February 2013 – Bob Fitrakis Official Site

Clean Elections, Economic Justice, Fighting Corruption, Grassroots Activism, History, Media, Rights and Liberties

Fitrakis Fight Back Podcast October 6, 2012 Dr. Fadhel Kaboub

Dr. Fadhel Kaboub is Assistant Professor of economics at Denison University (OH) and Research Associate at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (MA), Levy Economics Institute of Bard College (NY), the Center for Full Employment and Price Stability (MO), and the International Economic Policy Institute (Ontario, Canada). He has taught at Drew University (NJ), where he was also co-director of the Wall Street Semester Program; the University of Missouri–Kansas City (UMKC); and Bard College at Simon’s Rock (MA).

from: http://personal.denison.edu/~kaboubf/bio/index.htm

FightBack-20121006-1edit

February 23, 2013/by Fitrakis

Event, Media

Free Press Fourth Tuesday FREE Movie film night

Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Free Press Fourth Tuesday FREE Movie film night
“Money & Medicine”
7:30pm-9:00pm
With remarkable candor and poignancy, Money & Medicine captures the painful end-of-life treatment choices made by patients and their families, ranging from very aggressive interventions in the ICU to palliative care at home. The film also investigates the controversy surrounding diagnostic testing and screening as well as the shocking treatment variations among patients receiving a variety of elective procedures. Just as the national debate over health care cost containment and deficit reduction heats up, these intimate patient portraits put a human face on the crisis facing American medicine. Admission is free.
Arena Grand Theater, 175 W Nationwide Blvd. The attached Marconi Parking Garage has ample parking for meetings and events. The covered parking garage and walkway are well lit, secured and handicapped accessible to the Arena Grand’s facilities. And with a reduced garage rate, everyone can save. Parking starts at just $1 per car, up to 4 hours. Bring your parking stub into the theater for validation.
253-2571, truth@freepress.org

February 20, 2013/by Fitrakis

Clean Elections, Fighting Corruption, Investigations, Rights and Liberties

Anti-Democratic Fever Sweeps The Nation

Bob Fitrakis

“Voting Rights Act is Challenged as Cure the South Has Outgrown” cries the New York Times front page headline from February 18, 2013. In my diagnosis, not only does the South remain sick while retaining a race and class based system of voter suppression, the rest of the nation including my home state of Ohio is infected with the same illness.

In 1965, when the Voting Rights Act was passed, the United States for the first time met the bare minimal standard for a democracy. For the first time, we would have two or more parties, the adult population including black Americans would be allowed to vote, and the votes would be fairly counted thanks to federal oversight.

Beginning with George W. Bush’s fraudulent election of 2000, the ugliness known as the Jim Crow South reared its head in the battleground states including Ohio. The blatant purges of poor, black and elderly likely-Democratic voters was well documented by BBC reporter Greg Palast. The Free Press documented the largest disenfranchisement of voters since 1965 by Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell during the 2004 presidential election.

Instead of acting like the South is “cured,” we should admit that our whole political process is contaminated and only the inoculation of a new Voting Rights Act can save the last remnants of U.S. democracy.

See https://freepress.org/columns/display/3/2013/1963

February 19, 2013/by Fitrakis

Clean Elections, Investigations, Rights and Liberties

Broken Democracy

The U.S. election system is broken, but you’d never know how bad it really is if you read the Columbus Dispatch. Citing a recent Pew Charitable Trust study, the Republican-owned paper stresses that Ohio ranks 29th out of 50 states in terms of worst voting practices.

A much better perspective of the nearly 6 million lost votes in the country from the 2008 election is offered by BBC investigative reporter Greg Palast. His book “Billionaires and Ballot Bandits” is a must read for those seeking to grapple with the real facts surrounding U.S. democracy. Ohio has a history since the stolen 2004 election of allowing Republican secretaries of state to purge voters in record numbers.

Those that somehow succeed in registering and voting in a state dedicated to the proposition that minorities, the poor, young, and the elderly should face difficult obstacles, often find that their votes were not counted. In the Dispatch’s recent article, they lauded Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted for moving in the right direction.

I guess that means he did OK by doubling the amount of uncounted provisional votes from 17,000 to 34,000. That’s absurd. It is also a travesty that people who haven’t voted in the last two federal elections lose their voter registration.

The only way to protect U.S. voters is through a Constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote. The truth is, our system is beyond flawed. It is one that targets the most vulnerable of our citizens for election purges and vote theft.

See full article https://freepress.org/columns/display/3/2013/1961

February 11, 2013/by Fitrakis

Clean Elections, Fighting Corruption

Mr. Husted goes to Washington

Find out what happens when Mr. Husted goes to Washington. He mingles
with a coterie of e-voting machine vendors and listens to the words of
NBC’s Chuck Todd who mocks election transparency and embraces
faith-based voting. The amount of uncounted provisional votes in Ohio
has doubled since the 2004 election. The Republican-owned Columbus
Dispatch wrote Sunday, February 3 editorial applauding Husted and
attacking his likely opponent in the next Ohio secretary of state
election, State Senator Nina Turner. I sued Ohio Secretary of State Jon
Husted on Election Day over uncertified and untested software patches he
had installed on at least 35 county tabulators in the Buckeye States.
That lawsuit is still moving forward in the state Common Pleas Court.
Read the full article at https://freepress.org/columns/display/3/2013/1960

February 3, 2013/by Fitrakis

Social Events

Free Press Second Saturday Salon

Free Press Second Saturday Salon
Saturday February 9, 2013 – 6:30pm-midnight
1021 E. Broad St. (east side door, parking in front or rear)
Join progressive friends for food, fun, drinks, music, art, socializing and networking. Presentations on efforts to stop fracking in Ohio including March 6 Statehouse event planning, a Socialist Feminist group speaker, and more.
truth@freepress.org
253-2571

February 2, 2013/by Fitrakis