Approximately 50 Occupy Cincinnati protesters attended yesterday's City Council meeting to testify against Piatt Park's 10 p.m. closing time. Negotiations between the city and protesters is ongoing, according to reports, but no agreement was made yesterday after protesters turned down an offer of a new place to stay overnight and the city declined to let the group stay in the park under new restrictions. Councilman Chris Bortz and Councilwoman Leslie Ghiz, both of whom have connections to property along the park, have brought up the possibility that if protesters aren't removed that someday the city will have to let the Ku Klux Klan camp out. Ghiz yesterday was criticized by protesters for posting on Facebook the private information of two people who wrote emails criticizing her (more on that here). CityBeat reflected on the situation again here.  

Both Xavier and the University of Cincinnati basketball teams are in the preseason Top 25 coaches poll released today, with Xavier checking in at No. 15 and the Bearcats at No. 22. North Carolina received 31 of the possible 32 first-place votes to take the top spot, with Kentucky, Ohio State, UConn and Syracuse rounding out the top five.  

Former Bengal Carson Palmer was freed by the team yesterday when it traded him to the Oakland Raiders for two draft picks. Palmer had threatened to retire his he wasn't traded, and the Bengals secured a considerable package of picks in return: the Raiders' first-round pick next year and either a first- or second-round pick in 2013, depending on the team's performance with Palmer. CityBeat's Halloween beat writer Jeff Beyer wrote a tale of horror and redemption for this week's issue, which just so happens to involve a once-cherished hero (Palmer) returning to wreak havoc on the city for confining him: The Pantom of Paul Brown Stadium: a Love Story.   

Leslie Ghiz has angered some Occupy Cincinnati supporters by posting on her Facebook page the home and email address of one individual and the email address of another who criticized her for pressuring City Manager Milton Dohoney to kick the protesters out of the park. The two individuals wrote to Ghiz's campaign, according to Ghiz.   

Those of us who regularly witness these scenes were not surprised that it took only two weeks for Ohio to arrest its first legally armed bar patron for threatening to kill someone. Supporters of the new guns-in-bars law say it worked as intended and that once the gun-wielding public hears one of its brothers is in jail for five years the rest will learn to control themselves when someone plays Dave Matthews Band on the jukebox five times in a row.
  

Uh oh, the owners of buildings adjacent to Piatt Park are angry and they're not going to take it anymore. They reportedly met with city officials yesterday led by Arn Bortz, former mayor and Towne Properties partner/Councilman Chris Bortz's super-rich uncle, to ask that they be removed. Bortz also accused protesters of defecating in the park and abusing people walking through, both well-known annoyances for neo-fascists.   

Here's how The Enquirer describes an Ohio Supreme Court decision allowing Democrats to challenge a ridiculous Republican attempt to unfairly redraw Congressional districts: “Court ruling throws 2012 elections into chaos.” Here's the same report by WLWT, minus the drama: “Ohio Supreme Court Allows Redistricting Challenge.”  

Cincinnati police didn't give out any citations in Piatt Park last night, saving the people in the Justice Center a lot of paperwork and wasted time. Some occupiers and local homeless activists have planned a march on Saturday to highlight causes of homelessness. New York officials delayed a monthly park cleaning that would have meant having to clean lots of protesters too. The movement is spreading to Canada, where occupy protests are scheduled to begin this weekend in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary, Vancouver and Halifax.  

A misleading advertisement by pro-SB 5 group Building a Better Ohio has been pulled from nearly 30 TV stations, including two in Cincinnati. Here's the original report about Building a Better Ohio splicing the an ad created by We Are Ohio. The Columbus Dispatch's “Ad Watch” had already designated the Building a Better Ohio version as “misleading” because Republican spending cuts are largely to blame for any firefighter layoff decisions local governments are facing.  

Federal prosecutors in California today criticized the state’s medical marijuana industry for spiraling into a never-ending cycle of helping people and raising money, announcing that it would target certain members of the industry for “hijacking” the state’s 1996 Compassionate Use Act for profit. Feds are concerned with out-of-state profiteers opening large-scale commercial dispensaries, but also admitted concern over the existence of an entire city named Weed.