Ohio News

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).

We have had a Democratic Governor for all of 9 days now and already he has done more progress than Taft ever did:

Gov. Ted Strickland signed his second executive order today, creating an energy adviser to coordinate the state's efforts to create jobs through fuel-saving initiatives.

"One of the core principles of my Turnaround Ohio plan is to invest in Ohio's strengths," Strickland said in a prepared statement. "Clearly, energy production is one of those strengths. I am convinced that we can create thousands of good-paying jobs by encouraging next-generation energy production in Ohio including ethanol, clean coal, wind and solar."

Strickland's first executive order -- signed Jan. 8 on his first day as governor -- banned gifts worth more than $20 for state employees.

Soy is a major crop here and the fuel initiative is defiantly a great idea. We also desperately need new jobs in Ohio (something we lost a lot of under Taft).

The banning of gifts is one of those "had to be done" items. Taft was the only governor in the history of Ohio to be convicted of a crime while in office. His crime was accepting gifts and not reporting them. Strickland has a plate full to clean up the corruption left behind by Taft and his cronies, but he is surely the man to get it done.

Cheney almost appears in pain swearing in all these new Democrats:

The WORST Governor in the history of Ohio:

The state Supreme Court on Wednesday publicly reprimanded Ohio Gov. Bob Taft for his ethics violations in office, a black mark that will stay on his permanent record as an attorney.

Taft, a Republican and great-grandson of President William Howard Taft, pleaded no contest in 2005 to failing to report golf outings and other gifts and was fined $4,000. He could not seek re-election because of term limits and leaves office in less than two weeks.

The Office of Disciplinary Counsel, an arm of the state Supreme Court, said in April that Taft violated Ohio's code of professional conduct for lawyers, and Taft, an attorney since 1976, later signed an agreement admitting the violation.

Taft has been a disgrace to Ohio and his family name. Now we get our brand new Democratic Governor in a couple of weeks, and Ohio should be making a big change for the better. Thanks Bob Taft for helping Democrats sweep the state offices in a very red state this year.

Just now breaking - the man behind coin-gate here in Ohio, and former Bush fundraiser, has been sentenced to at least 18 years in prison for cheating Ohio tax-payers out of millions. Of course Bush will most likely pardon him before he leaves office. The crime family must stick together!

We have become center stage for the election season here in Ohio. Today's Washington Post takes a big look at the influence of the Buckeye State:

Within hours of trouncing Sen. Mike DeWine (R) to become the first Democrat to win a Senate seat in Ohio since 1992, Rep. Sherrod Brown heard from a trio of Democratic well-wishers: Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama, presidential aspirants all.

The calls were hardly surprising.

"This is an important state," Brown said. "People know that."

Political strategists girding for 2008 are already studying Ohio, which this week produced a Democratic sweep of the most important statewide offices after backing President Bush and the Republicans in 2004. No Republican has ever reached the White House without winning here.

The political climate for the GOP this year was the worst in three decades, largely because of the Iraq war and corruption scandals. But Brown and his advisers believe his populist appeal to the middle class on economic issues was central to his decisive defeat of DeWine, a two-term incumbent who lost by nearly 500,000 votes....read on

I knew a blog based out of Ohio was a good thing hehe.

It is funny how the Republicans have held the balance of Senate undecided by Allen's wide loss, yet they are quick to jump on a win in OH-15, with over 20,000 votes still uncounted:

With 20,000 ballots still uncounted and her lead just 2,835 votes, Republican Rep. Deborah Pryce yesterday declared victory over Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy in their hard-fought race for Congress.

But Kilroy and her campaign manager said Pryce is premature. They think the uncounted votes in Democratic-leaning Franklin County will be enough to overcome the deficit and send Kilroy to Congress.

In unofficial figures released late yesterday by the Franklin County Board of Elections for the entire 15 th District, the Upper Arlington Republican had 100,343 votes and Kilroy had 97,508. Pryce, a seven-term incumbent, gained her margin in Union and Madison counties.

This race doesn't affect the balance of power in the House - that is long decided now. This is just another typical Republican wanting to make sure every vote doesn't count. This is also a Republican who helped cover up for Mark Foley. It will be interesting to see what happens with this.

I just got back from voting and we suffered from a "glitch". As I was voting, my ballot started off with governor and then worked down through the list. After voting for all the politicians, up next were the issues. My first issue was State issue 1, an issue dealing with Ohio's Worker Compensation. I was expecting to see this, but knew my vote didn't count on it:

In most elections, ''State Issue 1'' is something highly significant and its outcome closely watched. However, in Ohio today, Issue 1 doesn't count, literally.

That's because the issue, a referendum on changes in Ohio's Workers Compensation law, died in a legal challenge that determined the measure lacked sufficient valid signatures on petitions to put it before the voters. But that ruling didn't come until it was too late to remove Issue 1 from the ballot, both absentee and electronic.

So today, when you go into the voting booth, you will see Issue 1 on your ballot, even though it isn't a valid ballot issue anymore.

So after my voting experience went smoothly, the person I went down with had her turn to cast her ballot. She had the same ballot, the same ballot (iso) card, and the same machine, but her ballot did not appear the same. Instead her ballot started out with a blank blue screen and then went onto the candidates and the state issues, but issue 1 was not on her ballot. She called the poll worker over who said that "this has been happening on some machines". Well our polling place only has three machines and she was on the same machine as I just got done voting on, and this problem did not happen for me.

After we got done we did immediately call the Democrat hotline (1-888-DEM-VOTE) to report the problem. They connected us with a local person, who was very interested in the problem.

The most interesting thing I kept thinking of was Ken Blackwell on CNN this past weekend saying the machines do not have any problems, it was the poll workers. Well this poll worker did everything the same as she did with me (programmed the card for ballot 84), yet our ballots appeared differently. This machine was a Diebold touch screen machine, and as a programmer I can tell you that it is a definite software glitch. The poll worker did the exact same thing she did for me and all the end user variables were the same.

While this might not seem like a major problem, it is a problem all the less. Everyone must be vigilant today and make sure that any glitch, no matter how small it may seem, gets reported. While Ohio Issue 1 has been invalidated in the courts, it was still suppose to be on the ballot. Why was it removed from the ballot (on some machines) after telling people in Ohio that it would still be on the ballot, but your vote just won't count on it? Sounds like another way to add to voter confusion.

On a more positive note, I have voted in this precinct for four years now and this was the busiest I have ever seen it. 10:00 on a rainy Tuesday morning and there was a line in this rural area.

This is from today's Columbus Dispatch

Things are looking real Blue here in the buckeye state and talk around the country is we could be a pivotal state in determining the ruling party in the House now. The Ohio Democrats GOTV effort this week should also provide the extra buffer needed to prevent any funny business from Blackwell's buddies at Diebold.