From the Ohio GOP's Blog:

In the last month, someone has stopped by our Columbus headquarters at least five times to hurl flying projectiles through the windows and doors, in one case nearly hitting a staffer in the head with a broken padlock.� We're getting a little tired of cleaning up the broken glass.

He apparently had nothing better to do on Thanksgiving night than throw rocks at our front door.� He then returned the next night to try again.� Here's some video of him taking an unsuccessful shot, then picking up his rock and walking away.

It's not the greatest video quality, but if you know this guy, please contact Columbus Police (614) 645-4545.

From ohio.com

Union bullhorns are not going to go silent in front of the homes of three United Steelworkers who crossed picket lines last week to return to work for Goodyear in Akron, Local 2 officials said.

And anyone else on strike who decides to cross can expect the same treatment, USW officials said Wednesday.

The union is protected by the First Amendment in its peaceful use of a bullhorn in public, Steelworkers officials said Wednesday at the local's Kelly Avenue hall.

“We have a right to do it by law,'' said Craig Hemsley, USW District 1 staff representative in Akron.

He and others said pickets have been peaceful since the strike against Goodyear started in early October.

This is unbelieveable.

The Athens News reports on longtime tax-paying Columbus-resident Ted Strickland's visit to southern Ohio:

Fresh from his landslide victory in the governor's race, southern Ohio homeboy Ted Strickland paid a celebration call on some faithful backers in Jackson County Sunday.

He used the occasion to issue both his heartfelt thanks and some dire warnings that a tougher challenge still lies ahead.

"Ohio's in trouble right now," the Democratic governor-elect told a gathering of about 100 party regulars and candidates at a potluck dinner in Jackson. "The situation is incredibly serious."

Strickland left a secure seat representing Ohio's 6th U.S. House District to run against Republican J. Kenneth Blackwell for governor. He suggested Sunday that years of GOP mismanagement and corruption in Ohio have left many state agencies in terrible shape, financially and otherwise.

"We've got people looking very, very closely at every agency of state government, to find out exactly what it is that we're inheriting," he told the crowd. "We want the people of Ohio to know what we're walking into."

He added that projections for levels of state tax revenue in the near future aren't encouraging, and promised that while the going may get tough for his administration, he will be honest with the public about problems the state is facing and choices that need to be made.

Translation of that last paragraph: Ted Strickland will raise your taxes.

And Ted Strickland admits to receiving a vote that he shouldn't be so proud of:

Strickland joked obliquely about the fact that Blackwell apparently frightened off even some in his own party, with his fervent embrace of the religious right and his eagerness to slash state taxes. He met recently with outgoing Gov. Taft, he recalled, mentioning with a grin that "I've got no doubt in my mind that Bob Taft voted for me."

Of course Bob Taft voted for Ted Strickland! Ted offered the best hope to carry on the Taft legacy, which consists the socialist Third Frontier program, higher taxes, opposing gun rights, and general incompetence. Taft may be term-limited, but Strickland will ensure his negative impact on the Buckeye State will last for many years to come.

From cleveland.com

In Brook Park, 1,423 of the roughly 3,000 members of Local 1250 signed up for one of the eight buyout packages offered. The local represents workers at two engine plants and a casting plant.

The number taking buyouts surprised Garry Spencer, first vice president of the local.

Spencer believes that a lot of employees are "covering themselves" should a plant shut down and that not all will decide to leave.

They see a sinking ship and they're smart; it shouldn't be a surprise Garry.

From The Plain Dealer

Washington - It wasn't funny being a real TV reporter from Kazakhstan trying to cover Ohio's recent elections - at a time when the nation's top box-office comedy featured a fake Kazakh TV reporter humiliating Americans.

A TV crew from Kazakhstan's Channel 31 was in Columbus on Nov. 6 and 7 to make a real documentary on the U.S. political system, but the crew got a wary reception from press secretaries who feared public skewering by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, star of the mockumentary "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."

It didn't help that the Kazakh cameraman's first name was "Bolat," a name similar to Cohen's alias. In Cohen's movie, his character Borat goads subjects into making outrageous racist and sexist statements for a fake documentary about the United States.

When the real central Asian TV crew showed up in Ohio, press secretaries for the state's Republican and Democratic parties were suspicious enough to verify their credentials with the U.S. State Department.

"They were really adamant that they were not Borat," said Ohio Democratic Party press secretary Randy Borntrager, adding that the film crew told him that "Borat" "is giving Kazakhstan a bad name."

Funny stuff from a show that I generally cannot stand to watch:

Something always offended me about the concept of paying taxes for recycling programs, which also require you to sort your own garbage.

Bizzyblog stumbled across this video that proves what I thought all along: Recycling is a worthless endeavor. I didn't know Penn and Teller had their on TV show, but if you can stand completely unnecessary vulgarities, this episode is worth watching here.

�

Anti-War Unions Plan Demonstrations

From Matt Lewis at the Rightometer (Human Events):

What's better, a religious conversion or an ideological one???

The Corner's K-Lo notes that Sam Brownback "says he wants to be the 'full-scale conservative' in the presidential race. The newly Catholic senator might have a hard time hitting Governor Romney on public conversions."RedState's Leon H. Wolf fires back: "… K-Lo's contention is that, as a recent convert to Catholicism (something about which I just became aware), Brownback will not be in a position to throw stones at Mitt Romney's 'conversion' on the pro-life issue. It's a strained comparison, but there is no object in the universe that Ms. Lopez cannot somehow connect with Mitt Romney."

Why is Kathryn Lopez so determined to support Romney? I have read National Review religiously since middle school, and I've never found a columnist who apparently wants to give birth to a candidate's illegitimate child more than Kathryn does. (Get a grip Kathryn… MITT ROMNEY IS A LIBERAL!)

RedState's post that Matt links to is interesting because it details Romneys public conversion to the PRO-CHOICE viewpoint in 1994, which was before his latest conversion of convenience.

For more details, click here for a detailed account of Mitt Romney's liberalism from Brian Camenker of MassResistance.org. In the the document, Brian unfortunately accuses the Heritage Foundation of playing politics, but its still an excellent collection of newspaper accounts of Romney's liberalism.

NixGuy writes about what he wanted to accomplish by supporting the Republican Party, even when candidates didn't really deserve support from conservatives:

It has long been a dream of mine that a smart Republican party could trounce the Democrats so thoroughly that key Democratic constituencies would break off and switch to the GOP and/or swing their votes as needed. Yes, I know it was a pipe dream, yet a worthy goal. The thing was, the victories of 2002 and 2004 seemed to bring the dream much closer. I figured we would need a couple more cycles to bring it home but possibly by 2010 the Democratic party could be dead.

The dream then would not be one-party rule ala the PRI in Mexico, but to break the GOP into a libertarian and a more centrist-statist party. DeWine and Voinovich would be great examples of the Centrist wing, and DeMint, Coburn, etc. would be examples of the conservative wing. The idea would be to shift the entire political debate several notches to the right.

Nixguy admits that, in retrospect, his goal was a pipe dream.

The problem I have with his goal is that the Republican "tent" can never be large enough to include many of the typical Democrat constituencies. The Democrat Party consists of many group-constituencies that like to be cradled by the government and have an insatiable appetite for expensive entitlements. The more Republicans try to attract those types of voters, the more Republicans will lose their conservative identity, and the more elections they will lose . The Republicans tried appeal to the Medicare constituency, the pro-Illegal immigrant constituency, the minimum-wage constituency, and the earmark-loving constituency, and look where they ended up this month. Oops.

And what is sad, is that when a principled Reagan-Republican like Ken Blackwell comes along, his message can be completely drowned out when his party loses its way. As I know first hand, it is VERY difficult to sell a staunch "anti-tax, anti-big government" message to voters when you are in the same party that RAISED taxes and GREW the size of government.

Nixguy also offers some good advice for Republican candidates:

1. Be a conservative“in the gut.” Everyone knows how to sound like a conservative and push the right talking points. But are you“one of us”? Pretenders can be hard to find out, but there are“tells”. One of the biggest is stance on earmarks and spending. Talking like a conservative, but“bringing home the bacon” means you don’t meet qualification #1.

2. Excellent public speaking ability. This goes along with #1 but because conservatism is hated by the media and elites, you should be very, very good at getting your message out, for it will be distorted.

3. Smart ability to focus on right issues at right time. Tom Brinkman is a good example of this. I believe he meets qual #1 and possibly #2 although I’ve never heard him speak. But he has this habit of introducing social issue legislation that hasn’t a chance in heck of going anywhere. It all ends up being a useless waste of time. Note to conservatives. Be Effective. Look at Reagan’s record while governor of California if you want a clue on how to do this.

Russell Hughlock (who is still a subject of the Queen, by the way), in attacking Nixguy's shattered Machiavellian dreams, writes the following:

What (Nixguy) and many others really miss is that it is the ideas that should be supported and followed, not the personalities or parties behind them. No one party or person has ever had the monopoly on good ideas, and none ever will.

Ideas over personalities? Oh yeah, thats why Barack "Osama" Obama is going to probably be the Democrat nominee for President. (Russell, remember when Obama came to Ohio to speak at a Democrat dinner? Ohio's liberal bloggers fawned over him like a bunch of hormonal teenage girls at a Justin Timberlake concert.)

And in all seriousness, I'm tired of government having "good ideas." I wish they would just stop it. As President Reagan said, the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help." At this point, I want government to have fewer "good ideas" and more gridlock.

from the Associated Press:

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Republican Gov. Bob Taft said Wednesday he will veto a rewrite of the state's concealed weapons law that would wipe out local weapons bans and gun sales regulations.

Taft's objection to overriding local gun laws has been clear for months, spokesman Mark Rickel said, citing as an example Columbus' assault weapons ban.

If the legislation comes to the governor, "the bill would be vetoed," Rickel said.

Taft's announcement came as the House passed the bill 74-14 following an earlier vote by the Senate.

House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Kettering, said he had no comment on Taft's veto threat.

Three Republicans voted against this bill in the Senate:

Three Senate Republicans - Steve Stivers of Columbus, Robert Spada of North Royalton and David Goodman of Bexley - voted against the bill, with Stivers saying he couldn't accept the clause overruling local gun bans.

Stivers' position is absolutely ridiculous. A gun license (even though you shouldn't need one… This is a Constitutional right, after all) issued by Ohio should be valid everyplace. It shouldn't be up to gun grabbers like Columbus Mayor Mike "don't question my manhood" Coleman to invalidate a state permit. Please stop treating law abiding gun owners like criminals.

I want to start beating up on Strickland and the Democrats, but Taft insists on being a horrible Governor until the very end.

Bob, can you just go away, please?

From Bill Hersey in The Dayton Daily News:

House Speaker Jon Husted and state Rep. Kevin DeWine want to give Montgomery and Greene counties a financial incentive as both counties consider combining 911 emergency dispatching of police and fire departments.

The state capital improvements budget, to be introduced next week, will include "a minimum" of $500,000 for Greene County and $1 million for Montgomery County to help with startup costs for combined systems, said Husted, R-Kettering.

He and DeWine, R-Fairborn, have urged local governments to consolidate services to free up money for development and other priorities.

Husted said that for Montgomery County to receive the money, local governments representing at least 60 percent of the county's population would have to agree to participate in the combined system.

The same requirement probably would apply to Greene County, he said.

Startup costs form one of the barriers to creating combined 911 dispatch systems, and the state grants should help overcome this, Husted said.

"We're talking about using a small amount of money that will free up millions of dollars of more money at the local level for priorities," he said.

In Montgomery County, officials have set a Feb. 1 deadline for local communities to decide if they want the county to handle 911 emergency dispatching.

The sheriff already dispatches for about a third of the county's residents under contract with various communities.

It would cost about $6.5 million annually to operate the combined system, which is $6.5 million less than it currently costs the county and 14 communities to operate dispatch centers, county officials believe.

On the surface, this appears to be a good cost-cutting idea that will save taxpayers millions of dollars while providing the same critical service.

Considering the state he is leaving the Senate in, this is not much of a surprise.

From al Reuters

Republican U.S. Senate Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee said on Wednesday he would not run for the White House in 2008 and will return to his medical practice after he leaves the U.S. Congress in January.

Frist, a surgeon who served two terms, had been preparing for a possible presidential run for more than a year but said he decided this was not the time.

"In the Bible, God tells us for everything there is a season, and for me, for now, this season of being an elected official has come to a close. I do not intend to run for president in 2008," Frist said in a statement.

He said he would take a sabbatical from private life and "return to my professional roots as a healer."

"In the short term, I will resume my regular medical mission trips as a doctor around the world to serve those in poverty, in famine, and in civil war," he said. "I will continue to be a strong voice to fix what is broken in our health care system and to address the issues of clean water and public health globally."

The creator of Ohio's income tax speaks:�

Cincinnati - When Ted Strickland is sworn into office in January, he will face a challenge unseen in Ohio for 35 years: a Democratic governor trying to convince a Republican-controlled legislature to go along with his program.

The last time it happened was in 1971 when John J. "Jack" Gilligan managed to get Republicans to join with Democrats in establishing Ohio's first income tax to help pay for education and human services. He lasted just one term.

Gilligan, now 85 and a member of the Cincinnati school board, says there's no formula for successfully working across party lines, just plain and simple pragmatism that forces a "working majority" - enough Republicans joining with Democrats to get things done.

"It isn't being a nice guy or a mean guy or anything," Gilligan said in an interview last week. "You either have to have a working majority or the problems are going to stay there and fester."

Like Strickland, Gilligan was elected in a Democratic wave in which the party captured three of four other statewide offices.

In 1970, Democrats also won auditor, treasurer and attorney general races. This year, in addition to the governor's office, Democrats won bids for secretary of state, attorney general and treasurer.

Like this fall, the Democrats' surge in 1970 came amid a financial scandal. This year it was Toledo Republican fund-raiser Tom Noe and his handling of investments for the Bureau of Workers' Compensation. In Gilligan's day, it was loans from state retirement systems controlled by a Republican state treasurer.

"It wasn't quite the same," Gilligan said. "But it was enough to attract attention and to suggest that maybe the people that were running the state didn't quite know what they were doing."

Gilligan's biggest bipartisan success - getting Republicans to support the tax - was also his undoing. Less than halfway through his term, when an interviewer at the Ohio State Fair asked Gilligan if he was going to shear sheep, the governor replied: "Nope. I shear taxpayers, not sheep."

A bipartisan success was creating Ohio's state income tax? If that is true, we need MUCH LESS bipartisanship.

From the PD

Cuyahoga County commissioners want to dump their new touch-screen voting machines, which cost taxpayers $17 million, and get another system in time for the 2008 presidential election.

"Even though we have a substantial amount of money in it, we're considering scrapping the whole system," Commissioner Tim Hagan said.

Hagan and Commissioner Jimmy Dimora said the county can't afford to spend $14 million to run every election the way they did the Nov. 7 general election. Commissioners threw millions of dollars to the Board of Elections for poll worker training, consultants and extra machines.

Wait, we thought this election ran smoothly.� Do we really need another screw up?

From the PD

Wulsin, 53, got little help from national Democrats until after polls in the final weeks showed her running close to Schmidt. She said after the election that Schmidt was vulnerable and that she could have won with more help.

Run every year, you'll never do this well again.�

VikingSpirit blog received an email from the NRSC asking supporters to help them get out of debt.

So let me get this straight… They spent almost a $1 million defeating Lincoln Chafee's conservative primary challenger. And that is almost a million dollars that could have been spent to to keep the majority in the Senate by helping candidates in close races… namely Conrad Burns or (former Presidential contender) George Allen.

They lost the majority, and now they want help? No thanks.

Also, any dollar that is given to the NRSC could be a dollar they would spend against whatever candidate runs against Senator Voinovich in the primary.

I was curious about how this bleached blonde mafia-connected shopping mall heiress was getting away with so much carpetbagging.

As the Paindealer Blog points out, she is in violation of the law:

From The Ohio Secretary of State website

Term:
Senator: Four years (OH Const. Art. II, �2)
Representative: Two years (OH Const. Art. II, �2)
Qualifications
Residency Requirement:
Must be a resident of the district for one year immediately preceding the election, unless absent on the public business of the United States or of this State, and be a registered elector. (OH Const. Art. II, �3, Art. XV, �4, R.C. 3.15)

Yet Capri Cafaro just ran in a Congressional primary this spring as a resident of Sheffield Village, Ohio which is about an hour away from her new and original district.

Clearly she has not been a resident of Trumbull or Ashtabula county since November 2005 as the state constitution requires. Therefor she should not be sworn in this January.

But since Ted Strickland brazenly ignored residency requirements, maybe Democrats are confident that residency requirements don't really matter.

And just think, she is more qualified than Baby Wilson.

From Vindy.com

Here's a sampling of the comments posted on Vindy.com in response to last week's column, which can be accessed on the web site:

"She will move anywhere in Ohio or the USA where there is a State, or Congressional seat open with either no opposition or awaiting appointment from the local minions, or morons, take your pick.

"I'll bet she always has her suitcase packed and Daddy's jet warmed up just to dash off and buy a seat in some legislature. Truly pathetic, however, the local Dumbassocrats will probably appoint her to Dann's open seat. And you wonder why this area is the laughing stock of the country??????

"Qualifications????? Pleeeeese. I've got stuff in my refrigerator older than she is, and smarter too. She has ZERO qualifications to run ANYTHING, let alone represent us in the Statehouse or Congress." €”? Politico.

"Personally, I will resist the temptation to throw the mud. All I will say is that she is 0-2 in general elections, meaning voters in 2 cases decided she is NOT fit to represent them, no matter the money she is associated with.

"SSDD here in the Mahoning Valley. Grease enough palms and you get what you want.

"The funniest (or most pathetic) aspect to this whole story is Dann's own campaign signs: 'HE WILL END THE CORRUPTION!'

"Yeah, right." €”? Fed up.

"Want to see something hilarious? Go to Capri's web site and watch her video. She has an 'audience' and takes questions. The questions are obviously being asked by her minions and geared to answer her detractions.

"One 'questioner' is shown posing with her in a photo on a different day at another function." €”? Slinger.

"I think that the column that Bert wrote is right on target. The quotes that he uses should be used against her if she seeks (an) appointment. If she runs and gets elected, then that is fine. She should not get a appointment by the party." €”? Marauder.

AND REMEMBER

that 10 years ago, Capri Cafaro was a registered Republican.

Bill Cunningham talked about this article on his show (Here is the audio):

A former GOP fundraiser who embezzled from a state investment in rare coins must repay the state $13.7 million, a judge ruled Monday.

Tom Noe, 52, was sentenced last week to 18 years in prison in a scandal that contributed to the Republican Party's loss of the governor's office. Noe also owes the state almost $3 million for the cost of the investigation, Lucas County Judge Thomas Osowik said.

Some of the money Noe owes could come from the sale of artwork, autographs and other collectibles seized from Noe's coin business. Part will come from his shares of a Florida coin business, which is worth $1 million to $5 million.

The scandal surrounding the $50 million investment that Noe managed for the Bureau of Workers' Compensation culminated this month with Democrats winning a U.S. Senate seat and four of five key statewide offices after 12 years of Republican rule.

Less than a week after the election, Noe was convicted of theft, corrupt activity, money laundering, forgery and tampering with records.

Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro is seeking to restart a civil lawsuit against Noe to try to recover money that he says Noe took from the workers' comp agency and could exceed $13.7 million, spokesman Mark Anthony said.

"Far and away, the lion share of the money is owed to BWC," Anthony said.

The civil lawsuit most likely will attempt to recover potential profits the agency lost out on, Anthony said. "That's another figure that hasn't been determined," he said.

The lawsuit also will help determine where any of the money will go, Lucas County assistant prosecutor John Weglian said.

The company selling off the coin funds could bring in about $56 million - more than the state's original $50 million investment - once all sales are finished next year, said Bill Brandt, president of Chicago-based Development Specialists Inc.

So, Tom Noe's coin investments, after all of this criminal activity, will earn a 12% return.