Fairfield County Democratic Forum

08/09/2023

Tonight! A Democratic (and allies) Happy Hour in Baltimore, with a lot of celebrating the defeat of Issue 1 yesterday!
PLEASE BRING FAMILY AND FRIENDS TONIGHT, AUGUST 9 AT 6:30 PM! Papito's, 101 N. Basil St., Baltimore, Ohio

We have the whole restaurant for drinks and dinner, thanks to locally owned Papito's Kitchen in Baltimore, Ohio! It's an easy drive from anywhere in Fairfield County, and Franklin and Licking County folks have quick commuter routes to get there, too. You'll get to enjoy a wonderful gem-of-a-place owned by people who really care about their community. Plus, um, Creole/Cajun inspired seafood! A fabulous patio area for sunny conversation! Like-minded folx like you who believe in democracy, justice, and equity (you know...the values that our country was supposed to uphold).

Right now, Papito's is allowing us to BYOB, too, as they wait for their liquor license approval (the community is supporting them in this endeavor). Bring your beverage, your family, and your friends to help us support a Fairfield County business.

06/11/2023

Vote NO on Aug. 8! Early voting starts July 11, and you can send in an application for a mail-in ballot and vote by mail.

"But Ohio Republicans moving the goal posts from 44 counties to 88 counties, as they propose to do with State Issue 1 on the ballot Aug. 8, would effectively destroy the ability of grassroots Ohio citizen groups to succeed in getting proposed amendments on the ballot ever again. The only groups that would have even a remote shot of success would be the most wealthy and powerful special interest groups imaginable...
After months of denying that the attempt to roll back majority voter authority and enshrine 41% minority rule over our constitution was tied to abortion, Ohio’s two-faced Secretary of State Frank LaRose was recorded telling Seneca County Republicans this is “100% about keeping a radical pro-abortion amendment out of our constitution.”..
Meanwhile, Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman, also guilty of assaulting the voters, Ohio Constitution, and rule of law with gerrymandering, is now using the state budget process to extort Statehouse lobbyists into supporting this attack on voters.

Huffman has most recently proposed underfunding the August election by only allocating $15 million for it in the state budget, instead of $20 million as was spent on the August 2022 election. This will stretch county boards of election resources thin and hamper their ability to conduct this election, especially in Oho’s most populous counties, which are the most likely to strongly oppose the amendment...
As we’ve seen in scandal after scandal — whether it’s payday lenders, corrupt charter schools, FirstEnergy bribing lawmakers and regulators for a billion-dollar bailout, or an Illinois billionaire trying to rewrite more than 100 years of Ohio Constitutional voter powers — our gerrymandered Statehouse is captured by corrupt, big money special interests."

Ohio Republicans moving the goal posts from 44 counties to 88 counties, as State Issue 1 proposes, would destroy the ability of grassroots Ohio citizen groups to succeed in getting proposed amendments on the ballot ever again, writes Editor David DeWitt.

03/16/2023

Come on out tonight, Thursday, March 16, at 7 pm to the Fairfield County Democratic Headquarters, 118 N. Columbus St., Lancaster, to hear Bill Good tell about his upcoming summer of adventure/activism/education on the Golden Rule, which will be sailing on the east coast and the Great Lakes about nuclear weapons, nuclear waste, etc.

What's coming up for Fair Dems this spring? - https://mailchi.mp/c640f30353d8/events-this-week-and-next-from-your-fairdems-10343101

01/29/2022

Please help our candidates TODAY, January 29, to get on the ballot. Come sign their petitions in Lancaster, at our headquarters, 118 N. Columbus St., 11-2, or by drive-by in Pickerington, 10-2, at 590 Meadows Blvd, Pickerington OH 43147
* this is at the corner of Meadows Blvd and North Center St (not far from the Pickerington Dog Park).

Who needs your signature?
Reed Bailey for county commissioner
Susan Stelko for county auditor
Charlotte for the Ohio State House (Because of the redistricting mess, any Democratic or unaffiliated voter in Fairfield County can sign her petition.)
Debbie Schaffner for State Democratic Central Committee

Thank you!

01/27/2022

Help our Democratic candidates get on the ballot! The Fairfield County Headquarters will be open on Saturday, January 29, from 11-2. For all those lovely people who came to sign for the state candidates last week, please come back and sign for Susan Shelko and Charlotte Owens, or go to one of the Pickerington drive-by signing sessions. There are 3 drive-by times in Pickerington this weekend.

Who needs your signatures?
Reed Bailey for county commissioner
Susan Shelko for county auditor
Charlotte Owens for the Ohio House--Thanks to the bill just passed by the legislature, any Democrat or unaffiliated voter in Fairfield County can sign her petition.

Drive-by signing of petitions this weekend in Pickerington:
Friday, January 28 at 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM
* Saturday, January 29 at 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM
* Sunday, January 30 at 12:00 PM – 4:00 PM
All dates and times are at: 590 Meadows Blvd, Pickerington OH 43147
* this is at the corner of Meadows Blvd and North Center St (not far from Pickerington Dog Park)

06/20/2021

In the face of the hundreds of bills Republicans have introduced into state legislatures to make voting more difficult, and the bill to protect voting rights, S.1, in the Senate, Heather Cox Richardson gives us the larger historical context:

"What is on the table this week is a bill that carries outsized weight for its role in our democracy. In 1854, Democrats pushing the Kansas-Nebraska Act cleared the way for the spread of human enslavement to the new western territories and the subsequent domination of the federal government by elite slave owners. In 1890, Republicans backing the Federal Elections Bill tried, one last time, to protect Black voting before voter suppression ended it for the next seventy years. In 1965, Democrats and Republicans together agreed to end racial discrimination in voting.

In 2021, once again, Congress will be voting on a measure that will define who we are."

Yesterday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, made good on his threat to defund the legislature after Democrats walked out on May 30 in order to deny the Republicans the number of people they needed to hold a vote on a bill that dramatically reworked Texas elections.

06/07/2021

"In practical terms, it doesn’t matter whether a political figure is genuinely delusional, or whether that person is lying for political gain. In other words, whether or not Trump believes the lie doesn’t matter. The effect is the same....

Such embrace of insanity creates a cycle in which the Republican Party (1) sheds itself of non-believers, (2) finds ways to keep the true believers riled and engaged, and thereby (3) unhinges itself more thoroughly from reality, which (4) makes the Republican Party increasingly dangerous."

As usual, this post started out as a 15-minute video. You can see it here. Harvard Prof. Daniel Ziblatt, one of the authors of How Democracies Die, talks about what he calls the “conservative dilemma” which is this: How can conservatives win national elections with unpopular economic policies? T...

05/30/2021

Not a long read, but a clear statement about what workers, and labor, are up against:

"Not only that: if the investors' position is short-term, looking for the highest yield over a single quarter or even less, the fact that higher wages will lead to long-term advantages, like worker retention and productivity, is irrelevant to the investors' interests.

That's the quiet part: between workers and investors, there's a zero-sum game. Forty years of anti-labor policies (undermining unions, workplace protections) culminating in the "gig economy" all-out assault on the idea of employment itself have papered over this core truth."

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04/29/2021

In case the world wasn't already "Wha?!" enough for you:

"Why would someone linked to neo-Nazis want to help Islamic extremists? I’ve spent three years researching that question and many months working on an upcoming podcast about it.

Neo-Nazi and Islamic extremist movements seem opposed — one advocates for a white supremacist society, while the other wants an Islamic caliphate devoid of Western influences and based on a certain interpretation of the Quran. But the movements are in some ways more similar than they are different. Members of each believe that their identity is threatened. Both movements claim to have the same enemies: Jews and the capitalist West. And both advocate for the same basic desire: a new world order, focused on either religious or racial exclusion.

The similarities go beyond ideology.

Both movements often recruit the same way, using sleek-looking propaganda to draw in vulnerable people."

A new terrorism case shows how the two extremist movements attract the same people.

04/25/2021

This blog post compares the Peelian principles behind British policing to US policing and offers some very good ideas forward for US policing.

The US police system is an independent evolution vs the rest of the Anglosphere. And a blighted evolution, since ours developed out of systems specifically intended to support racist institutions. The American system started with slave patrols. It’s fruit from a poisoned tree.