Ohio News

While Republicans continue holding up the governor races in Virginia and New Jersey as evidence of some sort of revitalization, other indicators have been overlooked – ones that show the Republicans, and the tea party movement in general, are not doing too well.

Remember back on Labor Day when there was a huge tea party rally here in Ohio? This happened in the heart of the reddest corner of the state of Ohio, and it’s an area you surely would think has become a teabagger Mecca. Well don’t be so quick on that:

The reign of the anti-school tax activists on area school boards was a short one.

One four-year term - starting with their taking office in January 2006 - and now voters decided last week that some of the region's highest profile activist board members are out.

Their one-and-done political trend was mainly focused in Greater Cincinnati's northern suburban districts, where four years ago an anti-school tax movement had grown to win enough voters to put like-minded candidates on the governing boards of a handful of Butler and Warren county school systems.

Fairfield School Board incumbent Arnie Engel, who tried four times to get elected to Fairfield Schools governing board before finally winning in fall 2005, this time finished a distant fourth in the race for three open seats.

In Warren County's Mason School Board race, self-proclaimed "Christian conservative" incumbent Jennifer Miller ended up fifth out of eight candidates vying for three seats.

In the Monroe school board race, fiscal conservative Mike Irwin lost his re-election bid, finishing dead last among five candidates.

Everyone of those school districts actually outline where that tea party was held. If all politics are still local, then news like this actually shows that the Republicans have a much tougher battle ahead than they are thinking

After countless failed attempts over the past couple of decades, Ohio has finally passed an issue allowing gambling in the state. The opponents of issue 3 warned of prostitution, drugs and all kinds of things like that, but finally the voters of Ohio ignored them and approved the measure. It’s about time considering we have 3 bordering states that allow it.

It always amazes me when the right goes on about how charities should take care of social needs. The problem is when people start losing money the first thing that gets cut is their charitable donations, which then results in things like this:

The holiday project is a group of nine nonprofit agencies that rely on sponsors to help provide food and toys to struggling families.

But because of the recession, a record number of families are expected to register for help at a time when many would-be sponsors are struggling. So far, the number of needy families seeking sponsors for food baskets and Christmas gifts is up 74 percent compared to the same time last year.

Tina Osso, director of Shared Harvest Foodbank in Fairfield and coordinator of the holiday project, fears the number of needy families may again outpace sponsors of the project .

“For the first time last year, we were not able to serve everybody that applied and that was just as the recession was beginning to hit hard for everybody,” Osso said.

Forget giving your children presents this year – you are concerned about giving them food to eat on Christmas Day. Take this part talking about Middletown, one of the nation’s 10 fastest dying cities:

Maurice Maxwell, executive director of Family Service of Middletown, said his agency has registered 300 families since Oct. 14.

You are talking about a town with a population of 51,000 and 21,000 households. That makes 300 families  a lot, especially in a town that has seen its poverty levels jump from 12% in 2000 to 22% in 2007.

With this grim economy ringing in the holiday season, we need to be braced for more bad news. I can only imagine how suicide rates are going to jump in the next couple of months, along with other crimes.

We do need another stimulus, but we need one that will take care of the middle and lower classes, the later which is increasing in size at record rates. Health care reform could have been a great part of that stimulus, but the greedy politicians we have been stuck with decided that the highly profitable insurance agencies needed the money more than the struggling and starving families. We are seeing class warfare continue in this country as it did under Bush. The sad part is that the people who need help the most don’t have that many people in power on their side.

That is the mugshot of an 18 year old who got busted driving under the influence (incidentally only a few miles from my house). Apparently his Halloween costume was a big hit. If you can’t make it out, he is dressed as a breathalyzer. This bit of local funniness has made The Smoking Gun

Whenever I head out for a day of peddling I make sure I have certain items. Those include a cell phone, plenty of water, something to much on, repair items, and most importantly, my identification. Sadly a bicyclist in the town south of me was severely injured this week and unresponsive. He had no identification so the media had to take a very rare step and publish a picture of him

Luckily he was finally identified by his family. His name and age aren’t being released at the request of the family, but they are saying he is a teenager. So parents, if your child is going out on a bike ride make sure they have some sort of identification on them. You never know what is going to happen and one can only imagine the horror of finding out your child has been severely injured via a picture on the television.

Here’s one to get people talking:

DAYTON, Oh. -- Police near Dayton may have been a little surprised when they arrested a man accused of harassing local residents.
According to police, 41-year-old Kevin Miller of Sugarcreek Township had been approaching women and girls, all while wearing a woman's swimsuit and fake breasts.
Officials say at least 20 residents called 911 in the last week alone to complain about the swimsuit clad man.
He is now charged with five counts of public indecency and three counts of menacing.

At first glance you think “ok – glad the cops got him before he did anything to anyone”, but then look at the charges. Public indecency? What was indecent? The only thing the report says is that he was wearing a woman’s bathing suit. If the police are claiming that is indecent then these charges will be laughed right out and this guy will probably go right back to it. If the charges do stick then you can expect to see a lawsuit filed against the police and city and this guy will probably win.

Hamilton County, Ohio GOP has redefined class. The people that help bring us gems like Jean Schmidt decided to use a picture of a bald Arlen Specter to compare him to Dr. Evil. The picture of Specter was taken at a time when he was fighting brain cancer and undergoing chemotherapy. Here’s a screen shot:

This is the personal blog of Alex Triantafilou, the chairman of the Hamilton County Republican Party. He has now replaced the images with a “censored” image on his blog.

(picture from the Cincinnati Enquirer).

Here is some Simpson sounding news from the next town over from me:

Middletown police Chief Greg Schwarber is recovering from a gunshot wound he suffered Friday, Nov. 28, at his residence on Todhunter Road.

Monroe police were called to the Schwarber residence at 1:25 p.m. on a report of an accidental discharge of a gun, said Sgt. Tom Cobaugh.

Schwarber, 54, was shot in the leg while cleaning a Glock .45-caliber pistol just minutes after giving his daughter a gun safety lesson, according to reports.

Shouldn’t part of that safety lesson included making sure the chamber is cleared before cleaning the gun?

Yes I am lucky. I live about 1.5 miles from the school where Bush signed No Child Left Behind into law. So how is this area's children doing?

Poverty levels are down in Hamilton and Middletown, but figures across the rest of Butler County are not as promising, according to data released Wednesday.

The U.S. Census Bureau released its 2005 estimates for the number of poverty-stricken students. Although Hamilton and Middletown still have more than 20 percent of their student populations living in poverty, they did see a decrease from 2004. Numbers in the county's other seven districts all went up.

Yup the economy here in southwestern Ohio is crap. It seems like we hear news of another business leaving the area on a weekly basis. Of course we have a congressional representative who doesn't care about his district - right Mr. Boehner?

Here in Butler County, Ohio, we are plagued with GOP scandals also. Just today we had this happen:

A Butler County official pleaded guilty Thursday to a misdemeanor crime.

Former county treasurer Carole Mosketti avoided jail time for her conviction on a conflict-of-interest charge, a judge fined her $1,000 and ordered her to pay $3,800 in restitution.

Mosketti was also ordered to resign from her elected position, which she did.

She has been under investigation by the state since last summer, when she hired her granddaughter to work for her.

Her position has not yet been filled.

Mosketti is a Republican and you can still view her profile on the county treasurer's website.

I know other towns have the same problems with Democrats and Republicans alike, but things have been really bad here. There has been a lot of shake up lately in our Republican controlled county, with numerous officials resigning or being fired. It should also be worth mentioning that this county is also the home to the House Minority Leader, John Boehner.

We already have the primary battlegrounds changing, as states rush to move their dates up earlier. Now we got George Will saying that Republicans need to give up on Ohio in 2008:

In the last 24 elections, since 1912, winners of the presidency won a plurality of the states along the Mississippi. Today the Republican presidential candidate with perhaps the most impressive resume says:

Republicans should assume that in 2008 they will lose Ohio (20 electoral votes), where the state party's corruption and incompetence cost it the governorship, a U.S. Senate seat and a House seat in 2006. So the GOP candidate must carry Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota (27 electoral votes). In 2004, George W. Bush narrowly carried Iowa and narrowly lost Wisconsin and Minnesota, the only state that has voted Democratic in eight consecutive elections.

For once I agree with Will. Since the Democrats took over state offices this year, Ohio has made numerous changes for the better. Bob Taft had the lowest approval rating of any governor in the country. Today Ted Strickland holds one of the highest approval ratings. The Ohio GOP is working to try and polish up their image, but it will take more than a couple of years to do that. They became too corrupt and now will pay the price for it.

Last week, two election workers in Ohio got sentenced to 18 months in prison for rigging a recount in the 2004 presidential election. Now our new Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner has asked the election board members to resign or be fired:

All four election board members for Cuyahoga County, troubled by recount rigging charges and voting machine problems, have been told to resign or face being fired, a state official said Monday.

Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said she called the four board members of Ohio's most populous count late Sunday, asking them to leave by the close of business Wednesday.

The county, which includes all of Cleveland, has had difficulty adjusting to electronic voting. Last May's primary, the first attempt at electronic voting in the county, was marred by absent or poorly trained poll workers, lost vote-holding computer cards and a polling place that opened hours late

If these convictions would have come down 6 months ago, nothing would have happened on the state level. This is what happens when you got a proactive Secretary of State, as compared to Ken Blackwell, who did nothing.

There is a big discussion going on here in Ohio right now. At the center of the discussion is pending legislation called Kristin's Law. This new law will require sexual predators to have green license plates on their vehicles. Last night Anderson Cooper had Kevin Coulghlin, the state senator who wrote this legislation, to discuss the impact it may have:

This may sound like some sound legislation on the outside, but will it really work?

Ten years ago Ohio started the sexual offenders registration list. To date there are almost 16,000 names on the list. This is, however, a highly inflated number.

I know of cases where 18 year old boys had sex with their 16 year old girlfriend, resulting in the girl getting pregnant. The parents of the girl get upset and file charges against the boy and in turn he gets convicted of having sex with a minor and being branded a sex offender for life. There are numerous other cases that are similar to this.

What the sexual offender list has become is a form of punishment instead of a tool of warning. Something as innocent as the incident I cite happens and judges decide to invoke the list as part of their sentence, causing serious negative consequences.

I haven't heard much on this, but it is very interesting. Last year all state offices in Ohio went to Democrats with the exception of the State Auditor. That was won by Republican Mary Taylor. Now that the Democrats have moved in, they are trying to go throw what the Republicans have done and found some interesting items, particularly involving the former Secretary of State, Ken Blackwell:

Brunner has asked Taylor, who has a master’s degree from the University of Akron, to do a thorough audit of her office’s finances and operations under her predecessor, former Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, who was by most accounts one of the sorest losers of the November campaign after being trounced by Strickland.

In a letter hand-delivered last week, Brunner cited five major concerns: shredding of documents, the disappearance of the shredding machines, more than $80,000 in bonuses Blackwell paid to departing employees, a depleted budget and 50,000 unsent letters to businesses canceling their corporate charters.

A spokesman for Blackwell has denied any wrongdoing and accused Brunner of playing politics. Playing politics? In state government? Really?

This entire article in the Cantonrep is very interesting. The article also posses the money question on this issue:

To give you a taste of Ohio politics, here is something going on in my own backyard. I posted last September about the lockout at AK Steel, a prominent area employer. In that post I showed a picture of the new Butler County Republican headquarters, which came with a $800,000 price tag and donations from AK Steel. This building is really nice, as compared Butler County Democratic headquarters store front. However, the Democrats have no problem at all operating out of this small space.

Now our Republican sheriff is getting involved in trying to bring this lockout to an end:

The Republican sheriff of Butler County, unable to get help from his own party to end an 11-month lockout at AK Steel’s Middletown Works, is turning to newly elected Democrats in Columbus and Washington.

Sheriff Rick Jones has written letters to Gov. Ted Strickland and U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, both Democrats who won GOP-held seats on Nov. 7, and asked them to intervene.

“It is of the utmost importance that you intervene in the negotiations to bring this 11-month-old lockout to a productive conclusion. Our community needs your help and support,” Jones wrote. “I know it’s very strange that a local Republican sheriff would ask two of the most powerful Democrats in the state of Ohio to do something, but I am.”

Jones said Friday that he was frustrated that former Gov. Bob Taft, a Republican who served the maximum two consecutive terms, and former U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine, defeated by Brown in November, were not able to end the lockout. He said the toll the strike has taken on the county’s residents is getting to him.

It is nice to see Sherriff Jones take the initiative to help bring this lockout to an end. I know many families who are struggling to get by because of this corporate greed. I drive by AK Steel and see these people sitting out there picketing, as they have been for the past 11 months, and it is heart wrenching.

I have been hard locally on Sherriff Jones in the past. He has had some "questionable" techniques in dealing with illegal immigration. He has been so tough in fact that Jon Stewart has talked about interviewing him. It is good to see him focus some energy on a serious problem this community is facing. Sadly our Republican county officers seem to be ignoring the problem (of course - they have the new building to worry about).