I have heard from 4 different qualified sources that Marc Dann intern or secretary who met the Ohio AG in a bar and later bragged on her MySpace page about having sexual relations with Dann. The words have since been removed from her page.

More details to come soon. I wonder what Marc Dann’s wife and family think about this news? Could a divorce already be in the works?

Update at 4:55 pm: Early speculation is that the woman in question is Jessica Utovich, Marc Dann’s scheduler. Jessica is also Second Vice President of the Ohio Young Democrats and is 28 years old. Also, apparently Dann tries to be quite a ladies man and Tom Winters, Ohio’s First Assistant Attorney General, works as his wing man when cruising for chicks.

Update at 5:15 pm: I spoke directly with Jessica today and she refused to comment and said she “wouldn’t dignify [my question] with an answer.” She referred me to their communications office. I must say that is an unusual, guarded way to respond if this rumor isn’t true. But on second thought, I would be guarded at all times too if I worked in the PR land mine field known as the Ohio Attorney General’s office.

Update at 6:25 pm: Jerid lectures me about journalistic integrity. HAHA

From the PD

Paris - President Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday blamed this week’s rioting in the Paris suburbs on “thugocracy” and said the violence would not be rewarded by dumping taxpayers’ money into the troubled neighborhoods.

“I reject the kind of naive, wishful thinking that makes every delinquent a victim of society, and every riot a social problem,” Sarkozy said. “What happened in Villiers-le-Bel has nothing to do with a social crisis and everything to do with thugocracy.

“The correct answer to riots is not more taxpayers’ money,” he said in a speech to hundreds of police officers at a conference. “The correct response is to arrest the rioters.”

I haven’t talked about last night’s CNN Youtube debate because I knew how awful things get when you combine youtube morons with the Clinton News Network. Beyond the homosexual general Hillary Clinton plant which Anderson Cooper probably knew about and and set up (the issue is one Anderson cares about, for obvious reasons) was absurd, the other plants were videos of questions which shouldn’t have been asked anyway, and that is 2 hours of my life I want back.

However, I loved Fred Thompson’s attack ad, which, in reply Anderson responded, “Fred, What’s up with that?” Here is the extended version:

Former Illinois Congressman Henry Hyde Died today. May he rest in peace.

For those of you who do not know, there are about 1,000,000 Americans alive today thanks to Rep. Hyde:

He will be most remembered for the Hyde Amendment. First passed in 1976, when Hyde was new to Washington, it bans the public funding of abortions though Medicaid. The year before it passed, the federal government had financed 300,000 abortions for low-income women. Afterward, this number dropped essentially to zero — the women either found another way to pay for their abortions or chose life for their unborn children. The National Right to Life Committee has estimated, conservatively, that the Hyde Amendment has prevented at least one million abortions. That’s one million Americans who are alive today because of Henry Hyde.

Please read that paragraph again, because I think it is difficult to visualize just how incredible of an achievement that truly is.

From Dan Williamson:

Brad Sinnott, chairman of the Franklin County Republican Central Committee, thinks he knows how to resuscitate his dying party.

It can’t be saved by himself or Doug Preisse, the party’s chairman, or Steve Stivers, its much-hyped congressional candidate, or even Dewey Stokes, who might run for county commissioner again.

To rescue the Columbus Republicans, Sinnott is counting on a thin-skinned, cross-dressing, thrice-married New Yorker who is disliked by his own children.

“There’s no question but that Rudy Giuliani, if he’s the nominee, redefines in the popular mind what it means to be a Republican,” Sinnott said this week.

The Franklin County GOP isn’t endorsing in the presidential race, but it’s clear who the local party is rooting for this winter.

For local Republicans, the best thing about Giuliani is he isn’t George Bush.

“What happens in modern politics is that the two parties redefine themselves every four years by who they choose to be the top of the ticket for a presidential year,” Sinnott said. “The fact that we are about to choose a new party leader could be very hopeful to state and local Republicans in 2008.”[…]

Probably what Sinnott likes about Giuliani is the same thing culturally conservative Republicans don’t like about him.

He isn’t very religious. He hangs out with gay people. He has a record of supporting abortion rights, gun control and liberal immigration policies. He himself is a swing voter, having very publicly endorsed the re-election of Democratic Gov. Mario Cuomo in 1994.

So, there you have it. In the county which I live, the party of Goldwater and Reagan is the party of open borders, gun control, “abortion rights”, Mario Cuomo, and buggery.

When the Brad Sinnott/Rockefeller/Christine Todd Whitman wing of the GOP ran the show, Republicans were a small minority in Congress for many years. Republicans win majorities when they campaign on Republican principles, and Sinnott is a moron for sharing his liberalism with Dan.

In a questionnaire to the Anderson Township Republican Club, Rep. Schmidt said “no.” Click here for details.

From the PD:

The records tell many half-stories.

They show that somebody stole the foundry wages Perry B. Jackson saved to attend Adelbert College.

They don’t tell how Jackson managed to enter anyway. They merely show that he worked his way through college as a hat checker, busboy and waiter, and that he graduated with high honors in 1919.

A bust of Jackson, who went on to become Ohio’s first black judge, will be unveiled Thursday at his law school, now part of Case Western Reserve University.

Read the rest of the post from the Plain Dealer, you will find that the liberal newspaper doesn’t mention that Judge Jackson is a Republican. I suppose a Republican has to be deeply involved in scandal for his party affiliation to matter to the PD.

From whiotv.com

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The administration of Gov. Ted Strickland said Tuesday the state faces a $3.5 billion shortfall in funding for proposed new highway projects previously approved for construction.

In its 2008-2009 Business Plan, the Ohio Department of Transportation said the shortfall was prompting by rising construction costs.The combined rate of construction cost increases from 2004 to 2007 was 40.7 percent.The report stated costs went up due to “unprecedented rising costs of oil, increased demand for steel and raw materials in the global economy and the lingering effects of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.”Ohio Department of Transportation spokesman Scott Varner said the administration is not calling for an increase in the gas tax, the main source of revenue for the department.

However they are spending money on the following from wtov9.com

The sign welcoming drivers into Virginia has an image of the state bird and the state flower, but it does not have the name of the current governor, and therefore never has to be updated.

Both Ohio and West Virginia welcome signs have been recently updated with the new governor’s name or a new state slogan.Pete Sepp of the Washington-based National Taxpayers’ Union doesn’t understand why states would spend money to do that.”Common sense suggests that you’re not going to see the name or even remember then name of the governor welcoming you as you go by the sign at 60 mph,” said Sepp.

The Ohio Department of Transportation maintains 34 large signs across the state.ODOT placed a placard with the names of Gov. Ted Strickland and Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher on those signs at a cost of $1,400.ODOT installed six new signs at a cost of $7,000 after Strickland’s inauguration.The total cost of the project: $8,400.

Wise words from the Professor about Marc Dann’s bigoted email.

Dann’s office was unable to do a background check to find out that Rick R. Houze, who was paid $90,000 a year as the director of Dann’s internal audit section, lied on his resume about being a CPA. And Dann clearly didn’t do a background check on his driver, David L. Nelson, because that former driver is a convicted killer! And not to mention Rick Alli, Dann’s former “top cop” who was still drawing a paycheck from his job at the Youngstown Police Department. All of these employees held their jobs until the MSM did the background checks that Dann should have had done BEFORE hiring these morons.

But apparently, Dann thinks his background checks are so valuable that he is willing to increase the fees for them!

Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann wants a nearly 50 percent increase in the fee employers pay to have state background checks done on job candidates. Raising the price from $15 to $22 would provide the state with up to $7 million in extra revenue, which Dann says would allow his office to hire more staff to handle the screening.

Aren’t fee increases just another Democrat tax increase on businesses?

If I was an employer trying to judge if an applicant for a job didn’t have a questionable background, I would feel safer with a quick google search and a flip of a coin than I ever could with Ohio’s incompetent Attorney General.

I doubt Chuck Norris would approve.

Also, for more about why conservatives should be nervous about Huckabee, check out this article from The Economist. From foolish rhetoric about “price gouging”, class warfare, and protectionism, Huck frequently sounds more like a Democrat. And he certainly has strong enough support in many Protestant circle to possibly split the vote and give the nomination to pro-abortion Rudy Giuliani. He also gets the far-left Mother Jones crowd excited.

And make sure to read Bob Novak’s column from today about why Mike Huckabee is a “false conservative.”

From the PD

Cuyahoga County Commissioners Chairman Tim Hagan - known by his detractors as Taxin’ Tim - has no qualms about putting the screws to county vendors in his quest to raise money for a campaign to pass a tax for health and human services next year. “They’re not contributing to me, pal. I’m asking for a corporate contribution for a levy to help kids in this town,” said Hagan. “These people all get contracts; contribute to the damn campaign. I’m not shaking them down for me.”

Hagan said there has been some grumbling from vendors who’ve said he’s putting the arm on them for contributions. But he is shocked by anyone who doesn’t give.

“Who should we ask? The poor?” he said.

Hagan said the campaign needs to raise $600,000 and has commitments for about $400,000. But some vendors lag. Hagan was careful to say he’s not making a threat, not vowing to blackball those who don’t give. Just calling them out.

From Ken Blackwell’s latest column on Townhall.com, “Gun Rights and Presidential Politics”:

The debate over individual gun rights just has become a front line issue in the 2008 presidential campaign. The United States Supreme Court decision to hear arguments on District of Columbia v. Heller, the D.C. gun ban case, guarantees it.

In the District of Columbia, it is a crime to have a handgun. It also is a crime to have shotguns or rifles unless they are unloaded and disabled. Ordinary people cannot have a gun, even in their own homes.

Read the rest of Ken’s column here.

From the PD

Acworth, N.H. — Call it the liberal-libertarian ticket, where left meets right and Democrat Dennis Kucinich picks Republican Ron Paul to be his vice president.

Kucinich, the Cleveland congressman running in a longshot bid to become president, suggested it himself Sunday.

“I’m thinking about Ron Paul” as a running mate, Kucinich told a crowd of about 70 supporters at a house party here, one of numerous stops throughout New Hampshire over the Thanksgiving weekend. A Kucinich-Paul administration could bring people together “to balance the energies in this country,” Kucinich said.

Paul Ackerman, formerly of Buckeye State Blog fame before getting in a sissy-slap fight with Jerid (details can be found here) is running for the Ohio State House. Here is his campaign website.

Next to this guy, I don’t look quite so bloggerish.

I saw this video on The O’Reilly factor last week, and some lefty blogs have posted the video saying that Naomi won this short debate. But I’m not so sure of that…

Naomi Wolf has gone from dressing up Al Gore during the 2000 campaign in “earth tones” to now comparing Guantanamo Bay (with 3 religiously-sensitive meals per day, free prayer rugs, health care, et cetera) to Soviet gulags (starvation and harsh physical labor), and argues that terrorists should have access to the judicial system. She can’t be serious, can she? Does she want them to be read their Miranda rights when captured on the battlefield, too?

And since when is the press restricted? Some of America’s most closely guarded secrets are frequently printed in the New York Times and most MSM reporters discuss the War on Terror with a strong anti-America bias and with no repercussions for doing so. I would gladly support a new Sedition Act during times of war, but President Bush has never even remotely hinted at making such a proposal.

I think Kasich was right to dismiss Naomi’s over the top, Bush=Hitler rhetoric. Kasich is a polite fellow and even explains why he thinks Wolf is a “nice person”, but the truth is that she has a serious case of BDS. If the Naomi Wolfs of the world ran the federal government, how would we ever win a war?

From William Hershey:

COLUMBUS — Attorney General Marc Dann issued a press release Friday with a tip sheet for holiday shoppers, including a phone number for a help center where callers can register complaints about shopping problems.

There was a problem with the tip sheet, however – the number was for a sex hot line:

“Hot girls love phone sex, too…” the message began.

Jim Gravelle, a Dann assistant communications director, said it was a mistake and a correction was issued.

This must be why records show that AG Marc Dann’s former spokesbabe, Jennifer Brindisi, was hired at the unusual rate of $3.99/minute.

But in all seriousness, would Democrats have voted for Marc Dann if they would have known that, in his first year, he would sell his former Ohio Senate seat to the mafia, hire a killer as his driver, hire a double-dipping Youngstown police department employee as Ohio’s “top cop”, swear at a reporter on camera, lose a major battle in court for his trial lawyer friends who wanted to sue paint manufacturers, use a public email account to spew bigoted anti-Christian rhetoric, paint ridiculous flames on his car, and direct elderly callers who wish to register complaints to a phone sex hotline? Marc Dann is pathetic, sloppy and undignified.

From epluribus media

Former Democratic Ohio Congressman Ted Strickland, when running for governor last year, gave assurances that if elected governor he would work to restore dental coverage to thousands of low-income, Medicaid-eligible adults Republicans, two years earlier, had excluded from coverage during tight budget times and to raising reimbursement rates to health service provides like dentists and doctors.

Meanwhile, another recent indicator of Ohio employee confidence in the health of their state shows that it has fallen to its lowest level since July.

But now, as the first Democratic governor in 16 years, Strickland, himself a poor boy from Appalachia in southern Ohio, said the dramatic increase in Medicaid cases over the past three months, and the costs associated with that increase which could amount to as much as $65 million over the course of a year, now prevent him from making good on his campaign commitment to turn around Ohio by turning around a decision by former Republican Gov. Bob Taft that showed how un-compassionate a conservative he was to Ohio’s growing low-income population.

Meanwhile, another recent indicator of Ohio employee confidence in the health of their state shows that it has fallen to its lowest level since July.

Isn’t this double from the 1% he earned in 04? Read the poll HERE.

It is rumored that former State Representative and former Cuyahoga County GOP Chairman Jim Trakas will run for Congress in the 10th District against Dennis Kucinich. Stay tuned for more details!