Tag: ohio

Ohio Guard shootings at Kent State 55 years ago fueled protests at Ohio State, across U.S.

On this date 55 years ago, May 4, 1970, Ohio National Guard members fired on student protesters at Kent State University, killing four students and wounding nine others.

The students were protesting the escalation of the Vietnam War into Cambodia. The shootings became a pivotal moment in the anti-Vietnam War movement, highlighting the deep divisions and tensions in the country at the time over U.S. involvement and the loss of lives.

An investigation was conducted into the Kent State shootings by the Ohio National Guard, who were sent to the university and nearby town by Ohio Gov. James Rhodes at the request of town officials in response to violence May 1, 1970, in which downtown businesses were damaged.

Eight guardsmen were later indicted by a federal grand jury for their involvement in the May 4 shootings. But U.S. District Court Judge Frank Battisti dismissed the case in the middle of the trial, claiming the government’s case was so weak the attorneys for the guardsmen didn’t even have to present a defense.

Students at Ohio State, along with many other universities across the country, were deeply affected by the shootings at Kent State and the broader issues surrounding the Vietnam War. Protests at Ohio State intensified immediately after the Kent State shootings, leading to clashes between students and authorities there. The campus saw large demonstrations, sit-ins, and strikes as students expressed their outrage and demanded changes.

These protests were part of a nationwide wave of student activism that sought to address not only the Vietnam War but also issues of civil rights and social justice.

Several days before Kent State, on April 29, 1970, Ohio State students boycotted classes after administrators rejected calls to add Black and women’s studies courses to the university curriculum. Columbus Mayor M.E. “Jack” Sensenbrenner declared a state of emergency and a curfew was put in place on April 30, 1970

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Ohio newspaper edits black state lawmaker who sponsored anti-DEI bill out of photo of law signing

An Ohio newspaper has been accused of cropping out a black Republican state lawmaker from a group photo that had been taken during the signing of a bill to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) at the state’s public colleges and universities. Rep. Josh Williams (R-Sylvania Township) sponsored the House version of SB1, the Enact Advance Ohio Higher Education Act, which was signed into law by Gov. Mike DeWine last month. Williams had posed for a photo alongside his colleagues, all of whom were white, during the bill’s signing.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer has been accused of deliberately cropping Rep. Williams out of the image in its report, sparking significant outrage. Williams, who made history as the first black Republican elected to the Ohio House, has said the publication pushed “propaganda” to fit a false narrative and demanded the outlet issue a correction and public apology.

“This is just another example of fake news mainstream media changing the facts to fit their narrative in an attempt to lie to Ohioans,” Williams told Ohio News. “I was at that event, and for the Cleveland Plan Dealer to deliberately crop me out of the while while using it to discuss the elimination of DEI in higher education is dishonest and manipulative. I call on them to issue a public apology and correction of the public record. Ohioans deserve the truth, not carefully edited propaganda.”

The Cleveland Plain Dealer had featured the edited image along with unfavorable reporting on the state’s decision to eliminate DEI programs, a decision defined by lawmakers as racial discrimination and “deliberate media bias.” Williams’ Republican colleagues also expressed outrage over the matter.

Rep. Gary Click (R-Vickery) demanded an apology, saying, “The utter audacity to publicly discriminate against a black lawmaker when discussing DEI is atrocious! Rep. Williams deserves a very public apology from the Cleveland Plain Dealer without delay and without excuse.”

Rep. Ron Ferguson (R-Wintersville) added that the paper deliberately decided to push a false narrative. “Legacy media is dying because they can’t resist the opportunity to spin reality,” he said. “Cutting out Rep. Williams, who was an instrumental part of passing SB1, is a prime example of the never-ending spin.”

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Ohio Sheriff Busts Illegal Aliens Working on Construction Crew at His Jail

A sheriff in Ohio just revealed that illegal aliens who were working on a construction crew at his jail were arrested this week. 

On Friday, Butler County Sheriff Richard K. Jones announced that a secure area of the Butler County Jail in Hamilton is currently under construction. 

While reviewing worker documentation provided by a subcontractor, authorities determined some of the credentials appeared to be fraudulent. 

Because the Butler County Sheriff’s Office recently entered into a partnership with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an ICE agent was on site at the jail. 

During interviews with the agent, two of the workers admitted to being in the U.S. illegally.

One of the men has already been deported multiple times, according to Sheriff Jones. 

“They had fake identification. It was some of the best identification I’ve ever seen,” Jones said of the illegals’ driver’s licenses, passports, and social security cards. 

The men are currently being held at same jail where they were working. 

“You just can’t make this stuff up. I’ve been very verbal with my stance on illegal immigration and two illegal aliens come to the Butler County Jail to work. I do believe I’ve now seen it all,” stated Sheriff Jones.

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Ohio CBD Retailers Push Back Against Effort To Limit Hemp Products To Marijuana Dispensaries

Ohio CBD store owners are concerned about a bill that would regulate intoxicating hemp and drinkable cannabinoid products something that could potentially put them out of business.

Fourteen people submitted opponent testimony and four people submitted supporter testimony for Ohio Senate Bill 86 during Tuesday’s Senate General Government Committee meeting. No supporters showed up at the meeting to testify in person.

“Should these restrictions pass, they would eliminate 90 percent of the non-intoxicating full-spectrum hemp products we currently offer,” said Jaimee Courtney, owner of Bellefontaine’s Sunmed Your CBD Store. “This would drive consumers to unregulated online markets, creating potential safety risks and diverting significant tax revenue out of Ohio.”

The bill would require intoxicating hemp products to be sold only at adult-use marijuana dispensaries instead of allowing them to be sold at CBD stores, convenience stores, smoke shops or gas stations.

The bill would also impose a 15 percent tax on intoxicating hemp products, ban sales to anyone under 21 and only allow intoxicating hemp products to be sold at dispensaries if the products have been tested and comply with standards for packaging, labeling and advertising.

Ohio state Sens. Steve Huffman (R-Tipp City) and Shane Wilkin (R-Hillsboro) introduced SB 86. Eleven people submitted testimony in support of the bill last week—including people in the marijuana business, poison control workers and religious organizations.

“The people walking into our stores are not looking to get high, they are looking for relief,” said Robert McClure, owner of Centerville and Deerfield Township’s Sunmed Your CBD Store. “Most of our customers will not go to a dispensary for a multitude of reasons.”

He said his store requires customers to be at least 21 years old to buy their products, which are all third-party tested.

“We have concerns that the language in SB 86 would ban most of all other types of hemp products from retail sales and driving them to an unsafe, illicit environment with no age restrictions,” said Kristin Mullins, president of the Ohio Grocers Association.

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Ohio Bill Seeks To Regulate Intoxicating Hemp And Limit Sales To Marijuana Dispensaries

A pair of Ohio Republican state senators want intoxicating hemp products to be sold only at adult-use dispensaries—not convenience stores, smoke shops or gas stations.

Ohio state Sens. Steve Huffman (R-Tipp City) and Shane Wilkin (R-Hillsboro) introduced Senate Bill 86, which would also impose a 15 percent tax on intoxicating hemp products sold at dispensaries and ban the sale of intoxicating hemp products to anyone under 21.

“Currently, intoxicating hemp products are untested, unregulated psychoactive products that can be just as intoxicating, if not more intoxicating, than marijuana,” Wilkin said in his sponsor testimony to the Senate General Government Committee on Tuesday.

The 2018 U.S. Farm Bill says hemp can be grown legally if it contains less than 0.3 percent THC.

Ohio is one of about 20 states that does not have any regulations around intoxicating hemp products, according to an Ohio State University Drug Enforcement and Policy Center study from November 2024. Fifteen states ban these products. Seven states, including Michigan, regulate it like cannabis, while seven other states regulate it like consumer goods, according to the study.

“Given the lack of regulations, the intoxicating hemp industry has been able to confuse Ohio consumers and law enforcement by marketing themselves as ‘dispensaries’ with ‘recreational marijuana,’” Huffman said in his testimony.

Under the bill, intoxicating hemp products would only be sold at dispensaries if the products have been tested and comply with standards for packaging, labeling and advertising. The bill would only apply to products that can be ingested or inhaled.

“To suppress the illicit market, this bill prohibits hemp products that are not sold in dispensaries from marketing the products as marijuana, using any terms associated with the sale of the product that would cause a consumer to infer the product is marijuana or that the entity selling the product is a marijuana dispensary,” Huffman said in his testimony.

He had a bill in the last General Assembly that would have banned the sale of all intoxicating hemp products, but it wasn’t able to make it out of committee. Hemp business owners testified against the bill since it would end their livelihood, but they spoke in favor of regulations.

SB 86 would also regulate drinkable cannabinoid products.

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Ohio GOP Lawmaker Files Bill To Revise Voter-Approved Marijuana Law With Less Sweeping Changes Than Senate-Passed Measure

A Republican Ohio lawmaker has introduced a rival bill to Senate-passed legislation that seeks to amend the state’s voter-approved marijuana legalization law. And the proposed changes in the House measure are less sweeping—for example, maintaining the current allowable amount of cannabis plans that can be grown at home by adults.

Rep. Brian Stewart (R), chair of the House Finance Committee, is sponsoring the new 120-page cannabis bill.

Unlike the Senate proposal from Sen. Steve Huffman (R) that moved through the full chamber late last month, Stewart’s legislation would not alter a provision of the current law allowing adults 21 and older to grow up to 12 plants for personal use by cutting that amount in half.

However, it would reduce the maximum THC limit for cannabis extracts from 90 percent to 70 percent, as News 5 Cleveland first reported.

The Senate bill would lower the maximum household plant limit for home cultivation from 12 to six, but it similarly calls for the same reduced THC cap. Both bills would also make it so only 350 dispensaries could be licensed in the state.

“While there will obviously continue to be good faith debate and disagreement over the pros and cons of legalization, a majority of our constituents have made it clear to us that they support legal adult-use marijuana that is taxed at a reasonable rate, that is regulated by the state to ensure products are as safe as possible and that can, if desired, be grown at home,” Stewart said during a press briefing on Thursday.

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Ohio GOP Leaders Claim Bill To Roll Back Marijuana Legalization Law Doesn’t Disrespect Voters

Ohio’s Senate president is pushing back against criticism of a bill that would scale back parts of a voter-approved marijuana legalization law, claiming that the legislation does not disrespect the will of the electorate and would have little impact on products available in stores.

“My definitive message is: If you want to go purchase marijuana products from a licensed dispensary, that is going to be unchanged by Senate Bill 56,” Senate President Rob McColley (R) said on a podcast posted on Friday. “The only difference you’ll notice is the packaging may not look as appealing to children, but you’ll still be able to buy the same products.”

McColley was speaking on a The President’s Podcast, produced and published by Ohio Senate Republicans. He and host John Fortney, the communications director for the Senate GOP caucus, spent the first half of the podcast defending SB 56, which would amend the cannabis law passed by voters in November 2023.

Among other changes, the bill would halve the number of plants that adults could grow, add new criminal penalties around cannabis conduct and remove select social equity provisions in the law.

The Senate approved the proposal on a 23–9 vote last week.

Critics, such as Sen. Bill DeMora (D), who spoke against the measures on the Senate floor, contend that the plan “goes against the will of the voters and will kill the adult industry in Ohio.”

Fortney began the podcast by acknowledging “a lot of controversy around Senate Bill 56,” asserting that “all it did was preserve access to what the voters approved in November of 2023, the initiated marijuana statute, and put some safety and security parameters around it for—of all things, Mr. President—children.”

“The far left, the Democrat narrative, the narrative of the legacy media, has been, ‘Republicans are trying to take away what the voters approved,’ which is patently false,” Fortney continued. “What a lie.”

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Ohio Senators Approve Bill To Scale Back Voter-Approved Marijuana Legalization Law By Reducing Home Grow And Adding New Penalties

An Ohio Senate committee has approved a bill to make significant changes to the state’s voter-approved marijuana law—by halving the number of plants adults could grow, adding certain criminal penalties and removing select social equity provisions, among other revisions.

On Wednesday, the Senate General Government Committee passed the legislation from Sen. Steve Huffman (R) in a 5-2 vote, sending it to the Rules and Reference Committee to prepare it for a full Senate vote that come come as early as Wednesday afternoon.

This comes about a week after the panel held a hearing on the proposal, taking testimony and adopting a substitute version. On Wednesday, the panel adopted an additional substitute that would clarify that THC limits per package don’t apply to products intended for combustion, prevent people with felony convictions from obtaining a marijuana license and restore the ability of level two cultivators to expand their operations to 15,000 square feet.

In its initial form, the bill would have raised the state’s excise tax on marijuana products from 10 percent to 15 percent and also changed how taxes are redistributed to local governments. But those tax provisions were removed at the previous hearing in light of separate plans to adjust the tax rate in broader budget legislation.

Democratic members of the committee offered a series of amendments, several of which sought to dial back some of the proposed changes to the voter-approved law. All were defeated by the panel’s Republican majority, however.

For example, the substitute approved in committee would lower the maximum household plant limit for home cultivation from 12 to six. An amendment was offered to “compromise” by raising that to nine.

Huffman made the motion to table that amendment, saying that “this bill is all about being reasonable and appropriate,” and the legislation “initially started with two plants, and we compromised up to six and I believe that continuing as six is reasonable and appropriate.”

Under current law as approved by voters in 2023, adults can grow up to 12 cannabis plants at home.

Reform advocates oppose the legislation because, in addition to halving the home cultivation limit, they say it would recriminalize the sharing of cannabis between adults, smoking or vaping in someone’s own back yard and transporting unopened edibles in a vehicle. It also would eliminate non-discrimination protections to ensure cannabis consumers aren’t denied child custody, access to medical care and public benefits.

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FIGHTING ELECTION FRAUD – BIG UPDATE: 20 Ohio Counties Launch Investigations into Suspicious Progressive Group that Allegedly Turned In Piles of Phony Voter Registrations

In August 2024, The Gateway Pundit’s Patty McMurray first reported on a Democrat-funded voter registration group accused of turning in hundreds of suspected fraudulent voter registrations—this time in Ohio!

** You can read the full TGP August report here.**

The Gateway Pundit discovered that a group called Black Fork Strategies, which operates across the state of Ohio, was being investigated by the Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose over another alleged fraudulent voter registration campaign.

On their website, Black Fork Strategies brags about registering a stunning 125,000+ voters in Ohio since 2018.

The Hamilton County Board of Elections has turned over several suspicious voter registration applications Ohio Secretary of State’s Public Integrity Division.

According to Hamilton County Board of Elections members, the voter registrations in question were recently turned in by the self-described “progressive” voter registration organization Black Fork Strategies.

In the video below, Hamilton County Director of Elections Sherry Poland discusses three issues she identified with voter registrations tied to Black Fork Strategies, which she claims is running voter registration drives throughout the state of Ohio.

In one example, Ms. Poland explained how they received a voter registration from Black Fork Strategies, and  the name of the registrant was ‘Henry Kissinger.’

“We did do a match, the voter registration database as compared to the DMV database, and it was a mismatch on every item listed, any identifying information listed on this registration form. So we again asked Black Fork Strategies for the canvasser who submitted this registration form, and that is on your summary sheet.”

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Ohio Democrats Replicate Mississippi Lawmaker’s ‘Contraception Begins at Erection Act’ Criminalizing Casual Sex and Masturbation

A bill put forward by two Ohio Democrats is essentially seeking to outlaw masturbation and casual sex.

State Reps. Anita Somani and Tristan Rader this week put forward the “Contraception Begins at Erection Act” in their legislature.

The bill mirrors legislation recently put forward by Mississippi State Sen. Bradford Blackmon under the same name.

Under the terms of the act, men would be prohibited from masturbating or engaging in sexual activity when there is no “intent to fertilize an embryo.”

In a video posted to BlueSky, the pair argued that such legislation was only fair because Republicans have sought to restrict the murder of unborn children.

“If this legislature is so dedicated to regulating women’s bodies and their access to contraceptives and abortion care then let’s start policing men in the same way. After all, it does take two to tango, right?”

“Our bill would make it illegal to discharge semen or genetic material without the intent to fertilize an embryo,” she continued.

“If you find the language [in the bill] to be absurd, then maybe you should find any bill attempting to restrict reproductive freedoms absurd as well,” Rader added.

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