From the Dispatch

In a stunning step back from his yearlong campaign to persuade Ohioans to amend the constitution to limit government spending, Republican gubernatorial nominee J. Kenneth Blackwell yesterday said he would accept legislation that accomplishes the same goal.

They are going to call this a flip flop, but if Blackwell gets his way...does it matter how he accomplishes it?

From the PD

Such a move would allow Blackwell to shed the clumsily drafted local spending cap - trashed by elected officials from both parties - but boast that his proposed limit on state spending is picking up steam with lawmakers.

That sounds non-biased...right?

Cross posted at Lincoln Logs.

The Cincinnati Casino Amendment, which threatened to jeopardize the Learn and Earn program to provide college scholarships to Ohio high school students, was rejected by Attorney General Jim Petro today.

State law requires that a proposed initiated constitutional amendment contain at least one thousand signatures of qualified electors. The Cincinnati Casino Amendment only contained 893 certified signatures. Over half of the signatures submitted were rejected due to the petitioners’ failure to properly file the paperwork.

This is a big loss for Cincinnati Casino lobbyist Gerry Austin. Austin will now need to recollect one thousand signatures and file again for certification with the Attorney General. With the July deadline of over 322,899 signatures needed to place an amendment on the ballot approaching, Cincinnati officials may now decide to back the already certified Learn and Earn amendment.

The Ohio Learn & Earn amendment which will help bring nearly one billion dollars a year to Ohio children for college education and over $200 million in economic development has been approved by the Attorney General for circulation.

Scholarship dollars will be paid by revenue from slot machines at seven Ohio racetracks and two-downtown Cleveland locations. Unlike the lottery, all of the of the funds will be held by the Ohio Board of Regents in the Ohio Tuition Trust for use only by Ohio students bound for Ohio colleges or universities. The funds will be in each student's name and will be forever protected from misspending politicians and state regulators.

Starting with the graduating class of 2008, the top 5% of graduating seniors will receive a scholarship equal to the average tuition of the state universities in Ohio. This scholarship can be applied to any accredited Ohio public or private not-for-profit institution of higher learning, authorized by the Ohio Board of regents, and having its principal office within the state. The amendment requires that at least the top 5% (but they plan to gradually increase this percentage) of the graduating seniors receive scholarships in the first 12 years of the program. After the fund has matured, approximately 12 years, every student who has graduated from an Ohio public, private or charter high school will be eligible to receive the scholarship as long as they meet the minimum requirements for admission to the university or college.

Free college tuition for Ohio's high school graduates will be a tremendous benefit to Ohio's economy. It will relieve the burden of high tuition payments on parents as well as the stress of loan repayments for young professionals joining the work place, in turn creating more expendable income for investment and the purchase of local goods and services. It will reverse the effect of the "brain drain" in which young professionals are leaving the state. It will attract young families to the state increasing housing sales and new businesses. It will also create a more educated work force in Ohio, as eligible students will not be constrained from attending institutions of higher education due to financial difficulties.

Ohio Learn and Earn

Disclaimer: I am currently working as the Online Communications Director for the Ohio Learn and Earn Committee.

If you think you're going to teach the RINOs a lesson by not voting or voting "your conscience" (i.e. 3rd-party), read this article by Jim Geraghty at NRO, first. You might feel good until 7:30 PM on election night, but you'll hate yourself for the next 2-6 years and probably longer. I'm sure Sen. Brown (~shudder~) will send you a nice thank you tax hike for your trouble, though; right before the impeachment trial starts.

Here's the take home:

"Nice job, guys. Your effort to re-conservativize the Republican Party in Washington by staying home this year will have the effect of massacring the actual conservatives and empowering the moderates who you disdain. Perhaps we can call this counterproductive maneuver 'RINO-plasty.'"

Be careful what you wish for...

(promoted from the blogs section- RAB)

I guess this is "beat up on RINOs day", so for my first post I guess I'll join the merriment

Check out this poppycock rubbish audio from the Cleveland Fish Wrapper's blog

Lorain Mayor Craig Foltin, a Republican running for the 13th Congressional seat, sounded like a closet Democrat after his appearance with Vice President Dick Cheney today. Fielding questions from reporters, he said he complained to Cheney about the negative impact trade agreements are having on area jobs. He described himself as “not exactly a party-line kind of guy.” And Foltin nearly endorsed current 13th District Congressman Sherrod Brown, who’s running for the U.S. Senate against Republican Mike DeWine. Listen to Foltin talk about his meeting with Cheney and about Brown.

Audio- Foltin: Closet Democrat

Um, so let me get this straight. I live in Brunswick and I have the always obnoxious socialist space cadet, Sherrod Brown, who has never had a real job, as my Congressman. I think his ONLY accomplishment in the US House was sponsoring a bill to fight global tubicolous, or something silly like that.

Anywho, now I finally have a chance to vote for a Republican, and that Republican:

• Sings the praises of Sherrod
• Supports minimum wage hikes (and thus, supports discriminating against unskilled workers and enjoys hurting small businesses)
• hates free trade
• isn't a "party-line" guy (in the bad sense, instead of the good sense- like if he was more conservative than the GOP establishment.)

NOTE: Cross-posted to A Face Made 4 Radio, A Voice Made 4 the Internet.

It appears that the pro-abortion forces are not so far from Planned Parenthood's Margaret Sanger after all.

From National Review Online:

Judicial Watch's report on the topic has a lot of eye-opening information, but the letter from Ron Weddington, the co-counsel on Roe v. Wade, to President-elect Bill Clinton is especially worth checking out. It's on pages 61-64.

A sampling:

[Y]ou can start immediately to eliminate the barely educated, unhealthy and poor segment of our country. No, I'm not advocating some sort of mass extinction (sic) of these unfortunate people. Crime, drugs and disease are already doing that. The problem is that their numbers are not only replaced but increased by the birth of millions of babies to people who can't afford to have babies. There, I've said it. It's what we all know is true. . . .

I am not proposing that you send federal agents armed with Depo-Provera dart guns to the ghetto. You should use persuasion rather than coercion. . . . You made a good start when you appointed Dr. Elders, but she will need a lot of help. . . .

[G]overnment is also going to have to provide vasectomies, tubal ligations and abortions. . . . There have been about 30 million abortions in this country since Roe v. Wade. Think of all the poverty, crime and misery. . . and then add 30 million unwanted babies to the scenario. We lost a lot of ground during the Reagan-Bush religious orgy. We don't have a lot of time left.

We don't need more cannon fodder. We don't need more parishioners. We don't need more cheap labor. We don't need more poor babies

Now of course these sorts of sentiments aren't shared by all or even most supporters of legal abortion, but I suspect they are more widely thought than voiced.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the founder of Planned Parenthood, I shall let Margaret Sanger speak for herself:

On blacks, immigrants and indigents:
"...human weeds,' 'reckless breeders,' 'spawning... human beings who never should have been born." Margaret Sanger, Pivot of Civilization, referring to immigrants and poor people

On sterilization & racial purification:
Sanger believed that, for the purpose of racial "purification," couples should be rewarded who chose sterilization. Birth Control in America, The Career of Margaret Sanger, by David Kennedy, p. 117, quoting a 1923 Sanger speech.

On the right of married couples to bear children:

Couples should be required to submit applications to have a child, she wrote in her "Plan for Peace." Birth Control Review, April 1932

On the extermination of blacks:
"We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population," she said, "if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members." Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America, by Linda Gordon

On motherhood:
"I cannot refrain from saying that women must come to recognize there is some function of womanhood other than being a child-bearing machine." What Every Girl Should Know, by Margaret Sanger (Max Maisel, Publisher, 1915)

Sounds quite "moderate," huh?

I just got this in my inbox.

This Wednesday morning government management expert Geoff Segal of the Reason Foundation will be our guest at a Buckeye Institute Policy Briefing on privatization of complex governmental services. Geoff will discuss his experiences working with competitive sourcing policies in place in Florida and being discussed more recently in Hamilton County, Ohio. Friends of the Buckeye Institute are invited to attend this complimentary public event. It will be held on Wednesday, May 17, beginning at 7:45 AM at the Athletic Club of Columbus.

To RSVP, please call or send an email to Dorothea at Prouty@buckeyeinstitute-org or 614.224.4422.

Here is the full text.

What did you think? As a conservative, I wasn't happy- To not define what President Bush is asking for as "amnesty" is silly. To grant citizenship to illegals, in any way, is amnesty. period.

And the increase in the number of boarder patrol agents should have been much higher than suggested.

And no one is calling for "every illegal immigrant" to be shipped back. But we do need to punish employers who higher illegals, and secure our boarder- AND IF THAT WORKS, then maybe we can think about a guest worker program.

But maybe I'm wrong... Please leave your thoughts in the comments section.

from lima news

Strickland visits Lima
By KIMBERLY R SIMMONS
LIMA- Rain couldn’t dampen the spirits of the crowed that crammed into the hall of the Carpenter’s Union Local 372.

They were patiently waiting for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ted Strickland, who was stuck in traffic waiting for a train to pass.

That train is simply a metaphor for the political train that is about to hit Ted Strickland.

chooo! chooo!