From the Dispatch

Republicans jammed a pair of bills through the legislature yesterday, setting up the demise of a constitutional amendment they thought could harm the state and J. Kenneth Blackwell’s run for governor.

The debate turned heated in the House and Senate, where Democrats were gaveled out of order and had their microphones shut off after Republican leaders decided their speeches were too political.

But to Democrats, the whole plan added up to little more than politics.

"It’s really about trying to save a sinking ship," said Sen. Robert Hagan, D-Youngstown. "You know it. I know it. So don’t be disingenuous about it."

A minute later, Senate President Bill M. Harris cut off Hagan’s microphone. He had warned Hagan earlier not to direct his comments at Blackwell.

From the PD

Columbus- After meeting behind closed doors for two weeks, it took a joint legislative committee just 30 minutes into a public hearing on Wednesday to agree on sweeping new measures cracking down on deceptive mortgage loan officers.

The full House and Senate then followed suit, each overwhelmingly approving Senate Bill 185, sending it to the governor, who is expected to make it law.

Statehouse leaders promised a tough-minded bill to deal with predatory lenders, and most involved - from lawmakers, to consumer groups, to lending institutions - agree this bill does just that.

From the PD

Ohio has an advantage over other states in the site battle for Honda's new assembly plant because so many of Honda's experts live here, said Al Kinzer, the first American manager hired by Honda of America in Ohio.

Kinzer was working for Honda in 1978 before it opened the motorcycle plant in Marysville that led to automobile manufacturing in 1982.

Now, Honda has 16,000 workers in Ohio, at two assembly plants, an engine plant, a transmission plant and a research-and-development facility.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Roger L. Simons has revealing piece that takes apart a typical Washington Post (WP) article to illustrate how the MSM crafts their article to move the reader in a specific direction. Most of us are fairly aware of this but often it can be so subtle we don’t even realize it. In this article, the WP’s subtle message is for the US to engage in negotiations with Iran.

This just in from the Ney campaign via email:

The ultra-liberal colors of Ohio's 18th District Democrat Congressional candidate Zack Space keep shining through. At the same time as he was campaigning with failed Presidential candidate and avowed Second Amendment opponent John Kerry in Ohio last week, Zack continued his outreach efforts to the national liberal and gay rights establishment by giving a lengthy radio interview on the liberal Air America network with one of the country's leading gay rights advocates, Rachel Maddow. Interestingly, a major financial sponsor of Air America is MoveOn.org , the same liberal organization based in Washington D.C., which Space purports to have no connection with, but which has been funding negative soft-money attacks against Congressman Bob Ney.

Maddow, who lives in New York City with her "partner," questioned Space about a variety of issues popular with the national liberal establishment while acknowledging at one point that she uses a different name when dressed "in drag." But perhaps the most interesting aspect of her interview with Space came at the end with a stunning admission by Space that he doesn't sense "social issues" are still "hot button" issues.

Responding today, Ney Campaign Manager Matthew Parker said, "This is yet another example of Zack Space saying one thing and doing another. When campaigning in the small communities of rural Ohio, Zack Space purports to care about Ohio values but when 18th District voters aren't looking, Zack is pandering to liberal leaders in San Francisco and New York City and telling them that social issues don't matter to folks in Ohio."

Parker continued, "The fact is that a vote for Zack Space this November will be a vote for Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco politics taking over the United States Capitol - a vote for higher taxes, unlimited partial-birth abortions, more gun control laws, and more foreign aid. I just wonder why Zack is sneaking behind the backs of 18 th District voters and giving radio interviews with one of America 's leading liberal advocates and whose radio show does not air on any radio station within the 18th Congressional District."

"Why won't Zack Space be honest with the very people that he hopes to represent instead of pandering to the far-left? Why are social issues not important to Zack Space? One can only surmise that that is because voters in Ohio do not support Zack's far-left beliefs for more abortions, higher taxes, and San Francisco politics," Parker concluded.

Dan White of Ohioans For Concealed Carry points to an example of why it is probably not the best idea to trust Ted Strickland with your 2nd Amendment rights:

Strickland ... stating that although he personally does not have a problem with gun control, he votes according to the wishes of his constituents. While this may be an admirable trait for a congressman, it is not strong enough of a position to lead gun rights reform in Ohio.

Current Ohio Governor Bob Taft was also weakly opposed to gun control when he was elected governor. Once in office, he kow-towed to the anti-gun media and political pressure from the gun control movement; first stalling ccw reform in Ohio, and then attempted to sabotage HB12 by demanding two provisions hoped to be poison pills: the media access loophole and the ludicrous "open carry in a motor vehicle" clause.

For some, it may be enough that Strickland is not blatently anti-gun. For those who are truly concerned about their gun rights in Ohio, that is not nearly enough.

I don't trust him ... do you?

Higher education will be the cornerstone of a successful future for the current and future students of Ohio. In the modern economy, a high school graduate is not prepared to enter the work force without the advanced skills gained from post-secondary training. Thus it is imperative that the State of Ohio undergoes every effort to ensure that those qualified and willing to attend Ohio’s colleges and universities are able to financially do so.

However, Ohio policy has been quite to the contrary. The percentage of the budget allocated towards higher education has dropped from 17.7 in 1979 to 11.7 in 2005. This is during a period in which the necessity of higher education has increased immensely.

In this same period, other parts of the Ohio budget have expanded. Corrections spending per capita has more than doubled. In terms of percentage of budget, funding for correction facilities and services has risen from 3.7% to 8 % from 1979 10 2005. So are building jails more important than funding higher education? Budgets determine policy above all political rhetoric. And the current Ohio policy gives priority to filling jail cells over filling classrooms.

While poor budget decisions are part of the problem, the lack of money available in the State for education also reflects an overall poor funding system. Ohio’s primary and secondary public institutions suffer from an inadequate local levy system that encourages disparity among poor and wealthy districts. Likewise, Ohio higher education, with its rising tuition costs and decreasing availability of scholarships and grants, is further contributing to this economic divide.

Ohio Learn and Earn’s billion-dollar-a-year scholarship program would be a great catalyst in bridging this gap. Starting with the highest achievers from each school district, poor and wealthy, students will be given scholarships to Ohio colleges and universities. Once the program is in full swing, scholarships will be offered to every student in the state who is admitted to an Ohio institution of higher education. Universal college scholarships will mean bridging the economic – education divide. It will mean giving more students the opportunity to further their education. It will mean developing a more educated and skilled work force. It will mean creating a brighter future for Ohio’s students and Ohio’s economy.

For more information visit Ohio Learn and Earn

Five quick questions that I would appreciate the answers for and would be delighted to publish your responses to at the State of Ohio Blogger Alliance blog.

Will you support legislation backed by major labor organizations, such as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, to increase domestic energy supplies and create jobs for their workers?

Will you support environmentally responsible legislation backed by a majority of local Alaskans that allows them to use their own land to create jobs and provide funding for water and sewer systems, health care and schools?

Will you support legislation that will safeguard America's economy by producing 1.5 million barrels of oil per day, roughly equivalent to what we import from Saudi Arabia daily?

Will you support a $728 billion investment in America's economy that will help lower prices at the pump and strengthen America's energy security?

Will you support legislation that will lower energy costs for consumers while providing greater revenues to the federal government?

For the record, these are the same questions that Majority Leader John Boehner has asked of Nancy Pelosi.

Thanks,

MATT HURLEY

From the PD

There's a chance Jacobs Field still could be Jacobs Field in 2007. Then again, it could be called National City Bank Park.

When Dick Jacobs sold the Indians to Larry Dolan, Jacobs retained naming rights through 2006 as part of the deal. Well, it's 2006, and the Indians have been negotiating with several Cleveland businesses, including National City Bank, about putting their name on the ballpark at the corner of Ontario and Carnegie.

Get ready for National City Bank Park.

From Openers

Ohio voters say they prefer Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ted Strickland over his Republican rival Ken Blackwell, 50 percent to 44 percent, the University of Cincinnati’s latest Ohio Poll shows.

Voters surveyed also said they prefer two-term Republican U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine over his challenger, seven-term congressman Sherrod Brown, 52 percent to 42 percent. Five percent of the voters surveyed about this race say they are undecided and one percent say they want some other candidate.

So Blackwell has picked up 10 points since he was down 16 points a few weeks ago.

Yesterday, on the floor of the house, State Senator Jeff Jacobson and State Senator Ray Miller got into a girly cat fight about about Abraham Lincoln. If you are really interested to see what lead to the catfight, click here.

But the real cat fight can be seen below. Miller's ego is so large that it can not be contained within the halls of the Ohio legislature:

Aftewards, the Republican caucus gave Jacobson a wedgie and a swirly for being such a crybaby.

Please vote in the poll below:

From wksu

The latest Ohio Poll by the University of Cincinnati shows Republican Gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell may be gaining momentum on Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Ted Strickland.

from the other paper

"What's not to like about Mary Taylor?" wrote a blogger calling himself CincyJeff on the conservative Bizzyblog. "She's hot AND conservative."

"Sykes looks damn good!" wrote Nate Livingston on his Cincinnati Black Blog. "It's hard to believe she is 50."

They say politics is show business for ugly people, but an apparent exception is this year's race for state auditor.

Democrat Barbara Sykes and Republican Mary Taylor—both state representatives from the Akron area—are engaged in what could be the most competitive statewide contest of the year.

They'll spend the next five months trying to win over potential voters around the state. But they've already won over the guys who chronicle their political whims on liberal and conservative Internet blogs.

......

As for Taylor, the conservative Right Angle Blog wrote, "Isn't it time for a hot CPA to be Auditor of State? Yeah, we think so too. Mary Taylor is that hot CPA. And I recommend that you all watch this one…she's smart too."

(cue Right Said Fred music) Taylor is too sexy for the auditors office, too sexy for the auditors office... And she does her little turn on the catwalk.... on the catwalk.......

Update (from an e-mail): I am happy that Dan Williamson was talking about B. Sykes, and not B. Seitz. But maybe its a typo, and Dan really likes bushy mustaches?

Have you ever heard of Ted Strickland? Not many Ohioans have, and since he's running for governor we thought you might like to know a few things about him:

• Strickland was rated last week by a non-partisan research group as one of the most ineffective members of Congress (#402 out of 435 members), ranking lower than a non-voting delegate from American Samoa!
  
  
• He voted for the LARGEST tax increase in U.S. history, which raised taxes by $241 billion on income, gas and Social Security.
  
  
• He opposed tax cuts for 4.4 million Ohioans and thousands of Ohio's job-creating small businesses and received an "F" from the National Taxpayers Union.
  
  
• He served on the taskforce that developed HillaryCare - Hillary Clinton's failed effort to create a national socialized health care bureaucracy.
  
  
• He has never held a government administration job, balanced a budget, or even served in state or local government.

And this is the man Democrats want to be Ohio's chief executive?! Even Strickland himself admitted recently that he "never, ever felt comfortable with the thought of being governor." We're confident a lot of Ohioans will share that opinion of him.

It's time to stand up, take action, and keep Ted Strickland away from our tax dollars.

There is more to add about this funny cat fight between Senator Miller and Senator Jacobson.

Red-State.com says that I was able to predict this event was going to happen, and I didn't realize it.

Forget gambling. Lets generate state revenue by taxing a ppv fight between Miller and Jacobson.

If you haven't voted yet, please do so here: