#1: The Ohio Right to Life Caucus Training in Columbus (10 am)

#2: The Ohioans for Concealed Carry picnic, with special guest (gag!) Ted Strickland. (lunch at 11:30 am, but you don’t have to buy lunch and can show up later in they day.)

It is important to note that these events overlap.

And does it show how out of touch the Franklin County GOP is with the conservative movement to have their heavily promoted “Door to Door Blitz” on the same day and time as these two events? If they, for example, scheduled this “blitz” for 3pm-5pm, they would still be knocking on doors at a reasonable time of day and still make it back home for the 8pm OSU football game. (But why would any Republican want to help out Paul “I want to raise your taxes.” Bingle anyway?)

From Bill Rush in The Dispatch:

“I guess they got what they wanted,” state Rep. Bill Seitz said of the lobbyists representing the three-tier industries. “All in all, it was a rather clear attempt to prefer the Ohio wine-producing industry and to protect the incumbent wholesale wine (distributors) against any erosion” in profits.

But Seitz questioned whether the federal courts will be satisfied with the new law. It’s arbitrary to treat vintners differently based on whether they produce more or less than 150,000 gallons a year, said Seitz, a Republican from Cincinnati.

Rush also reports that Matt Dolan continues to say that no only was he unaware that the budget helped an industry which has donated thousands to his campaign, but they were TOO BUSY to hold hearings on such matters anyway. As the Church Lady might say, “How convenient!”

Related Post: The Corrupt Wholesale Beer and Wine Association (Alternative Title: “Was Matt Dolan Drunk When Reading the Budget?”)

From the PD (The story is about keeping seniors in the state through tax incentives)

The Republicans

It is as important to keep older Ohioans with money in the state to spend or donate their investment income, Ohio Sen. Steve Stivers said. The Columbus Republican introduced a bill in May to eliminate taxes on unearned income for those age 65 and older.

Stivers said his measure is not aimed at the wealthy but he does not want to set an income cap.

“The seniors who are the most mobile are the seniors with the most money and a cap would drive people that generate a lot of economic activity out of Ohio,” he said.

The Democrats

“They have to balance the budget, and if they start giving money away, they have to cut some other service,” said Zach Schiller, research director of Policy Matters, a Cleveland nonprofit research group. “A significant portion of the [property tax] exemption is going to upper-income seniors who really don’t need this kind of tax relief.”

“Any state that provides universal senior tax breaks is going to see the cost of those breaks grow astronomically over the next couple decades,” Gardner said about Ohio’s new property tax reduction. “From a long-term revenue perspective, what Ohio did this year is maybe not the smartest thing.”

From The Intelligencer:

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland is proposing that the state enact a law requiring that at least 25 percent of the energy used in the state must come from “renewable” sources by 2025. Like most social engineering schemes, this one risks being costly for the public. And, because energy is a commodity — we need it to heat and light our homes, operate our stores and factories and drive our cars and trucks — the cost of Strickland’s proposal could fall disproportionately on lower- and middle-income Ohioans.

That is because higher-income families have more discretionary income. Those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder spend more, proportionately, on energy.

Such mandates are as scary as the recently proposed energy bill, which calls for “fair and reasonable rates” for electricity. Government, with regulations and mandates, can only create shortages or increase prices- And the best thing they could do in both situations is to do absolutely nothing.

The kook-lefty group Progress Ohio, along with the so-called “Ohio Fair Schools” Campaign, is having a competition to create a catchy billboard slogan to promote public schools. I suppose that when you are unable to provide an adequate classical education, you have to resort to marketing and catch-phrases. Click here for the details of the competition.

Here are my submissions. I hope Mr. Rothenberg approves, and I can’t wait to see some of these on large billboards across Ohio:

Feel free to publish your submissions in the comments.

RAB’s original super-star, Pete Draganic, is back in action!!

Yes, he is.

Yesterday, I posted that Bob “I voted for Bob Taft’s sales tax increase” Latta, candidate for the 5th congressional district, placed a vote which calls his pro-life credentials into question. Judging from the comments, I struck a nerve.

Today, I want to point out one more reason why I question Bob Latta’s pro-life credentials.

Read more »

Joe Hallett reports on the passing on Roger Tracy here.

From Ken Blackwell’s latest column on Townhall.com, “Locked and Loaded”:

The 2008 GOP presidential primary is shaping up to be the most competitive nominating process the party has seen in decades. It is also the most frontloaded.

Candidates are fighting it out in the constantly expanding pool of “early primary” states and hoping to make it to Super Tuesday. With nearly two dozen states up for grabs on that first Tuesday in February, the eventual nominee can close the deal with GOP voters then and there.

To get there, however, a candidate will need to lock down a key constituency.

Click here to read the rest of Ken’s column.

From The Style Guy:

If I were advising Kucinich I would put him in dark suits and white shirts and dark narrow ties. Actually, I would dress him exactly like Ralph Nader. His haircut is fairly important, because his ears give him a distinctively elfin appearance. This is not all bad, as elves are empowered to grant wishes, but if his ears look too pointy he tends to look extraterrestrial—possibly Vulcan, like Mr. Spock, with whom he shares a fondness for logic.

Make sure to read this post from Musings of an Ohio Farmer.

I’ll have more on Latta’s questionable positions on abortion later tonight, but for right now, I wanted to start with this.

I think it is important to start with the fact that Steve Buehrer and Bob Latta have a track record of defending the unborn. However, it is interesting that Bob Latta voted in favor of mandatory chickenpox vaccinations. I don’t think anyone supports chickenpox, but the vaccines raise a serious moral question: Is it ok for aborted fetal tissues to be used in its production, and force children to get the vaccine? Buehrer said no, Latta said yes.

I was an employee at the Ohio House at the time and sat through the debates over this issue. And even though the Ohio Right to Life was indifferent on this specific issue, the pro-life position here is that it is immoral, and should be illegal, to use parts of aborted children to be used in vaccines. And it is even worse to force all children to get the vaccines, regardless of their parents wishes and morals.

Why is this important? Because even though abortion should be a state issue, activist judges via awful opinions have made abortion a federal issue. And, I would think that pro-lifers would rather vote for a candidate for the US House who is ALWAYS pro-life, instead of just usually so. Buehrer has gone out of his way to stand up for pro-life principles, while Latta seems to have been rather indifferent. And I’m sure Latta is a great guy, but I don’t think any parent wants him to become their children’s new parent.

I’ll have much more to say about Latta soon… It is becoming obvious that, in the primary race for the 5th congressional district, Latta is the Jim Petro-like candidate.

Well, maybe not drunk with alcohol… but Mr. Cleveland Indians and Democrat-turned-Republican Matt Dolan may have been drunk with campaign contributions from the Beer and Wine Association. From the PD:

Columbus- Jack West likes a nice bottle of California wine now and then. For the last few years, the Chagrin Falls man has belonged to the Merryvale Vineyards’ wine club, which ships him four bottles every couple of months.

But beginning Monday, because of a new state law lobbied for by the state’s powerful Wholesale Beer and Wine Association, West’s shipments will stop. And so will deliveries for thousands of other Ohioans who order wine from out of state.

That’s because a provision was slipped into the state budget without public debate that will ban direct shipping to Ohioans from wineries producing over 150,000 gallons a year - roughly 63,000 cases. The more than 100 Ohio wineries all fall under that threshold, according to the Ohio Wine Producers Association.

“We’re talking about four bottles every two months,” said West. “We’re not bringing it in by the truckload; that’s what makes the whole thing so ridiculous. Someone pulled a fast one here.”

But one of the main architects of the budget said the ban, which was added in the Senate Finance Committee this spring, wasn’t what he meant to do.

“It was not supposed to apply to consumers,” Rep. Matthew Dolan, a Russell Township Republican and chairman of the House Finance Committee, said Tuesday. “When it came back from the Senate, I probably didn’t read it as closely as I should have.”

The the PD adds this important fact:

Ohio’s Wholesale Beer and Wine Association is a big donor to the state’s elected officials. During the first six months of 2007, the group’s political action committee gave $91,350 to Ohio politicians, including $4,000 to Dolan, a candidate to become Ohio’s next House speaker.

I think this shows you how seriously awful it is to have the state have so much control over alcohol.

For $91,350, a political organization was able to PURCHASE LEGISLATION, which will make it more difficult and more expensive for wine drinkers to order certain types of wines.

And golly gee- This isn’t the first time that the folks at the Beer and Wine association. Remember Andy “80 large” Herf from the Householder years?

From Ted Wendling and Sandy Theis in the Plain Dealer (February 26, 2004):

Rewards and punishment

More troubling to some than the House speaker’s meddling in Senate affairs are Householder’s fund-raising tactics.

Ned Hill, professor of economic development at Cleveland State University, said concerns about Householder’s fund-raising methods have been festering for years.

“In early fall, I was in Columbus in a roomful of lobbyists who were expressing extreme frustration about the aggressive fund-raising tactics on the part of Larry Householder,” Hill said.

The lobbyists decided to remain silent, Hill said, fearing that the speaker would punish them - just as he publicly has punished House members who criticized him.

In August 2002, Householder retaliated against House members critical of him by stripping them of all committee assignments or transferring them to less-favorable ones.

Until recently, Grendell was an outspoken critic of Householder and his supporters.

During a tape-recorded interview with The Plain Dealer last summer, Grendell complained that Householder allowed campaign contributions to influence at least one major policy question in the state budget: Which taxes should be raised?

At the time, Grendell opposed the governor’s plan to help erase a projected deficit through higher taxes on beer, wine and cigarettes.

When the speaker announced that the taxes lacked support in the House, Grendell said he initially believed that his criticisms had had an impact.

Then he spoke to Andy Herf, lobbyist for the Wholesale Beer & Wine Association of Ohio.

“I asked the question, ‘What did it cost to get the beer and wine tax out? How much money did you give the speaker?’ ” Grendell recalled.

Herf replied: “Eighty large.”

“I said, ‘Pardon me?’ ” Grendell said.

“He said, ‘Eighty grand.’ So it was my understanding that . . . 80 grand was the price of keeping the beer and wine taxes out” of the budget bill, Grendell said.

So it wasn’t too long ago that the Wholesale Beer and Wine Association was able to buy from corrupt former Speaker of the House Larry Householder an exemption for beer and wine sales in the 2004 tax increase. And now, the same group is doing it’s best to make sure you have fewer choices and pay more for your wine.

The State of Ohio should stop controlling the sale of wine, and the prices should be set at market rates… not government rates. The Wholesale Beer and Wine Association do plenty of good by supporting conservative Republicans, but we must remember that they are only involved in politics for their own self interest. The WBWA must be kept from being able to buy legislation from Larry Householder, Matt Dolan, or anyone else.

Buckeye State Blog attacked me yesterday for arguing that it was the courts, and not the US Constitution, which granted the right to indigents to have their legal services paid for. Click here to read it.

Yesterday, I argued that it isn’t a constitutional right and that those who commit crimes that are eligible for the death penalty shouldn’t have their legal services paid for. That is simply my public policy position. I probably shouldn’t have deleted my post, but I didn’t have time yesterday to defend myself. Today, I do.

However, in a weak attempt to try to refute what I said, Buckeye State Blog posted the 6th Amendment:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.

However,the right to assistance of counsel is NOT the same as the right to have that assistance paid for on the taxpayer dime.

In fact, it wasn’t until the US Supreme Court, in Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), that the US Supreme Court provided this “right” to defendants, and, in an act of judicial activism, said that this amendment provides legal counsel, for free, to those who can’t afford it. In addition, it was through the Court’s interpretation that the Bill of Rights applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, that the states had to provide counsel at state expense in all criminal prosecutions in state courts.

Before that case, it wasn’t a right. There are examples of where federal law did provide for the appointment of counsel in capital cases as early as 1790, but the law certainly didn’t extend to all criminal cases.

Also, it appears that this seminal case in this area is Powell v. Alabama, a 1932 Supreme Court case. The Court wrote, “we are of opinion that, under the circumstances just stated, the necessity of counsel was so vital and imperative that the failure of the trial court to make an effective appointment of counsel was likewise a denial of due process within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. Whether this would be so in other criminal prosecutions, or under other circumstances, we need not determine. All that it is necessary now to decide, as we do decide, is that in a capital case, where the defendant is unable to employ counsel, and is incapable adequately of making his own defense because of ignorance, feeble-mindedness, illiteracy, or the like, it is the duty of the court, whether requested or not, to assign counsel for him as a necessary requisite of due process of law * * *.” 287 U.S. 45, 71.

So as you can see, the right to free counsel is a right granted by the courts. I’m correct, and Buckeye State Blog is wrong. The end.

From the The Western Star

COLUMBUS — — The American Bar Association on Monday said Ohio fully meets only four of 93 standards the ABA developed to measure whether a state’s death penalty system is thorough and just, and called on Gov. Ted Strickland to temporarily halt executions until the problems are fixed.

“After the governor and his legal team have an opportunity to review the report, he’ll have an opportunity to respond to the findings,” said his press secretary, Keith Dailey.

Who will the Governor listen to?

Sen. Steve Austria (R-Beavercreek) fund-raiser, San Francisco Oven, 75 E. State St., Columbus, 5 p.m.

Rep. Jim Hughes (R-Columbus) fund-raiser, Suite 450, 107 S. High St., Columbus, 5:30 p.m. ($250; Event hosted by Jim Petro…. and no, I won’t be going!)

Sen. Sue Morano (D-Lorain) fund-raiser, Jimmy V’s, 912 S. High St., Columbus, 5:30 p.m. ($300)

House Democratic Caucus fund-raiser, Confluence Park Restaurant, 679 W. Long St., Columbus, 5:30 p.m. ($500 per person)

From AG Marc Dann’s office:

Attorney General Marc Dann’s statement regarding the Facebook social networking Web site:

As I have made clear, those running Web sites that are marketed to children and teen-agers had better do so responsibly. If Web sites put our children at risk, I will pursue every available avenue to stop them.

For the past month, my staff has been investigating the Facebook Web site, culminating in a meeting last week with representatives of Facebook and several attorneys general’s offices.

At that meeting, I expressed serious concerns about the current availability of inappropriate material on Facebook, as well as the dangers of sexual predators seeking out children on the site. At the same time, I also expressed my hope that we could work with Facebook to seek creative solutions to protect our children.

As my staff continues to work on these issues, it is my hope that Facebook will take immediate steps to address the concerns expressed at our meeting.

If we are going after websites which harbor sex offenders, Dann should look no farther than Buckeye State Blog.

But in all seriousness, as a friend asked me, what’s to keep Marc Dann from labeling a visit to Buckeye State Blog as a consumer transaction, and the content to be so inherently deceptive that it would constitute a consumer fraud? Or since he dislikes RAB more, couldn’t he do the same to this site?

Listen to Columbus mayoral candidate Bill Todd’s new radio ad here.

Here is the link for the new blog at the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s site. It’s authors include Tom from Bizzyblog.com, Dave from Nixguy.com, and a couple of long-winded libs.

I’m glad they are being paid for their efforts- but I wonder, are they part of the paper’s union? If so, they should stay on board until the PD offers them a Wendling-sized buyout package!

Good luck to Dave and Tom with their new gig. And I especially hope that Tom continues to use this new platform to blast away at Teddicare.

I was busy last Thursday and Friday, so I didn’t get a chance to respond to this nonsense over at Buckeye State Blog, where Jerid accused the Buckeye Institute of “coordinating” their efforts with the Bill Todd campaign for Mayor of Columbus:

First, a quick lesson on 501(c)(3)’s. These organizations are tax exempt because the majority of them are public charities - churches, community organizations, etc. Many organizations with a political lobbying fronts will incorporate at 501(c)(3)’s under certain political restrictions. Among them, these organizations can conduct issue advocacy and many other political activities, but they are expressly prohibited from expressly advocating for a political candidate, or coordinating with political electoral campaigns.

Yesterday I chronicled how they’re throwing a big bash this morning to express their discontent with the state of Ohio schools (unlike regular advocates, they’re advocating for schemes that encourage privatization of schools). Normally, activities like these issue campaigns would be perfectly acceptable under regular tax law as simple issue advocacy. However, it appears that these activities may be coordinated with the Bill Todd campaign’s message calendar.

First of all, the report from the Buckeye Institute is about the ENTIRE state of Ohio, not just Columbus. And the issue at hand is that Ohio’s public schools are not equally funded and the achievement gaps between students at different schools are very wide.

From the Buckeye Institute’s detailed policy analysis:

The data analysis suggest that, across the state of Ohio, high-poverty districts are not distributing funds among schools in a way that reaches the neediest students. The two correlations are summarized in Chart 5. The correlation is fairly strong between the “should have received” amounts (which reflect state policy to reduce inequity) and student enrollment. For example, in 80% of the sampled districts, the correlation was 0.7 or higher. In 93% of districts there was at least a minimal positive correlation.

The results for the “Actual Spending” analysis were very different. In only 59% of the districts was there any sort of positive correlation (0.00 or higher), meaning that in 41% of districts— more than 2 out of every 5—there was a neutral or even negative correlation between actual spending and high-need enrollment. A correlation of 0.4 or higher is considered moderate or strong.20 Only 27% of districts in the sample had a correlation that strong. This means that only slightly more than one-fourth of the high-poverty school districts in the state appear to be spending money based primarily on the needs of students.[…]

However, fault for this situation does not lie primarily with the state, but with school districts. The equity created by the state funding formula is contravened by significant inequity in how these districts allocate resources to their individual schools. Although some may argue that the current K-12 education finance method uses weighted student funding, a more accurate term would be weighted-district funding. As this study shows, it is districts that are funded based on student characteristics, not schools, and certainly not individual students. That these high poverty districts would sue the state claiming that their students are short-changed is hypocritical at best, for it is the districts that are misallocating the money.

As you can see, the Buckeye Institute surveyed all Ohio school districts, and discovers the alarming fact that school systems, such as in Columbus and Cleveland, are not properly funding those schools when their students are truly in need. And these inequities in funding open the door for lawsuits, which is exactly what Bill Todd is doing in Brown V. Board of Education. (That link goes to the blog post that Jerid said DISAPPEARED!)

Just to review: Jerid is trying to make the case that it is illegal for a think tank to release a report that becomes part of the public policy debate and was used by a candidate to defend his position in court. That is a silly claim, and Jerid is simply a partisan, mental midget trying to throw pebbles at an organization which doesn’t agree with his collectivist world view.

I wonder what Jerid thought when the Center for Community Solutions, during the 2006 primary, focused their efforts on attacking Ken Blackwell’s Tax and Expenditure Limitation Amendment? This was a tax-exempted organization directly taking a political position against a partisan issue. Were they violating the law too? Or does that not matter, because Jerid doesn’t like the concept of a TEL amendment?

Or what about Progress Ohio? They have fewer restrictions against what they can and cannot do, but I wonder if the IRS would be curious about their close ties to the Mary Jo Kilroy campaign?

In the end, I’m not worried about Jerid’s opinions. But I am concerned for the reputation of Case Western Reserve University’s law school, as they accepted a moron who doesn’t understand that a 501c3 think tank is certainly allowed to study Ohio’s education system, report it’s findings, and have those findings used by policy makers and politicians.

Better luck next time, Jerid.