Tomorrow!
CCPC October Meeting: Palestine One Year Later Wednesday, October 16 @ 6:30 pm On October 13, 2023 Israeli troops and tanks began amassing at the Palestine border. Two weeks later the invasion of and genocide in Palestine began. Our October meeting is about where things are now in Palestine. Our featured speaker is Melaak from the Cleveland Palestine Advocacy Community ( CPAC ) Please click here to register for the event. After registering you’ll receive an email with the Zoom link
And in case you missed it
Video of CCPC September Meeting: Immigration Facts vs Republican Myths
How You Can Help The Haitians In Springfield
Please get this graphic out on social media with the hashtag #oneloveohio
Randy’s Rants
Randy’s Rants is a series of essays by legendary Cleveland author, activist and CCPC Member Randy Cunningham. We’ll be featuring a different one each week for as long as Randy is willing to write them.
CCPC Recommended
Local
Refugee businesses build bridges and boost Cleveland’s economy Describes the refugee scene in Cleveland which is exactly like what’s really happening with the Haitian refugees in Springfield. Since 2022 Northeast Ohio has welcomed more than 8,000 refugees from Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. And like the refugees in Springfield they have arrived with a strong entrepreneurial drive, eager to create jobs and contribute to their new culture. And that is exactly what is happening.
Cleveland City Council member warns of public comment monopoly Currently, Cleveland City Council accepts registrations on a first come first serve basis. People can sign up to speak at a Monday night City Council meeting by submitting an online form, They can also download the form and submit it in person or by email. The problem is that registration opens at noon on Wednesday and the 10 spots fill up quickly and are frequently monopolized by a group with a single issue.
There are six Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge races. Learn more about them. Cuyahoga County has 34 Common Pleas Court Judges who handle felony criminal cases and civil disputes. The various Municipal Courts around the county handle misdemeanor cases. A special thanks to our friends at Signal Cleveland and the Marshall Project for providing this useful guide. CCPC currently does not do judicial endorsements or recommendations. However, beginning in 2025 we are planning to do judicial recommendations.
Raise the cigarette tax for arts funding? Cuyahoga County’s Issue 55 explained Cuyahoga County voters must decide whether to increase the price of cigarettes by about 40 cents a pack as part of a levy that raises funds for the arts. Issue 55, if passed, would replace an existing levy that already sends revenue to Cuyahoga Arts & Culture, an organization that supports local arts groups and artists through grants. Sounds good but the tax is regressive since it disproportionately affects lower income people.
State
How the Ohio Supreme Court Races Intersect With Issue 1 and Redistricting Details how the Ohio Supreme Court has in the last few years has had to make decisions on the gerrymandered maps the Republicans submitted. And if Issue 1 passes this will happen again because Republicans are certain to challenge new maps that are not gerrymandered. And if the Republicans retain control of the Ohio Supreme Court, they will simply ignore the constitutional amendment, make something up and allow gerrymandering to continue.
69% of Ohio voters oppose gerrymandering ahead of Issue 1 vote It is certainly good news that the vast majority of Ohio voters oppose the practice of creating electoral boundaries that give one party an advantage over the other. But remember the Republican disinformation campaign is telling voters to vote no on issue 1 to end gerrymandering. The poll also found that most Ohioans support conservative views on immigration, the economy and inflation but have progressive views on gun control, abortion rights and education.
The Power of Crypto in Ohio’s Political Landscape As cryptocurrency becomes more prevalent, it’s also making its way into the political arena. With millions of dollars being funneled into campaigns across the country including here in Ohio. Questions are arising about the impact this new wave of funding will have on elections and what it means for voters. Pro – crypto groups have already contributed $38 million in ads for Bernie Moreno and against Sherrod Brown. And of course they’ll expect favorable legislation from Moreno if he wins.
Ohio’s capital budget quietly funded private school construction. Now a national group is investigating A Washington based organization that fights for the separation of church and state is investigating distributions in Ohio’s capital budget, which provided $5.6 million for construction and remodeling at 10 private schools. The money was quietly funneled into the budget and wasn’t discovered until a few weeks ago. Let’s hope the investigation discovers something that can be challenged in court
National
Israel has killed more than 41,000 people in Gaza. Biden can end this massacre Last week was the one year anniversary of Hamas and other armed groups’ deadly attack on Israel. Since then the Israeli military has laid waste to much of Gaza, killing more than 41,600 Palestinians in one of the most lethal and destructive bombing campaigns in history. And the United States government has been the enabler since they have provided the bombs. Please join us tomorrow at 6:30 for CCPC October Meeting: Palestine One Year Later.
Hurricane Helene is a humanitarian crisis and a climate disaster The weather we used to have shaped the behavior of the water we used to have. Climate chaos has changed all that, breaking the patterns, delivering water in torrents unprecedented in recorded history or withholding it to create epic doroughts, while heat and drought parched soil, grasslands and forests create ideal conditions for mega wildfires. floods from hurricanes like Helene are not new, but the maga intensity of the rain is.
The threat of election chaos looms as the Supreme Court returns to action As the election approaches, emergency rulings they might make on election challenges makes us very nervous. In 2020 they mostly stayed out of the court challenges and instead let the federal court rulings stand. But that was before they took their mask off and overturned Roe V. Wade and made the ruling that presidents were immune from prosecution for anything they did while in office, What will they do now when the inevitable election challenges get to their docket?
Progressives Believe They Have Harris’ Ear as She Moderates Rhetoric Whether or not Harris is reading directly from the policy memos prepared by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, the strategy her team is following closely mirrors the approach outlined by the group before she accepted the nomination. And it appears to be working. Harris has made up ground lost by President Biden by delivering a message of empathy, not a wonky presentation of the economy. What do you think?
Black Lives Matter
Four Years After Cleveland Was Ranked the Worst City for Black Women, Survey Reveals Continuing Adversity In 2020 BloombergCityLab published a report that dubbed Cleveland the ” worst place in America ” for Black women to live based on a wide range of livability metrics including income, educational and health outcomes. Four years later Project Noir’s 2024 survey revealed that Black women have seen no progress in treatment within areas of healthcare, education and the workplace. WTF!
NAACP Maintains 2019 Cleveland ‘ Water Lien ‘ Case is Worthy of Class Action Suit With Thousands Affected Lawyers for an affiliate of the NAACP argued earlier this month that an ongoing suit against Cleveland Water should be classified as a class – action suit. The suit, which was originally filed in 2019, contends that tens of thousands of mostly Black Clevelanders had been discriminated against when the city’s water department overbilled them or shut off their water line unjustly.
How Trump’s attacks on abortion rights affected Black women A recent report by the National Partnership for Women and Families and In Our Own Voice, the National Black Women’s Reproductive Agenda, revealed that nearly 7 million Black women – out of 12 million overall – live in states with abortion restrictions or bans. The findings highlight the disproportionate impact these laws have had on women of color, further exasperating existing health disparities.
Kamala Harris’ proposal for home care could be a game changer for Black Americans The Democratic nominee announced on ” The View ” her plan to expand medicare services to include at-home elder care. The current cost of elder care can be particularly burdensome for people of color. Not to mention the fact that about 80% of home care workers are Black women and a large percentage of these workers are Black women over 50 and are usually matriarchs of their families.
Immigration
Immigrants are part of the solution, not the problem. First of all, immigrants help the nation pay its bills. Last year immigrants paid $382.9 billion in federal and $196.3 billion in state and local taxes. Second. immigrants help create jobs, not take them away. Immigrants represent one in five entrepreneurs nationwide. Third, immigrants will play an important role in the country’s economic life in the decades ahead. Based on demographics, they will be essential if the United States wants to maintain its workforce.
Politicians are trying to tie immigration to our housing crisis. They’re lying The reality is that immigrants actually may be a solution to the housing crisis. And mass deportations would increase the housing shortage. Nationwide 1 in 7 construction workers are undocumented immigrants, accounting for about 1.5 million workers. These workers not only build many of the roughly 1.79 million new units that go on the market each year, they also maintain and repair existing housing stock.
Border Patrol’s staff shortages are going to get worse – so will our immigration crisis Massive influxes of migrants, coupled with staffing issues within agencies responsible for protecting the border, pose a challenge of an unprecedented scale. To ensure greater border security, the U.S. needs policies that will revamp Border Patrol’s recruitment process and properly staff its force. The problem of course is funding. And even though the Republicans claim they want immigration reduced, they refuse to fund anything related to immigration enforcement.
In the early to mid 20th century, Democrats were often the party that supported restrictive immigration and border policies. At that time most Republicans, supported by big business, tended to endorse policies that encouraged the easy flow of workers across the border so that corporations would have an easy flow of workers coming into the country.
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Steve Holecko
CCPC Political Director
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