From the monthly archives: June 2011
Back in May, John Kasich announced that he wanted to install metal detectors in the Ohio Statehouse.
According to the Ohio State Highway Patrol, the agency currency charged with providing security for the Statehouse, they are already “providing a sufficient and appropriate level of security”.
Which leads me to believe that Kasich’s true goal likely has more to do with limiting access to the Statehouse than it does with actual security concerns.
I’m guessing his plan was hatched during the Senate Bill 5 protests this spring when tens of thousands of union members and their supporters converged on [...]
Full Story... →For over a year now Ohio’s Tea Partyers at the Ohio Liberty Council have been trying, with limited success, to gather enough signatures for a ballot initiative to “repeal” federal health care reform legislation in Ohio by amending the Ohio constitution.
Despite their best efforts, the Ohio Liberty Council has had a hell of a time getting enough Ohio voters to sign their petitions for the proposed amendment. They’ve been working on it since last spring and I’ve seen them at tons of public events with their crazy “STOP FORCED HEALTH CARE” banners. County fairs. Local festivals. They [...]
Full Story... →Missing in the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s editorial about the Republican legislators effort in the legislator to put a health care repeal amendment (with the support of conserva-Democrat Senator Jason Wilson, who’s claim to fame was that he jeopardized his dad’s chances to succeed Ted Strickland in Congress by flubbing his dad’s nominating petitions, triggering a write-in primary campaign) on the ballot.
Tim Grendell, who is angling for a judicial appointment from the Kasich Administration and needs to do something to earn their good graces after opposing SB 5, is pushing for SJR 1, which would put on the Full Story... →
During the Senate’s floor debate of the State budget, Senate Finance Chairman Chris Widener pointed to the fact that the State’s revenues came below estimate in May as evidence that it’s premature to talk about a Strickland surplus providing additional funding beyond the draconian cuts to schools, cities, and nursing homes because the economic recovery in Ohio is fragile.
“You know the revenue estimates for the month of May? I think the (Senate) President (Niehaus) mentioned after session. We’re down for the month as compared to estimated revenue,” he told reporters. “That’s not a good sign. That’s basically a [...]
Full Story... →On Sunday the Dispatch ran a piece titled Casino deal a win for almost everyone, completely forgetting that they had called a much better deal “a rip off” just two years earlier.
The deal in question, proposed by John Kasich, allows racetrack owners to place VLTs (slots) at their tracks in exchange for a $50 million license fee and 33.5 percent tax on revenue.
The fee and tax rate of Kasich’s deal are MUCH lower than the deal proposed by Strickland back in 2009 of a $65 million license fee and a 50 percent tax on revenue. Clearly [...]
Full Story... →Once again we find ourselves face-to-face with the Ohio Charter School. In recent months, and even years, we have posted a number of articles critical of the charter school process. Recently, a PB reader told us that she was growing increasingly frustrated and found herself scanning the education posts because she felt the articles were using apples-to-oranges comparisons and were unnecessarily misleading regarding the performance of charter schools in Ohio. I disagreed with her then and still disagree now as to her assertion because by claiming that charter schools are part of a reform effort for Ohio education [...]
Full Story... →When I was 8 years old I watched Brian Sipe throw an interception pass that ended the Cleveland Brown’s chances of winning the AFC championship.
I spent the next three years waiting for “Super Joe” Charbonneau to help the Indians break a then-20 year slump.
By the time I was 12, Charbonneau had thrown out his back and left baseball and Sipe had disappeared into Donald Trump’s USFL never to be heard from again.
As a 6th grader I started to believe that Cleveland sports teams would never, ever be successful in my lifetime. And so [...]
Full Story... →Plunderbund attended the press conference held by the American Policy Roundtable/Ohio Roundtable today and MAN are they pissed off at Kasich.
Kasich’s casino deal is so blatantly unconstitutional that APR’s CEO, David Zanotti, says everyone in Kasich’s office “seems to have forgotten not only law school 101 … but pre-law school.” “This is stuff you can read on the internet,” he says. (We assume he was talking about Plunderbund, since we mentioned this back in December when Kasich first proposed it.)
According to Zanotti, APR is absolutely going to sue the Kasich Administration “and so are a bunch of [...]
Full Story... →Remember Ohioans, organized labor is the enemy. One of the most damning things about those labor unions is that they are SO organized, especially when it comes to politics. Fundraising, rallying, donating to campaigns and issues, and lobbying politicians are all pieces of the allegedly overwhelming influence that unions are having at the State Capitol. A local Tea Party website even goes so far as to say that “Ohio’s Democrats are bought and paid for by the unions.” Sickening, right? Teachers represent the largest union in the state and they have been a common site at rallies the last few [...]
Full Story... →Weeks after launching their astroturfing, pro-SB 5 “grassroots” political campaign, Building a Better Ohio still only has 388 people who “like” them on Facebook. Plunderbund has over ten times as many fans.
In case you had any doubt that Better Ohio was just an extension of Kasich’s campaign, today they went and provided the proof: a fundraising email sent by the Kasich campaign urging people to visit Better Ohio.
“Grassroots coalition of Ohioans” my ass.
Full Story... →One Ohio United, the non-profit founded by Kasich’s campaign staff to help promote his budget sent out a mailer this week that is basically one big long list of old data, disproved myths and outright lies.
The cover is a copy of a Dispatch article from 2009 that predicts the possibility of an $8 Billion deficit in 2012. We’ve debunked this stupid myth so many times it’s starting to get tedious. Kasich’s own people never believed there was an $8 billion deficit, and the fact that they couldn’t find a more recent headline is pretty telling. [...]
Full Story... →Budget Watch
