grants under the Charter School Program between 2008 and 2013, at least 15 closed within a few years and another seven never opened at all. These charters received more than $4 million in federal taxpayer money.

Despite this track record and despite the false and deceptive claims the state made in its application for more federal tax dollars for charters , Ohio landed the biggest one-year grant in the 2015 competition for federal funding, $32.6 million, with more planned in the coming years.

Since 2004, Ohio has been granted more than $195 million in American tax dollars by the U.S. Department of Education under the Charter School Program for State Educational Agencies (CSP-SEA). That's part of the more than $3.7 billion CMD has documented that the federal government has spent fueling the charter school industry over the past few decades.

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/cincinnati-built-a-subway-system-100-years-ago-but-never-used-it

Another ALEC dream item is the repeal of renewable energy standards. Their dreams came true in Ohio this past July when Governor John Kasich signed SB 310, making Ohio the first state in the country to walk backwards on clean, sustainable energy. Meanwhile utility companies are appealing to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) to let them stick Ohio energy consumers with the cost of upgrading and keeping in service obsolete coal-fueled plants, probably not a coincidence. Ohio was the first successful attempt to sabotage the rapid growth of the wind and solar sectors and shore up the fading coal industry. The bill has been cropping up other state legislatures so activists across the country should keep an eye out for it.

4. Prominent ALEC leaders are climate deniers. Its incoming national chair, state rep. Phil King (R-TX) has said,”I think the global warming theory is bad science” and has accused President Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency of pushing “unproven” technologies intended not for the “stated objective of combating climate change” but to crush the coal industry. Its current chair, state rep. John Piscopo (R-CT), claims, “There are ice ages and periods of warming throughout Earth’s history. We could be in a period between ice ages. It’s not human-induced, not catastrophic. It’s nothing to panic over. I think it’s a move by government to take over and tax our energy system.” And Ohio state senator Bill Seitz, an ALEC board member, was the prime mover behind Ohio’s recent move to freeze its renewable energy standards, the first state in the U.S. to do so. He has referred to the standards as “some Stalinist government mandating” and is pushing for permanent total repeal.

5. ALEC has a long history of denying climate science, including a 2005 report called “Top 1o Myths about Global Warming,” which appeared on its website for many years. Among the “myths” it purported to debunk: that human activity causes global warming, that extreme weather events are caused by global warming, that there’s been any significant warming at all in the last century and that what it calls “carbon reduction schemes” will be relatively inexpensive.

Ultimately, it’s not about whether ALEC really believes that climate change is happening or that it’s human-caused. It’s about promoting legislation embodying “free market principles” that benefit its members, which include many major polluters such as Peabody Energy, ExxonMobile, Chevron and TransCanada, impacts be damned.

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Cleveland Becomes Cleantech Leader But Ohio Backtracks on Renewable Energy

As the state of Ohio freezes climate policy, the city of Cleveland and its surrounding area are taking a different approach. Northeast Ohio is charging ahead with plans to build green industries that could jumpstart the economy and reduce pollution at the same time.

Ohio Utilities Take Renewable Energy Fight to State Supreme Court

Both camps in the net metering dispute see the other side gaining an unfair advantage if...

http://ecowatch.com/2014/08/04/ohio-utilities-renewable-energy-state-supreme-court/

he done it:

===

6/14

Ohio Gov. John Kasich Signs Nation’s First Renewable Energy Freeze

It took two weeks, but now it's official—Ohio is the nation’s first state to roll back renewable energy standards ...

2010 funders, sports

Big donors fuel campaign fundraising surge -

There's the guy who became a billionaire selling dog food, a couple of sports-team owners and the developer of an international spy museum.

That's not to mention the convicted felon, the business leader who was the main financier of Bob Ney'sdefense fund before the former Heath congressman went to federal prison, or the cowboy-hat-wearing industrialist who supports a mysterious out-of-state entity now delinquent in paying a record $5.2 million election fine in Ohio.

They are among an esoteric baker's dozen of individuals and families who have led the way in bankrolling Ohio political campaigns during the past decade. Together, those 13 deep-pocketed donors poured more than $25 million into state races since 2000.

Despite limits placed on campaign contributions in the mid-1990s, Ohioans just witnessed the most expensive gubernatorial campaign in state history. In fact, every statewide nonjudicial race this year broke spending records, some of which had stood for 20 years.

When he signed legislation capping donations to candidates, parties and political-action committees in May 1995, Gov. George V. Voinovich said, "I'm confident there'll be a substantial reduction in the amount of money spent on campaigns." Others readily agreed.

Instead, the price tag for statewide campaigns in the past decade leaped almost 73 percent from the total for the 1990s, most of which had no limits on political contributions, according to a Dispatchcomputer analysis of more than 4.3 million state campaign-finance records involving more than $1.7 billion in transactions.

(For purposes of this comparison, an 11-year period, 1990-2000, was used for the "1990s" so that three statewide election years were included, the same as in the 10-year period 2001-10. The Dispatchresearch did not take into account money from outside groups that have poured millions of independent expenditures into state campaigns, and it does not include the multiple millions more provide to federal campaigns from Ohio.)

Voinovich, who is retiring after 12 years in the U.S. Senate following his two terms as governor, confirmed this year the suspicions of many critics that such extravagantly funded campaigns have created an atmosphere in which big donors receive special access to elected officials.

"Truthfully, it has an impact on you," he said. "Somebody who has a big fundraiser in Ohio and says they want to come in to see you, and, you know, you see those individuals. There's no question that they've got an advantage as a result of doing it."

Outgoing Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, whose office enforces Ohio campaign-finance laws, said, "No matter how well-intentioned a candidate is, if they're taking large amounts from donors who are not giving for ideological purposes, there will be tacitly that pressure that they need to give access to those donors, if not actively work to please them."

The quest for cash was virtually unending in this year's record-breaking race for governor. Together, Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland and successful GOP challenger John Kasich staged 276 fundraisers in the 300 days leading up to this year's Nov. 2 election, their campaign-finance filings show.

Strickland held 166 campaign fundraisers in the first 10 months of 2010, generating more than $5.2million. That's an average of more than one fundraiser every other day, seven days a week, in locations across Ohio and from Los Angeles to New York.

"It's not a pleasant task, but it's a necessary task if you are serious about winning an election," Strickland said. "You can put your name on a ballot, not raise money, and you're not to going to win."

In the same period,Kasich had 110 fundraisers - more than one every three days - generating nearly $4.2 million.

"Until the media agree to begin working for free and start giving away free advertising, there will always be a need for campaigns to raise money," Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols said.

Strickland garnered more than $450,000 on Oct. 17 when President Barack Obama hosted a fundraiser at the Renaissance Hotel in Columbus. While Kasich's money events were fewer in number, they were more lucrative because of a series of "headliners."

An appearance by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in Cincinnati brought in about $680,000; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in Columbus, $630,000; talk-show host Sean Hannity in Cleveland, $600,000; and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in Columbus, $453,000.

"They know that fundraising in terms of their job as a candidate is their primary responsibility, because no one raises money like a candidate," said Brian K. Hicks, chief of staff for Gov. Bob Taft. "They have to be focused on it virtually every minute of every day."

The Taft campaign still holds the Ohio record by far for a single fundraiser, generating almost $2million in May 2002 at a Columbus Hyatt Regency event featuring President George W. Bush. That was more than his challenger, Democrat Tim Hagan, raised during his entire campaign.

But what motivates people to fork over large amounts of cash to a political candidate?

David Brennan and William Lager operate scores of charter schools whose funding - not to mention their very existence - depends on the legislature and governor. The Wayne Boich family, primary bankrollers of Ney's defense fund, operates coal mines that are subject to government regulation on several levels.

The family of Cincinnati's Carl Lindner - listed by Forbes magazine as the world's 582nd-richest man - gives almost exclusively to Republicans and GOP causes, not only in Ohio but elsewhere, such as supporting the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which helped sink Democrat John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign. With about $5.6million in contributions, the Lindner family is easily the decade's top contributor to Ohio state races.

Robert T. Bennett, former longtime chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, often benefited from Carl Lindner's largess.

"He used to say 'only in America could a guy start out with a UDF store and grow it into the American Financial (Group),'" Bennett recalled. "They're looking for leadership, so they put their money there, because they have the money to give."

At the other end of the state, David Maltz and his father, Milton Maltz, of Cleveland, a former media magnate who developed the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., finance not only Ohio Democrats but also such causes as supporting gay marriage on the California ballot.

The families of Larry Dolan, owner of the Cleveland Indians, and Clay Mathile of the Dayton area, who made his fortune when he sold dog-food maker Iams to Procter & Gamble, both are faithful GOP supporters.

Central Ohio has the uniquely bipartisan family of Abigail and Leslie H. Wexner, chairman and CEO of Limited Brands. He gives primarily to Republicans, she to Democrats - sometimes in the same race. For example, on July 3, Mrs. Wexner gave $2,500 to David Pepper, Democratic candidate for state auditor. Six days later, Mr. Wexner also gave $2,500, but to Pepper's GOP opponent, Dave Yost, who won.

None of these big contributors want to talk about why they give. But a few others were willing to share via e-mail or through a spokesperson their reasons for plowing so much money into Ohio campaigns.

"This is really the only way we have in our current system to support good candidates who we feel will serve well. I'd like less emphasis on campaign dollars and the fundraising aspect, but that's not likely going to change," said John P. McConnell, chairman and CEO of Worthington Industries andowner of the Columbus Blue Jackets hockey team.

"I was probably more engaged than ever in the process this year because I believe the stakes were so high, particularly for our state."

McConnell and his late father, John H., were the seventh-largest contributors to state campaigns during the past decade.

Ward J. "Tim" Timken Jr., chairman of the board at Canton's Timken Co., maker of ball and roller bearings, said there's more to participating in the democratic process than funding campaigns.

"For the Timken family, it has always been about making a difference in the world," he said in a statement. "That covers not just engagement in public affairs, but also extends to supporting a wide range of community needs (and even the products our company makes). If you want to promote progress in society, it's not enough to just contribute politically without also contributing professionally and philanthropically."

Similarly, Tom Needles, head of a consulting firm hired by Brennan, said the charter-school magnate's multimillion-dollar campaign donationsare "only part of the story. He's long believed that it's our duty to be involved in civic affairs at some level. His political contributions are merely a part of that involvement."

Needles also said Brennan campaign cash can lead to influence: "We believe that contributions to an individual's campaign certainly provide an opportunity to educate a candidate about issues we care about, but candidate contributions are no guarantee that we'll be granted access or favorable treatment."

Sometimes, those contributors hit rough patches.

Brennan gave $200,000 to a little-known Virginia group called All Children Matter that illegally funneled money to GOP candidates in Ohio in an attempt to avoid state contribution limits. So far, the group, which has changed its name and remains active in Ohio campaigns, has not paid a $5.2million fine levied by the Ohio Elections Commission. The bill has been turned over to the attorney general's office for collection.

John J. Cafaro, who retired as vice president of Youngstown mall developer Cafaro Co. last December, admitted this year violating federal law by making a false statement about a secret $10,000 loan to daughter Capri S. Cafaro's unsuccessful 2004 congressional campaign. He was fined $250,000 and given 150 hours of community service. The younger Cafaro, who said she didn't know about the loan, is the Ohio Senate's Democratic leader.

Even the staunchest advocates for reform concede that such chicanery is the exception.

"I don't think money is evil, and I don't fault candidates for looking for as much support as they possibly can," said Catherine Turcer, director of Ohio Citizen Action's money in politics project. "They're as caught in the system as much as we are. They need that money to buy those 30-second spots, to go on television."

Like Voinovich and Brunner, Turcer says the problem comes when candidates feel beholden to people who support them.

"I'm not talking about direct bribery, exactly, but undue influence is pretty easy: I'm gonna dance with the guy who brung me.

"The other thing is, these top families would not continue to give, decade after decade, unless they had really specific reasons. The economy has been in this downward spiral, and yet campaign spending is off the charts. There was no recession for campaign spending

"Clearly, major donors consider it a major investment in their futures."

drowland@dispatch.com

see kasich

A Pushback on Green Power

May 29, 2014

Source:

(New York Times)

As renewable energy production has surged in recent years, opponents of government policies that have helped spur its growth have pushed to roll back those incentives and mandates in state after state.

On Wednesday, they claimed their first victory, when Ohio lawmakers voted to freeze the phasing-in of power that utilities must buy from renewable energy sources.

Read original story

===

CPI also reports Reynolds American’s other contributions last year to 501(c)(4) groups include $100,000 to the Partnership for Ohio’s Future, an organization run by the Ohio Chamber of Commerce that spent several million dollars in a failed 2012 ballot initiative campaign to uphold a law limiting public workers’ collective bargaining rights. It also gave $12,500 to the National Taxpayers Union, a 501(c)(4) group that backed Republican candidates last year with modest expenditures.

WASHINGTON -- Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) has forced out the head of a key division of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency in response to pressure from the coal industry, according to an email obtained by The Huffington Post.

George Elmaraghy, the chief of the division of surface water at OEPA, told staff in the email that the governor’s office and the director of the agency had asked him to resign, effective Sept. 13, 2013. In the letter, Elmaraghy cited "considerable pressure from the coal companies over the last year" demanding that his staff "accommodate the industry’s needs by issuing permits that may have a negative impact on Ohio's streams and wetlands and violate state and federal laws."

Elmaraghy has worked at the Ohio EPA for more than 30 years. He took over as head of the surface water office, which oversees many of the permits coal companies need to mine and dispose of waste, in 2005.

The coal industry has targeted both Ohio's environmental regulators and the federal government over enforcement of clean water standards. Robert Murray, the president of Ohio-based Murray Energy -- the largest privately owned coal company in America -- railed against the Ohio EPA in a hearing before a committee in the state legislature last week. Murray also criticized what he called a "coordinated effort to accomplish the total destruction of the United States coal industry" in a speech at Ohio University on Aug. 12.

"George wouldn’t say he was asked to resign because of their history with the coal companies unless that was absolutely the case," said Jed Thorp, who worked at the OEPA from 2007 to 2012. Thorp, who is now the manager of the Sierra Club's Ohio chapter, described Elmaraghy as a "by the book" kind of guy with more than three decades of experience at the agency. “He wasn’t doing anything radical,” Thorp said.

An aide to Kasich referred questions to the Ohio EPA.

”Ohio EPA will not discuss personnel matters, but we will defend the integrity of the permitting process,” an OEPA spokesman said in an email. “There are several checks and balances built into the regulatory process. Permits we issue must withstand scrutiny not only from U.S. EPA, but must stand up on appeal to the Environmental Review Appeals Commission and other courts. Those third parties ultimately determine if any action under appeal was issued lawfully and reasonably.”

Elmaraghy's full email is below.

From: Elmaraghy, George

Sent: Monday, August 19, 2013 8:08 AM

To: EPA All

Subject: Thank you

As you know, there has been considerable pressure from the coal companies over the last year for the division staff to accommodate the industry’s needs by issuing permits that may have a negative impact on Ohio’s streams and wetlands and violate state and federal laws. The division staff acted appropriately in trying to implement the law and made every reasonable effort to accommodate the industry’s needs. In doing so, we always acted under the direction of the Governor’s Office, Ohio EPA Director and Chief Counsel.

Because of the industry’s interpretation of the federal Clean Water Act and state water pollution control laws, DSW staff worked under difficult conditions but you have done your jobs honorably. Now, due to this situation, the Governor’s Office and the Director have asked me to resign my position as Chief of the DSW at the Ohio EPA, effective September 13, 2013.

Our division went through similar situations in the past and the division staff was able to overcome these difficulties and accomplish our water quality goals in the end. For example, in the last several years, we have:

initiated new programs such as near shore monitoring for Lake Erie,

2. initiated the inland lakes monitoring program,

3. created the Surface Water Improvement Fund grant program,

4. instituted the eDMR (electronic discharge monitoring reports),

5. started dredging the Ashtabula River with the intent to delist it soon,

6. removed several dams and restored riverbanks along several major rivers,

7. reached agreement with the majority of communities with combined

sewer overflow to control the discharge of raw sewage into Ohio’s

lakes and rivers.

8. improved compliance rates and eliminated permit backlog.

As a result, we have been able to bring the majority of Ohio’s large rivers into attainment with water quality standards. You can take pride in knowing that Ohio’s Surface Water program is the envy of other states. I know you will continue our mission to provide clean water for Ohio’s communities and businesses and protect & improve the state’s greatest resource, our water.

I will always greatly appreciate your help and support while I was division chief, and I urge all of you to maintain the high standards of integrity that have always marked our Division.

bbb; 2004 OH warren cty last to rept b/c it declared a terrorist emergency lockdown, kicked out press and trucked the balllots off to warehouse controlled by gop guy until b2 got 14k more votes than 2000; scam planned 9 days before (fbi and paper)

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Ohio: Ohio’s fourteen Dirty Air Villains include Senator Rob Portman (R-OH), Speaker of the

House John Boehner (R-OH8) and Reps. Steve Chabot (R-OH1) (whose district includes the

Cincinnati-Middletown-Wilmington, OH-KY-IN MSA which ranks 21st in the nation for Ozone

pollution and eighth for year-round particulate pollution), Jean Schmidt (R-OH2) (whose district

includes the Cincinnati-Middletown-Wilmington, OH-KY-IN MSA which ranks 21st worst for

Ozone pollution and 8th for year-round particulate pollution), Michael Turner (R-OH3), Jim

Jordan (R-OH4), Robert Latta (R-OH5), Bill Johnson (R-OH6), Steve Austria (R-OH7), Patrick

Tiberi (R-OH12), Steven LaTourette (R-OH14) and Jim Renacci (R-OH16) (both of whose

districts overlap part of the Cleveland-Akron, OH MSA which is the nation’s 14th most polluted

for year round soot), Steve Stivers (R-OH15) and Bob Gibbs (R-OH18.) Ohio’s three Clean Air

Heroes include Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Reps. Betty Sutton (D-OH13) and Dennis

Kucinich (D-OH10).

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dominionism?

For many, President Obama and the Democratic Party are among these "demonic forces." This has real world consequences.

In 2006 former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris told thousands of cheering Christian Right activists that beating the Democrats in the upcoming elections was a battle against "principalities and powers," which many in the audience would hear as a Biblical reference to the struggle with the demonic agents of Satan. Harris (who played "ballot bowling" in Florida to elect George W. Bush in 2000) told the audience at the annual Values Voter Summit in Washington DC that she had studied religion in Switzerland with the godfather of the Christian Right, theologian Francis A. Schaeffer. Her speech there, which I witnessed and wrote about, qualifies her as a Dominionist.

In 2004 Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, another Dominionist, oversaw the election apparatus giving his favored candidate George W. Bush a boost into the Oval Office.

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2011/9/4/8954/17253

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cuts off water for fracking

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/08/muskingum-watershed-conservancy-fracking_n_1580976.html?ref=topbar

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all reps http://www.thepoliticalguide.com/Representatives/Ohio/

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Ohio Voters Reject Kasich Anti-Union Bill

Submitted by Mary Bottari on November 9, 2011 - 9:57am

Ohio voters dealt a severe blow to the agenda of Governor John Kasich and other anti-union governors by voting to overturn Senate Bill 5 (SB5) by a 61 to 32 percent margin. SB5 was a law championed by Kasich that would severely limit collective bargaining rights for public employees and targets public employee wages and benefits as a means to balance the state's budget.

Ohio Governor John KasichAfter the bill passed the legislature in March, unions and their supporters swung into action and submitted 915,246 certified signatures required to place the issue on the ballot for a statewide referendum. Ohio law allows for this type of "veto referendum," but does not allow for the recall of governors. Over 3,497,000 ballots were cast in the referendum vote -- and it appears to have passed with substantial Republican support.

The months that led up to the election garnered national attention as a fight against right-wing governors who were not only anti-union, but were fundamentally anti-government -- using the economic downturn to shrink and transform state governments.

A chastened Kasich struck a conciliatory note on election night: "It requires me to take a deep breath and to spend some time reflecting on what happened here."

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/11/11118/ohio-voters-reject-kasich-anti-union-bill

http://governor.ohio.gov/

omb watch

Perhaps the most controversial nominee to the EPA, Donald Schregardus was nominated to serve as Assistant Administrator for the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. Though not confirmed, Schregardus has still found a place in the administration. As Director of Ohio EPA from 1991 to 1998, Schregardus worked under former Ohio governor and current Sen. George Voinovich (R). Under Schregardus, the state of Ohio had one of the country's worst environmental records. For instance, from 1996 to 1997, 72 percent of Ohio plants and refineries surveyed had violations of the Clean Water Act, and 33 percent were in violation of the Clean Air Act, according to EPA's inspector general. Yet during this time, Ohio reported only four serious violations of environmental laws from over 1,700 major industrial plants. Accordingly, a number of environmental groups have asked EPA to revoke Ohio's authority to enforce federal environmental laws, and to bring in federal enforcers instead.

In a Federal Court Decision, an administrative law judge found that Schregardus had suppressed information about school children exposed to cancer-causing chemicals in Marion, Ohio, and that he had fabricated charges against the government environmental specialist in charge of the investigation.

Several senators, including Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Charles Schumer (D-NY), blocked Schregardus' nomination in early September. He was accused of disregarding a federal mandate as the head of Ohio EPA that called for reduction in emissions of nitrogen oxides from power plants, and he has opposed the federal government's filing of new source review clean air lawsuits against Midwestern power plants.

Region V EPA recently released a review of Ohio EPA for an alleged failure to implement several key environmental and public health laws during Schregardus' tenure at Ohio EPA. EPA's lengthy investigation concluded that there are multiple flaws in the state's air pollution program, and found that Ohio's air-pollution program is understaffed, poorly trained, and ineffective at identifying sources of pollution.

On Sept. 17, 2001, Schregardus withdrew his candidacy for confirmation due to the trouble his nomination was facing in the Senate. Many breathed a sigh of relief for the environment upon Schregardus' withdrawal. However, he has since been appointed to the newly-created post of Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Environment for the Navy, a post which does not require Senate confirmation. The Bush administration obviously does not care that he was found entirely unfit to work at EPA to protect the environment, as he was simply handed another position that did not go through the confirmation process.

ohio 2 bak

Recap

Tuesday’s story

Budgeting

Corporate dark money largess

Influence peddling

What’s happened since?

Citizens United

Restoring representation

Injecting Waste in Geologically “Unsuitable” Locations

“How is it affecting us?”

“It Was Going in Whether We Wanted it or Not”

EPA vs. State “Primacy”

r

epublicans to ask Supreme Court to restrict voting by mail in Pennsylvania in post-Ginsburg appeal

Ohio Government Invites Employers to Secretly Report “Work Refusal” Due to Coronavirus

Aída Chávez

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Opponents fear the law will send the growing wind and solar industry to neighboring states while Ohio homeowners are stuck boosting old, uneconomical power plants.

:{BY :(style="box-sizing:inherit"):}:DAN GEARINO

Ohio’s Nuclear Bailout Plan Balloons to Embrace Coal (while Killing Renewables Rules)

Ohio Republicans move to make childbirth mandatory — and lay bare the deep sexism that motivates the anti-choice movement

'Just Transition' in Appalachia

Challenging Ohio's Regulatory System

The Rise of Clean Energy Scare Studies

08.23.16

The DOJ Is Ending Its Use of Private Prisons: But What About Ohio?

By Jocelyn Rosnick

Failure at What Cost?

Ohio Singled Out for Worst Fracking Waste Disposal Practices

Cleveland Becomes Cleantech Leader But Ohio Backtracks on Renewable Energy

​Ohio Utilities Take Renewable Energy Fight to State Supreme Court

Ohio Gov. John Kasich Signs Nation’s First Renewable Energy Freeze

A Pushback on Green Power

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all reps http://www.thepoliticalguide.com/Representatives/Ohio/

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Ohio Voters Reject Kasich Anti-Union Bill

Ohio Utilities Take Renewable Energy Fight to State Supreme Court