I, and others like Roldo Bartimole, have made the case that tax giveaways as incentives to businesses are gifts that have no promise, or even hope, of return to the tax payers who pay the bills. This morning’s, above-the-fold, headline in the New York Times reads: The Empty Promise of Tax Incentives. Writer Louise Story [...]

Roldo Bartimole writes: Are Ohio Republicans in a suicide mode? The ability of the Republicans to design Congressional districts to benefit its candidates certainly helped them here and elsewhere to retain control of the U. S. Congress. However, those Congressional districts do not apply to offices of the State of Ohio. You have to run [...]

[Update @ 1304: Supreme Court won't block early voting in Ohio.] In his piece written for Slate, Richard Hansen writes that: Ohio’s cutback of early voting could have a negative effect at the polls and was done for no good reason. Indeed, the Ohio legislature probably eliminated the last weekend of early voting for purely [...]

Roldo Bartimole writes: Give Republicans like Gov. John Kasich one inch and they’ll be taking your Social Security and Medicare. We know that’s their agenda. Short term and long term. Let’s put everything within Wall Street and insurers reach, they say. The policy is a crack at your every penny by the sharpies. The ones [...]

*The conversation wasn’t pretty…

Via What’s Up… WHAT: Fracking Waste and Ohio’s Injection Wells WHERE: West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church WHEN: Saturday, 15 September at 3:30 p.m. Teresa Mills, representative from the Buckeye Forest Council and CHEJ, will give a free (with free parking) presentation titled, “What You Need to Know About Toxic Fracking Waste and Ohio’s Injection Wells,” [...]

From my hometown newspaper: No doubt state and local government officials in Ohio were rubbing their hands together in glee earlier this summer, when the money started rolling in from two new gambling casinos. After several years of belt tightening due to budget crunches, the future suddenly looked brighter. During June, casinos in Cleveland and [...]

More education (graduating high school, graduating college, obtaining a Master’s degree, obtraining a PhD.) is not a solution. More appropriate education is helpful. More quality education is helpful. More targeted education is helpful. Helpful, but not the answer. None of the above, however, is worth bupkis unless there is meaningful employment with a future available [...]

Found as a letter-to-the-editor in my hometown newspaper this morning: The job of the Auditor General of the United States is to protect the truth about our nation’s finances from the lies and manipulations of politics. This is what he has told us. (Please do fact-check it!) 1. We are on an unsustainable path that [...]

Thank you Roldo for the reminder. On this day in 1963: I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation [...]

Roldo Bartimole writes: To put the issue of voter suppression laws (new version of poll tax) into proper context I have a suggestion. I believe an organization of American journalists should be recruited to carry out a project. They could form a temporary organization that would recruit foreign journalist with the task of explaining to [...]

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Ari Berman writes: The real story from Ohio is how cutbacks to early voting will disproportionately disenfranchise African-American voters in Ohio’s most populous counties. African-Americans, who supported Obama over McCain by 95 points in Ohio, comprise 28 percent of the population of Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County but accounted for 56 percent of early voters in 2008, [...]

My hometown and Cincinnati both end up in the left and right leg holes. Go figure…

0439: Approved senate bill will make finding jobs easier for ex-inmates

I’m on the email list for the Ohio Democratic Party. I put the ODP on my spam list (along with MoveOn) months ago, but I do occasionally check to see if the email has any purpose other than getting me to send the ODP money. (Hint: I haven’t seen one yet.) This morning I received [...]

Roldo Bartimole writes: The tactical romance of Democratic Mayor Frank Jackson and Republican Gov. John Kasich over schools and teachers should have Ohio Democrats worried. Jackson – for his own purposes – is helping rescue the self-wounded Kasich. And he’s doing it on the very issue that Kasich dug himself into a big hole – [...]

Roldo Bartimole writes: Only days after Mayor Frank Jackson claimed compromise achieved on his (really the corporate community’s) school reform package this headline appeared in the Plain Dealer: CITY SCHOOLS TO CUT 500 TEACHERS, SHORTEN DAY, ELIMINATE CLASSES. (Online as Cleveland school board votes to trim teaching staff for next year. JH) Well, I’m sure [...]

From Jennifer Brunner via Courage PAC: The Ohio Democratic Party will elect a chair tomorrow, Wednesday, April 11, 2012 at 7:00 p.m. at Ohio Democratic Party headquarters at 340 E. Fulton Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215. The two contenders are current Chair Chris Redfern and Lorain County Democratic Party Chair Tony Giardini. The result of tomorrow [...]

Of course, here in the US, we believe in cash transfers too. Except that the money goes from the poor to the rich. Mano Singham, of course. And that folks, is the nut, the core, the very essence of what is wrong with Cleveland, with Ohio, with the United States and the whole feckin’ Capitalist [...]