From usnews.com

Fueled with immense sums of dues money, which of course come directly from the taxpayers from whom they are, if necessary, forcibly extracted, then channeled to public employees and deducted from their paychecks and sent to their unions, whether they like that or not. The power of public-employee unions varies by state, but in most states they're a major political force. They had a huge victory in California last year, when they poured in more than $100 million to defeat Arnold Schwarzenegger's ballot propositions, including one (which Schwarzenegger supported only lukewarmly but that got the largest percentage) that would have required public-employee unions to get employees' authorization to pay dues. The public-employee unions fought that hard, and with megabucks, because their leaders know that many public employees don't want their dues sent to unions who spend them on political causes they don't agree with. The huge flow of taxpayers' dollars to the union leaders would be vastly reduced.

Now comes the interesting news. This week the Supreme Court has granted certiorari to review a decision of the Washington Supreme Court overturning a law passed by referendum that would require public employees to give consent before unions would get that portion of their dues money spent on politics. I haven't read the state Supreme Court's decision, but the newspaper account referenced above makes it sound specious: Evidently, it's based on the theory that union members' First Amendment rights are violated if they're not forced to hand over their money to allow their union's leaders to exercise their First Amendment rights the way they want to. It looks very much like the decision of Democratic judges to keep the money flowing to what is probably the state's strongest Democratic lobby, the Washington Education Association (i.e., the teachers union). Congratulations to the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, which has fought to get the law implemented over the powerful opposition of the WEA. And congratulations to Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna, who defended the law by appealing the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. McKenna is a Republican, elected by a 52-to-44 percent margin in 2004. The governor's race that year, as you may recall, was exquisitely close and was litigated over many weeks until Democrat Christine Gregoire, then attorney general, was declared the winner despite much fishiness in the ballots from heavily Democratic King County.

A U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning the pro-union ruling of the Washington Supreme Court could have important reverberations for many years. These so-called paycheck protection laws are one way to cabin and reduce the power of public-employee unions, by reducing the flow of taxpayers' dollars into their coffers. And that in turn would tend to reduce the power of public-employee unions to increase their share of the private economy.

This is why the Supreme Court is so important.

Here are some Republicans who have recently been endorsed by the Plain Dealer

Read the story HERE.

Strickland Calls Ohio a "Backwards State"

Is there any doubt that if Blackwell had made such an insulting statement during a campaign-- publicly, on tape!-- that it would be plastered across every front page and lead every newscast-- TV and radio-- in the State. That's not bad enough. He then gives our "backwardness" (defined as: restrictions-- of which there are essentially none-- on abortion and embryonic stem cell research; and presumably our defense of marriage amendment) as the reason(s) for Ohio's sluggish economy.

If any Republican had ascerted such stupidity, they would then be hounded daily for comment about why they hate Ohioans and to defend their economic moonbattery-- and rightly so! But "The Stealth Candidate" gets a pass; and not just a pass, but gets protected from criticism.

Sometimes bias is exhibited by what you don't report as much as how or what you do.

Bobby Eberle has a posting worth reading on his (and GOPUSA’s) weblog The Loft concerning form Missouri Senator John Danforth’s effort to, in actuality, bring the Republican Party back to the left.

In a news story running this morning, former Missouri GOP Sen. John Danforth is hoping to take the Republican Party back from the religious right. The report, which is headlined “Ex-senator wants to save GOP from itself,” misses the point. The GOP does not need to be saved from its conservative base. What it needs to be saved from is its leadership which has driven the base to apathy.

The news story goes on to note that Danforth feels energy is “wasted” debating issues like gay marriage and also “diverts attention from important matters like the budget that are the proper province of government.”

While not mentioned in the article, but known to all Ohio Conservatives, Republicans, and Libertarians is our very own Mike DeWine. DeWine is one of many sheep called to the piped piper John McCain bent on removing traditional and Reagan conservatism from the party.

Eberle concludes that there is nothing wrong with the Republican core belief, rather the problem resides in the party leadership. This is extremely true in the case of the Ohio Republican Party. One only need to remember how the ORP thwarted the Pierce Senatorial run, and how they have treated Ken Blackwell.

The big question for
Ohio’s Republicans is how can we take the ORP back from the likes of DeWine, Dansforth, McCain and Bob Bennett? One thing is for sure Bennett needs to go; 18 years has been more than enough. Just take a look at where
Ohio’s economy has gone for the last 18 years and that should be more than enough to say we need a change. Let’s hope that after Ken Blackwell is elected Governor he forces Bennett out.

The question I raise to the Republican Party leadership is what good is it when at the end of the day when you have the largest and richest party, the Democrats are scattered, and yet you do not represent the people’s beliefs and norms?

Conservatives I say, stay the course, but do not give up. Do not turn your back on the GOP just yet. We must defeat those that will move the Party to left and educate those that do not know the real substance of Conservatism. After all we have send Whinovich packing.

From Openers

A statewide poll conducted for The Plain Dealer by Mason-Dixon will be published in Sunday's paper. Topics covered included the races for governor and Senate, statewide ballot issues such as gambling and the minimum wage, and how Ohioans feel about George Bush, Bob Taft and the war in Iraq.

Sneak preview: Saturday approx. 6 p.m.

We already can tell you the polling results

Blackwell will be down by 72 points

Brown will be up by 10 points

Taft will have a 1.5% approval rating

Bush will have a 5% approval rating

The War in Iraq will have a 3.2% approval rating

The minimum wage issue will have 98% support

Will we be proven wrong?