Franklin County votes no.
Franklin County Board of Elections unofficial results.
FTA/ In addition to pro-Issue 1 campaign events, LaRose challenged his opponents in the Republican race for U.S. Senate next year to donate to the campaign. LaRose called for Sen. Matt Dolan (R-Chagrin Falls) and Northeast Ohio car dealer Bernie Moreno to pony up $1 million each to the fight for Issue 1. Moreno’s campaign said he’s already given six figures to the campaign and offered to match LaRose’s donations dollar-for-dollar. LaRose’s campaign responded by saying he is not as wealthy as his opponents and has put “sweat equity” into the campaign by appearing at more than 60 pro-Issue 1 events. /
From The Article: https://woub.org/2023/08/02/libertarian-party-of-ohio-secretary-of-states-pro-issue-1-stance-violates-hatch-act/
As many have observed this is a speech issue.
And here is the thing, the Ohio and US Constitutions place restrictions on _govt_ regarding speech, not residents.
Frank LaRose is the Ohio Secretary of State. There are issues regarding the upcoming elections where Frank’s opinion has the force of law. Whether it’s spoken to staff, written in a memo to county Boards of Election, or posted to Twitter, his statements influence the levers of power he controls.
There is not a magic hat that Frank can take off that stops him from being the Ohio Secretary of State. He raised money from donors, ran for public office, gained a majority of votes for that election and swore an oath to uphold and defend the Ohio Constitution. This should not be a surprise to Frank.
Frank is literally Mr. Govt.
In the privacy of his home, or at private events, Frank is a private resident with freedom of speech.
In public, anywhere in public, even Twitter, and not just at his desk at 180 E Broad St, Frank is the Ohio Secretary of State, a walking extension of govt and he must abide by the restrictions that we have placed on govt, and, in some cases, he helped become law.
When Frank is campaigning for himself, to get elected to another office, he can say whatever he wants about himself, or his opponents. All other issues on a ballot are off the speaking list.
We didn’t make these rules, and we often opposed them when they were created, but Frank is no hero to break this rule, no modern scofflaw or dark knight.
He comes across as just another corrupt politician showing us in public how they really act in private.
From The Article: https://woub.org/2023/08/02/libertarian-party-of-ohio-secretary-of-states-pro-issue-1-stance-violates-hatch-act/
Since 2013, Ohio Libertarians Have Known All Too Well That “Two Faced Frank” Will Do Whatever It Takes to Get Ahead
– FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE –
COLUMBUS, OHIO –– August 1, 2023 –– As the unprecedented, unnecessary and expensive special election approaches on August 8, the Libertarian Party of Ohio (LPO) still stands with over 200 other organizations against Issue 1. But now the LPO is taking things further by filing a complaint against one of Issue 1’s biggest proponents, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose.
On Monday, the LPO filed a formal complaint with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, saying that LaRose violated the federal Hatch Act as a public official by receiving federal funds for elections, while also using his office to affect an election. LaRose first earned the LPO’s scorn by voting for SB 193 when he was a state senator in 2013, which gutted minor parties’ ballot access.
“It’s clear that LaRose’s use of federal funds for elections and his support of Issue 1 place him in direct violation of the Hatch Act,” said notable ballot access attorney Mark Brown, who filed the complaint on behalf of the LPO. “By supporting Issue 1 as Ohio’s Secretary of State, his official actions will affect the result of an Ohio election and are not protected by the First Amendment.”
“For someone who is using Issue 1 to campaign for federal office, LaRose should probably be more familiar with federal laws while administering federal funds,” said LPO Communications Director and former Libertarian candidate for governor in 2018 Travis Irvine. “Libertarians have known all too well since 2013 that ‘Two Faced Frank’ will do whatever it takes to get ahead.”
More info about the LPO can be found on their website, or follow them on Twitter or Facebook.
Learn more at: https://lpo.org
###
The Franklin County Libertarian Party of Ohio Executive Committee voted to approve joining this complaint and fully support this action.
Issue 1 is a bad amendment that would make bad law.If the Ohio Assembly was actually concerned about “protecting” the Ohio Constitution from “out-of-state” interests they would increase the threshold for their own favored amendments, not just citizen initiatives.
Demand more than “good intentions”, demand good outcomes.
Learn more: Ohio Issue 1, 60% Vote Requirement to Approve Constitutional Amendments Measure (2023) https://ballotpedia.org/Ohio_Issue_1,_60%25_Vote_Requirement_to_Approve_Constitutional_Amendments_Measure_(2023)
Correction: The proposed amendment will require that any proposed amendment to the Constitution of the State of Ohio receive the approval of at least 60 percent of eligible voters voting on the proposed amendment. (Emphasis ours.) https://www.ohiosos.gov/globalassets/ballotboard/2023/certified-ballot-language-for-issue-1.pdf
FTA/ The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has proposed a policy (pdf) that would remove nearly all existing portable gas generators from the market. The new rule restricts the amount of carbon monoxide that generators can emit by forcing these generators to switch off when they reach a certain level of emissions. /
Joe Biden has already lost the New Hampshire and Iowa Democratic primaries that won’t happen for a year.
At this point we’re shocked Democrats will still have their sham primaries.
We all know it’s a fraud.
(Yes, we know Iowa actually has a caucus, but no one cares.
)
FTA/ In an email sent on Sept. 1, 2022, a career manager with the Army Human Resources Command told an officer that his service obligation runs concurrently. But when he sat down with a manager last week, he said he did not get that same clear answer.
“It’s demoralizing,” said the officer, who has been living apart from his wife for years because she could not relocate for work. “This isn’t the life we thought it was.”
A former aviation captain — one of the last to leave the Army without serving her BRADSO requirement consecutively — said she had “many panic attacks” after learning the Army considered her to be among those who left before eligibility.
“It’s a huge relief that I got out, but I have a lot of sorrow and pity for the others,” said the former officer, whose request last April to be discharged was granted.
She asked to remain anonymous out of fear of being pulled back into service, as her nearly 2-year-old daughter cooed beside her.
On Thursday, Army officials said that at least 20 aviation officers were discharged without serving their BRADSO obligations consecutively but that they would not pull any of them back to serve retroactively.
Stitt said the Army needed a few more weeks to fully understand the scope of the issue, including how many officers are affected. /
Ooops.
The derailment of hazardous waste material in East Palestine is a story that will not go away. There are
many who wish it would. Pete Buttigieg, head of the US Department of Transportation, tried to brush it
off as “there are a thousand derailments a year” implying, why is this one special? Tom Zawistowski is
normally a pretty radical guy who airs a political podcast every Saturday. This time he takes, for him, an
unusual position. He states that it is important to support our institutions, without which our country
would disappear. He also contends that the people of East Palestine love their city. They don’t want to
have to abandon their houses. They don’t want to have to start a new life elsewhere. They don’t want
to see the reputation, home prices and economy of East Palestine damaged by politicizing the incident
and blowing it out of proportion. He doesn’t state all the institutions he is trying to protect but suggests
they are people like the mayor and first responders of East Palestine. The governor of Ohio naturally
has a similar position. He has said that the city is safe to live in and the water is safe to drink. Even the
President appears intent to ignore the disaster and hope people eventually move on as the problem gets
lost in the daily onslaught of news stories. I mean damn, there are wars to fight in eastern Europe! Of
course, the Norfolk Southern railroad officials want to assure the public that railroads are safe and
everything is under control.
Who else is trying to suppress the story? It was stated that the two largest shareholders of Norfolk
Southern are the Vanguard and BlackRock investment companies. Certainly it is in their best interest for
the stock not to take a hit, let alone the pension funds that have BlackRock and Vanguard in their
portfolios. There is a lot of money at stake. Vanguard and BlackRock have so far been left out of the
story but the very fact that they are not in the news may lead one to suspicion. These institutions
certainly have enough clout and experience at spinning positive PR. Could they be working behind the
scenes, giving guidance to the Norfolk Southern executives?
Are they right? Should we just move on?
No.
“1000 derailments a year” is not a reason to claim this story doesn’t matter. Quite the contrary. It is a
serious problem. It is in fact, more than 1,000 derailments a year. According to the U.S. Department of
Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics, there have been a total of 54,570 freight and
passenger train derailments, averaging 1,705 each year between 1990 and 2021.
On December 2nd, 2022, Biden signed legislation passed by Congress stopping railway workers from
going on strike and imposing contract provisions the rail workers had not agreed to. Out of 12 unions
representing about 115,000 rail workers, eight were in favor of the provisions. Four were not, but all 12
would strike in solidarity with the four holdouts. The sticking point with the other four was failure to
approve an increase in the number of days of paid sick leave. One of the four that was not happy was
the group that takes care of the tracks, the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees.
Another group of people will not let this story go away.
Sherrod Brown, Senator from Ohio, is an old school Democrat with a network of union support. He is up
for re-election in 2024 and has been keeping this incident front and center in public perception. It has
not been easy for Democrats to win in Ohio over the last few years, but this incident fits like hand in
glove for Brown’s brand of politics. He has been quoted frequently in the press and on television. “My
job is always to fight for the dignity of work, to fight for these workers, to fight for these communities,
to make sure this never happens again”, he says. He and fellow Ohio Senator, Republican J.D. Vance,
have been sponsoring legislation with those goals in mind.
There is a political blogger, a young part time journalist and bartender from West Virginia, who has been
reporting extensively on the East Palestine debacle. The name of his blog is John Russell from the
Holler. His world view is like that of Sherrod Brown. He comes across as a throwback Mother Jones
type progressive who supports unions and blue-collar workers.
Unsurprisingly, his take on the East Palestine train wreck is that it is a tale of corporate greed. His
railroad worker contacts are upset with Norfolk Southern for adopting a new management philosophy
known as Precision Scheduled Railroading, or PSR. PSR was pioneered at the Illinois Central Railroad by
a gentleman named E. Hunter Harrison when he became CEO in 1993. He turned the ICR so profitable
that it was acquired by Canadian National Railroad in 1998. Harrison implemented PSR at the CN
Railroad just as successfully, and then was recruited by Canadian Pacific, where he also implemented
PSR. He was again recruited by another Railroad, CSX, in March of 2017 where he implemented PSR
before his death 8 months later. The Norfolk Southern implemented their own version of PSR starting in
February of 2019.
The old railroad management depended on unit trains, hub and spoke operations and individual car
switching. Unit trains didn’t start moving until they were full. Hub and spoke operations meant trains
were waiting for connecting cars before they could move. Individual car switching was caused by the
philosophy that the more cars hooked to a train the better. This obviously slowed down operations in
switching yards.
PSR, on the other hand, is a simple concept similar the techniques implemented by Southwest Airlines to
revolutionize passenger air travel. Trains operate under strict schedules with point to point routing
networks. To maximize volume per train, all cars going from point to point were hooked in to the train,
regardless of type. (This is why the East Palestine wreck had fewer chemical tanker cars than required
to classify the train as hazardous). When sticking to the schedule became the first principle, other
management issues are simplified. Inventories of freight cars and locomotives were reduced and fewer
workers employed for a given level of traffic. Trains could be operated on fewer and fewer tracks with a
higher volume of trains each day. The result is vastly improved operating ratios. Norfolk Southern has
always been known as a profitable railroad, but their profitability was based on connections between
coal fields, power plants and steel mills. However, coal traffic has been declining over the last decades.
PSR provided Norfolk Southern a way to maintain their profitability, providing impressive profits to
shareholders, estimated to be $2 billion in 2022.
What commitment to safety has Norfolk Southern shown since PSR was instituted? Much has been
made of the fact that today’s trains can be a mile and a half long or even longer with only a two-person
crew. For most of the 20th century, freight train crews consisted of five men: a conductor, two
trainmen or brakemen, and engineer, and a fireman. Today, most road freights operate with just two
crew members, a conductor, and an engineer (www.trains.com/trn/train-basics/abcs-of-railroading/the-
people-who-work-on-trains). Surprisingly, this decision is not regulated by the government. Instead, it
is negotiated into union contracts.
The rail-men John Russell knows do not like PSR. A train crew operates on their own without direct
supervision for hundreds of miles. They must be able to handle a broad range of potential problems at
any point in time. Train crews represent a diverse set of skills and experience. For example, a significant
source of train derailments is when an engineer allows slack to develop between cars, which creates a
dangerous condition. Faulty rolling stock is another major cause of derailments, as are issues with the
track.
Remember, there are 12 unions representing rail workers representing a broad range of skills, from
running a train to maintaining track to maintaining operating equipment. Another important safety
concern is faulty running gear on a car. According to the NTSB report, the likely cause of the East
Palestine train derailment was a wheel bearing in overheat failure. Sensors showed the bearing
overheating nearly 30 miles west of the crash site. Surveillance video from a local resident showed the
bearing on fire before the crash. The responsibilities of the engineer and conductor include seeing and
reacting to faulty equipment before an accident. The NTSB has declared that accident was 100%
preventable. A properly run safety program must have a philosophy that all accidents are preventable.
Otherwise, what point is there to having safety supervisors? How was the scheduling for the East
Palestine train crew? Had they been worked to the point of exhaustion for such a demanding job? Was
it an experienced crew? What was their safety record? How effective was their training? How effective
was the maintenance procedure for the equipment on this train? Has the NTSB too soon ruled out
conditions of the track being a contributing factor?
There is a constant pressure from the railroad industry to reduce labor. Management that negotiates
the union contracts is also adamantly opposed to government regulation. Note this quote from the
American Association of Railroads (https://www.aar.org/article/freight-rail-crew-size-
regulations/#:~:text=No%20Safety%20Justification.), “Efforts to require at least two-person crews,
including via regulation, lack a safety justification; ignore the decades of safe and successful use of
single-person crews at some U.S. freight railroads and in passenger and freight rail systems throughout
the world; upend meaningful collective bargaining, and undermine the rail industry’s ability to compete
against less climate-friendly forms of transportation.” Somehow this demonstrative statement rings
hollow when we know there are thousands of derailments each year.
We know that railroads have been very profitable over the last few years. Profit and cost cutting go
hand in hand. Of course, there are tradeoffs to be considered. All of us in the Midwest are familiar with
tracks being torn up, the railroad ties being sold off as landscaping timbers and the steel being sold off
for scrap. The idea is to run more traffic on fewer tracks. Today’s railroads operate on thousands of
miles less track than they used to. Equipment is operated with less down time. Is Norfolk Southern
sacrificing safety for profit? Does the physical property the railroads are selling off belong strictly to
their stockholders, or does the public have a say in the in the disposition of property that is an essential
part of the foundation of our modern, industrial economy?
The East Palestine disaster is a symbol of something bigger, the de-industrialization of America. Some
have called our period of history “the end of the American Century”. In the Midwest, we are familiar
with manufacturing moving overseas. We have seen entire factories torn down and entire industries
disappear, the machines and parts boxed up in crates and loaded on ships destined for other countries.
It’s a story as old as American business. Buy a company where you see value in selling off pieces, while
running the rest of it into the ground.
So how was the hazardous response? Was it acceptable? In a word, no. Next month, we will compare
the proper hazardous response with the one that took place in East Palestine. We will consider the
implications from this incident and what they symbolize for our nation’s infrastructure as a whole, and
the ramifications to our country’s economic health.
Some references for this article:
www.trains.com/trn/train-basics/abcs-of-railroading/the-people-who-work-on-trains… Train Basics
ABCs Of Railroading The people who work on trains
https://www.aar.org/article/freight-rail-crew-size-regulations/#:~:text=No%20Safety%20Justification.
https://www.whas11.com/article/news/nation-world/ohio-train-derailment-timeline-east-palestine/95-0d89fb7e-c0f6-444e-ac54-c5d50aee39a4
John Stewart, At-Large Member, FCLPO
There are still people who are convinced that socialism, or it’s close cousin, communism, “just haven’t been done right”.
“Democratic socialism” is the most recent rebranding these systems of evil.
Here is a timely reminder of what happens when socialism and communism “works”.
While other nations had total figures, China’s shadowy death penalty system left the human rights group only able to offer a grim estimate of “thousands”.
FTA/ Firing squads and lethal injections are two favourite methods of execution used by China.
Killer jabs were legalised by the regime in the 90s and are sometimes administered in one of the state’s mobile “execution vans”.
Convicts are said to loaded into van and strapped to a table where they administered the lethal injection.
Organs are then believed harvested from executed prisoners without any permission for use in medicine and scientific experiments.
Amnesty International has named China as the world’s worst executor by a large margin – with its body count believed to be larger than the rest of the world’s combine total of 657.
While other nations had total figures, China’s shadowy death penalty system left the human rights group only able to offer a grim estimate of “thousands”.
Amnesty’s China researcher Kai Ong told The Sun Online how China often holds mass rallies to announce people being sentenced to death in medieval-style public trials.
Ms Ong said: “The Chinese government still sees the use of the death penalty as an effective deterrent to crimes.
“Each June, local governments often hold mass sentencing rallies, in which students, teachers and the public are invited to witness the court handing down death penalty to individuals convicted of drug-related crimes.” /
You can vote your way into socialism or communism, but you have to shoot your way out.
Source: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13939633/china-brutal-execution-death-vans-trials/
Additional source: https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/international/executions-around-the-world
FTA/ That ultimate weapon of the judicial system, finding someone in contempt of court for violating its order, was not realistic, O’Connor said. …
“I don’t have a force that would go over and handcuff them if they were found to be in contempt.” /
When the Supreme Court of Ohio holds anyone on contempt, any county sheriff is enpowered to arrest and hold them.
The fact that life long Republican politico Maureen O’Connor, Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, doesn’t have confidence in the power of judicial censure, at the highest level, lays bare that we are not a state of laws, but corruption and dirty influence.
How can we pretend to have “free and fair” elections when we don’t even trust the lines in the sand?
With O’Connor retired and the seismic shift in the Ohio Supreme Court, can we expect even this tepid rebuke in the future?
Packed with reliable rubber stamps, including his own son and recently appointed life long crony, will the Ohio Supreme Court finally shrug off the pretense of fair justice and turn actively hostile to any and all that dare oppose the DeWine regime?
How will Ohio thrive with two branches of state govt fully grasped in the clutches of one family?
Source: https://abc6onyourside.com/news/local/dubious-distinction-for-ohio-gop-leaders-only-ones-in-us-to-ignore-a-court-order-republicans-government-maureen-oconnor-mike-dewine-steven-huefner
Additional Reference: https://governor.ohio.gov/media/appointments/governor-dewine-to-appoint-joseph-t-deters-to-ohio-supreme-court-12222022