David Arredondo guest blog: About Ohio’s New Congressional Districts

September 22, 2011 — buckeyerino

Editor’s note:  David Arredondo is a Lorain resident, very involved in the Lorain community and a highly visible member of the Coalition for Hispanic/Latino Issues & Progress (CHIP).  He is the vice chair for the Lorain County Republican Party.  He’s often a featured guest on WEOL radio to discuss his work with international students at Lorain County Community College (LCCC) as well as sharing a center-right perspective on political issues.  He’s also appeared as a Republican pundit on Feagler & Friends, which airs on the PBS affiliate in Cleveland, WVIZ.  Professionally, David Arredondo is the Director of International Student Services at Lorain County Community College.

ABOUT OHIO’S NEW CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS

Elections have consequences and it is clear that the GOP has had the upper hand on redistricting following the census in 1990, 2000, and 2010. Given this trend, it is entirely possible that we can expect more of the same in 2021. Our current law dictates that the state legislature is required to re-draw congressional district lines based on the census results and this census shows that Ohio has lost enough residents to warrant a loss of 2 seats. One of the requirements is that each district must be comprised of a similar number of residents. This time it is about 720,000 residents.

Another requirement is that the plan must provide for “majority-minority” districts which means that a significant number of black residents must be grouped together so as not to dilute their voting power. So the plan must adhere to this or risk being thrown out and re-drawn. Republicans have done as such the past three times and so first, Louis Stokes, then Stephanie Tubbs Jones, and now Marcia Fudge have the district seat in Cuyahoga County set aside for them.

This means that the plan is not democratic giving an equal opportunity for all candidates. Even if Republicans, or Democrats for that matter, wanted to create a fair, non-partisan plan giving all citizens equal opportunity to run for Congress or vote for a congressman in a 50-50 district, it is nearly impossible given the Voting Rights Act requirement providing for a Democratic Party set-aside seat.

The current Voting Rights Act is a relic of the last century and of a time that no longer exists. It is time for it to be abolished in so far as it perpetuates unnecessary practices such as congressional minority seat set-asides and provisions for bi-lingual ballots. It essentially sets-aside a Democratic seat based on race or ethnicity. The days of lasting institutional racism are long past.

If you want proof of how far we’ve come, just look at the faces of recently elected governors in New Mexico, Nevada, South Carolina, and Louisiana—all Asian-, or Hispanic-Americans and all Republicans. Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American Republican was elected senator from Florida. Here is substantial proof that so-called minorities can be elected state-wide without set aside districts. Six of the sixty-three new GOP congressmen elected in 2010 were Hispanic-Americans and two African-American. None was from a majority-minority district. One new Puerto Rican congressman was elected from Idaho. How many Puerto Rican voters might there be in Idaho?

And Republicans are supposed to be bigots?

For self-serving purposes, former Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner is spreading the word that Democrats dropped the ball last year by not offering a new law providing for a reform of the Ohio congressional redistricting process. She claims that Democrats’ hubris precluded them from working with Republicans, namely then-Senator Jon Husted. Nonsense, sheer nonsense. I have my doubts about the reality of such a scenario given that at least as early as summer 2010, polls showed that some state races would be toss-ups, the House could shift back to GOP majority and add seats in the Senate. I saw no speculation anywhere that Democrats would run the table and win the House, Senate and governorship. Even if Democrats wanted to pass a law for redistricting reform, GOP Senate leader Paul Harris would never have approved. He, not Jon Husted, would have been the decider on such a ploy.

Within the past few weeks more talk has surfaced, primarily from media pundits and aggrieved Democrats like Brunner, to change the current redistricting law, if need be, by a ballot referendum. It seems these days ballot initiatives are the only means that Democrats have to push their agenda. No doubt they believe that voters have forgotten that a few short years ago in 2005, Democrats and their Academic elite MSM allies proposed not one, but four initiatives to change the redistricting process, provide for Early Voting, and a reorganization of the Secretary of States office, among other things I recall. All four of these so-called “reform” initiatives” failed by no less than 2-1 margins, even in Cuyahoga County. I don’t agree that Ohio is a 50-50 state. Certainly over the past twenty years Republicans have largely had control of the state offices as well as the legislature. Democratic dominance is long in the past. The majority of “likely” Ohio voters are Republicans and Democrats, partisan voters. I can’t see how anything has changed to expect a different outcome for a redistrict initiative today or next year.

So in 2010, the GOP won 13 Ohio districts, Democrats 5. It would appear that the Republican redistrict map was an exercise in ensuring re-election for most incumbents, both Democrat and Republican save for three. Republicans were more than generous in giving up one seat and creating a possibly new minority seat in Columbus for a Democrat while the Democrats only lost one seat.

Those on the bubble are: Democrats Marcy Kaptur, Dennis Kucinich and Betty Sutton from Northern Ohio and Republicans Steve Austria and Mike Turner from the Dayton area. Two have no seat and one has a chance for a seat in an adjacent district in which she’s have to beat the Republican incumbent.

Right now a “death match” is shaping up between Kucinich and Kaptur in the 9th District. Since this includes much of Lorain County which is Sutton’s district, I wouldn’t discount the possibility that she takes on Kaptur and Kucinich rather than run against Renacci in the 16th.

Last but not least a change needs to be made whereby college students are allowed to register and vote in districts where they attend school: Columbus, Oberlin etc. as well as their home districts. Our system does not have portable registration such that you only have one residence to register and vote. College students do. Whether or not some or all vote multiple times at school and at home is unknown but the possibility exists that some do. That is fraudulent and needs to be fixed along with other measures. It is my understanding that currently the Cuyahoga voting rolls show more than one million registered voters with an eligible voting population of fewer than 800,000. The city of Oberlin has more registered voters than residents. The current electoral system leaves a lot to be desired.

Posted in National Politics, Politics in the MSM, State Politics. Tags: , , . 2 Comments »

James Williamson guest blog: Imminent Rebellion: The Demise of the Dollar and Economic Armageddon

September 21, 2011 — buckeyerino

Editor’s note:  I thank my brother for providing content for my blog when I’m not able to sit still long enough to create my own blog content.  The other guest blog articles he’s written in the Imminent Rebellion series are linked here, here, here, here, and here.

IMMINENT REBELLION: THE DEMISE OF THE DOLLAR AND ECONOMIC ARMAGEDDON

I’ve wanted to address the financial aspect of our current situation for quite some time but have not been able to articulate my thoughts sufficiently to make a coherent argument.  I hope I am able to do so now.  Fair warning though:  I am about to contradict all of the conventional wisdom of modern economists.  Here we go…

To begin with I am going to make a distinction between money and wealth.  These are not dictionary definitions and certainly not endorsed by most economists or financial advisors.  They are my definitions.  Money is whatever is used as currency.   At various times and places in the world it has generally been gold and/or silver but, in some areas of the world, even stones have served as currency.  In our case it is the US dollar.  Wealth is something of value that can be produced or consumed.  Food, clothing, shelter are the most basic forms.  Vehicles, electronics, furniture, weapons, boats, anything that is somewhat durable and useful would qualify under my definition.  Generally goods would qualify as wealth but services would not since there is no durability.  Land wouldn’t really qualify as wealth since it isn’t really something you produce or consume but it is the source of the raw materials that generate wealth.  The closest term that we commonly use to my definition of wealth would be assets, but it’s not a perfect fit either since cash is considered an asset but I don’t really count it as a measure of wealth.  It would be more of a potential for wealth.  I certainly don’t count the book value of your portfolio as wealth.

Money is accepted by the general populous because it is a lot easier to make value judgments in terms of money than it is in goods and services.  When the majority of the people in a society agree that the money is worth something it circulates and becomes currency.  Currency is then used to exchange goods, services, real estate, etc.

Wealth on the other hand, is something that is of use or fulfills a need, the most basic of which are food, clothing, and shelter.  Wealth (remember this is my definition) must be built up through utilization of resources to produce something that people need or want.  By my definition you would need the same three essentials for creating wealth that you need for running a business:  resources, labor, and capital.

They key word in all of this is produce.  Wealth is created by production and destroyed by consumption.  If I grow a bushel of apples I have created wealth.  If I eat a bushel of apples I have consumed wealth.  (I know this does not fit any definition you learned in economics class but I warned you of that at the beginning, didn’t I?)  The relative value of that wealth is decided by the individuals in a market and is usually quantified in terms of money.  The rules of supply and demand are probably familiar to you so I won’t go any further than to say supply and demand for money and wealth together determine the price or quantity of money required to purchase something of value which may or may contribute to your personal wealth.

Purchasing may increase your wealth (you buy land with a house on it) or decrease it (you throw a big party and purchase lots of food to be consumed). Merely conducting trade does not necessarily increase or decrease your wealth.  You may be amassing wealth or depleting it depending on what you are spending your money on.

Until recently, money was nearly always something that had intrinsic value.  The supply of money was limited by the amount of the substance that was available for use.  If you wanted to increase the supply of money you had to expend time and resources to extract it (i.e. mine more gold).  Societies were limited to the finite quantities of extracted material for their money supply.

This loosely tied money and wealth together.  In order to increase the money supply you had to produce something that people needed or wanted (i.e. gold).  This also creates a condition that allows for both inflation and deflation.  When the money supply increases faster than wealth does, inflation occurs.  When wealth increases faster than the money supply, then deflation occurs.  The market always seeks equilibrium so that the value of money accurately reflects the amount of wealth in a market. (Many of you will argue with me but remember this is NOT Economics 101.  This is economics according to James Williamson.)

Inflation is a condition where the money supply grows faster than wealth does.  More money to purchase the same amount of wealth leads to higher prices. You could also say that less wealth purchased with the same quantity of money will lead to higher prices. (In the macro.)  Dealing with inflation is much easier than dealing with deflation if you are wealthy or if you are in debt.  If prices rise, you can sell your goods and services at ever higher prices and therefore increase your wealth or consumption (whichever you prefer) with relative ease.  Since the goods you produced yesterday are worth more today it is rather simple to turn a profit on what you have either produced or traded for.  If you have a debt to pay it will become easier and easier to pay the debt because (presumably) the money supply is increasing and therefore your income (in terms of money not necessarily wealth) is also increasing.  To keep runaway inflation in check, society simply needs to produce enough to keep up with the money supply.

Deflation is a condition where the wealth supply grows faster than the money does or the money supply shrinks faster than wealth does.  Less money to purchase the same amount of wealth leads to lower prices and the same amount of money to purchase more wealth will also lead to lower prices.  Deflation is a generally a result of overproduction and much more difficult issue to deal with than inflation.  If you have surplus wealth you will get ever lower prices for your goods and services which in turn makes it ever more difficult to profit from production or trade.  This makes amassing wealth–or excessive consumption–ever more difficult.  If you have money reserves (not wealth by my definition) you may benefit from the lower prices for a short while and temporarily increase your wealth or consumption but eventually your income will get caught up in the downward spiral as well.  If you are in debt your situation is especially pernicious because, while your payment is fixed, your income is falling, making it ever more difficult to pay.  The real difficulty of getting out of this cycle is that increasing production or wealth does not cure the problem.  What you produced or traded for yesterday is worth less today than what you paid for it.  The only thing you can do is reduce your consumption until either the money supply increases or the production of wealth slows sufficiently to restore the inflationary market.

In the past (before 1900) periods of inflation were always followed by brief periods of deflation.  The markets would seek equilibrium and those who were prepared would weather the deflation storms (or even amass wealth at discounted prices) and those who were not would suffer.  After the correction, inflation would then provide market conditions for those who were not prepared to get ready for the next correction.

All of this changed with the introduction of fiat money.  Fiat money is money produced by governments with no intrinsic value.  It only has value because everyone agrees that it does.  It is created and destroyed at will by the government that issues it.  There is no limit to how much can be produced.  It doesn’t matter how much gold is in circulation any more.  Nor does it matter how much gold could potentially be extracted.  Since money is no longer produced (the treasury doesn’t even bother to print all the money that is available in financial markets, they just produce enough for circulation), the ties that connected money and wealth have now been completely severed and each one grows and shrinks independently of each other.  When the government wants less money in the market, they remove it.  When they want more money in the market, they insert it.

Why would governments do such a thing?  The answer is simple: They don’t like deflation.  Or, stated another way, they hate, loathe, and despise deflation.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that most governments would rather deal with foreign invasion than deflation.  Deflation is the four letter word of the financial sector.  Why?  Because governments and many of the businesses that support the government financially all benefit from inflation but are hurt by deflation.  As long as there is steady inflation it will become easier as time goes on to pay old debts.  Prices rise, incomes rise, tax revenue increases, debt remains the same.  Fabulous, right?  Well, with deflation prices fall, incomes fall, tax revenues fall, debt remains the same.  So if you like to live beyond your means, then you want continual inflation.  You don’t ever want to experience deflation because that would decrease your wealth in a real way.  As long as you have continued inflation, you can always sell higher than you bought, which, if you borrowed money to buy in the first place, is very, very important.  That means you never have to give up real wealth even if you are living on other people’s money.

With fiat money you can create a virtual inflation machine.  You can artificially create inflation even when the market would normally deflate simply by issuing more money.  More wealth + even more money = inflation.  Leveraged businesses and traders are benefited by perpetual inflation just as much as governments, so they support the practice.  Businesses never get punished for overproducing and governments never get punished for overspending.  Perfect isn’t it?  Now government can spend without any restraint and the bill never really comes due because when it does, there is always plenty of (albeit fake) money to pay.

This is the real reason we have fiat money and the real reason the Federal Reserve exists.  Don’t let them kid you about the mission to maintain full employment.  That’s just so the electorate will keep voting in incumbents. But given the choice, maintaining positive inflation always takes precedence over full employment.

So now we are in a market that really wants to deflate.  It hasn’t deflated in over a hundred years.  We overproduced homes and instead of treating them like wealth (something useful, i.e. a place to live) we treated them as a source of money.  Now the market pressures are so great that notwithstanding the injection of over $3 trillion in cash over the last three years, home prices are still declining.  Wages are following.  Well, private sector wages are falling.  Public sector wages continue to rise.  I’m not sure what is keeping inflation positive.  Are rising food and oil prices enough to counteract the deflation of wages and real estate?  Is public sector wage inflation enough to negate the private sector wage deflation?  What happens if oil & food prices begin to decline?  Is that the reason the White House doesn’t want to increase oil production?  For fear falling oil prices will cause everything to deflate?  The disconnect between wealth and money serves as a giant smoke screen that hides the true market behavior, but eventually the truth comes out.

What we are witnessing here is the fleecing of the American populace by the political and business elites.  This is why the gap between the rich and the poor has become so great.  The rich have cheated the system with the help of the government.  Don’t let Obama fool you into thinking the rich will pay.  They may write checks but they don’t ever pay.  The government only consumes wealth and produces only money.  The consumption, like it or not, comes at the expense of the producers.  Who are the producers?  You and I.

Many speculate that our currency will become worthless.  Generally they argue that hyperinflation a la Weimar Republic will destroy faith in it.  While I agree that when the faith in the currency is destroyed, the currency will be worthless.  I disagree that hyperinflation will be the real culprit.  The Fed is ready to combat hyperinflation.  When it starts, they will do everything they can to fight it.  Since they can destroy money at will, they will probably succeed.  No, hyperinflation will not be the real culprit if our currency becomes worthless.

What will destroy our currency is the market itself.  The Fed has pitted its will against the market.  The market wants to deflate and the Fed wants to inflate.  Eventually the market will win.  When it does, the eulogy for the dollar has already been written…  by John the Revelator!  (See Revelation 18:11-15)

Posted in National Politics. Tags: . Leave a Comment »

BizzyBlog nails Husted for compromising the integrity of Ohio’s elections

August 6, 2011 — buckeyerino

BizzyBlog, easily one of the most respected right-of-center Ohio political blogs, posted an entry yesterday that’s not only worth reading the whole thing, it’s worth reading the source material, too, notwithstanding the fact that BizzyBlog’s Tom Blumer provided full quotes (it’s always okay to verify a source, even if it’s not OK, in Ohio, to verify a voter’s identity at election time).

Ohio SoS Jon Husted, a Republican that I didn’t endorse during the 2010 election cycle, is preventing the Ohio General Assembly’s attempts to restore the integrity of Ohio’s elections, i.e., in this instance, putting the kibosh on voter ID.  As I’ve pointed out, this is the same Husted who, as Speaker of the Ohio House, shepherded the passage of legislation that created loopholes big enough for 18-wheelers to pull through.  Former Ohio SoS Jennifer Brunner was only to happy to drive through each and every one of those loopholes in 2008 to secure a partisan advantage for the Democrats.

Too few see through Husted’s pretense to see him for who he truly is.  If not so, he wouldn’t have prevailed in the 2008 GOP primary.  Kudos to Tom Blumer for compiling the sources and synthesizing them into a more accurate portrayal of Husted.

Posted in Political Blogosphere, State Politics. 2 Comments »

James Williamson guest blog: Imminent Rebellion: The new King George

August 6, 2011 — buckeyerino

Editor’s note:  I’m glad my brother, James Williamson, has time to write a blog entry these days. I’ve had my hands full with other responsibilities, and have been on the road, from coast to coast, since early April.  As a result, I’ve had sporadic internet access, which not only makes it difficult for me to compose blog entries, it makes it difficult for me to even stay informed on current events.  James does his best to try to inform me.

James is an Ohio native who currently resides in Nevada.  Fairly recently, while James was driving down a Nevada road, he was accosted by an employee of the federal government’s Bureau of Land Management.  He was issued a traffic ticket.  Huh? Say that again, I’m not sure I heard it right.  He really got a traffic ticket from the Bureau of Land Management?  Yup, and James wasn’t even driving on, nor was he driving adjacent to, federally owned lands.  According to the words on the back of the ticket, the payment of the traffic fine was to be sent to an address in Pennsylvania.  Crazy.  Apparently, Congress passed a law clearly overreaching the  enumerated powers granted to the federal government by way of the Constitution.

James has composed an entire “Imminent Rebellion” series examining the growing schisms between the sovereign people, the state governments, and the federal government.  Prior blog entries in this series are:  “Imminent Rebellion: States vs the Federal Government,” “Imminent Rebellion: The Tar Pit,” “Imminent Rebellion: The New Fort Sumter,” and “Imminent Rebellion: Nullification, Secession, and the Constitution.”

IMMINENT REBELLION: THE NEW KING GEORGE

I’d like to start out by discussing a fallacy I hear so often quoted:  “It can’t get any worse than this.”  It can always be worse.  In fact I would argue that until people recognize that things can get worse they will get worse because living in denial brings inaction.  Inaction is the very cause of a downward trend continuing.  Something is broken and so you have to fix it.  If you don’t correct the problem it will continue to grow in severity until it becomes destructive.  The difficulty with breakdowns in our governmental/political system is that few people can agree on what is broken and hence what needs to be repaired and how.  So here is my view on our federal government problem.  (If you don’t think we have a problem then you scare me.)

Problem:  The federal government no longer recognizes the sovereignty of the people nor does it respect the sovereignty of the states.  These are both principles enshrined in our Constitution by the founding fathers (who were much wiser than our leaders today).  Both are essential to maintaining liberty because when a government retains all sovereignty there is no check on its power.  If there is no check on government power, the inevitable result is tyranny.  History has provided us with so many good examples that I could fill volumes with them, so, in the interest of brevity, I won’t include them here.

Many of our current so-called “leaders” barely make a pretense of adhering to the document that empowered our federal government and a few even openly dismiss it as out of date.  The Constitution is not outdated.  It will never be outdated.  Those who belittle its importance argue that the founding fathers could not have possibly seen 200 years into the future and anticipated the challenges that we have today.  While that statement is true, I would like to point out that the reason why the Constitution enumerates powers and outlines the federal system but doesn’t include any statutes is that it only enumerates individual rights and delegated authority (from the states to the federal government).  That is why we have a legislative branch in the first place.  It’s to deal with changing conditions, both at home and abroad.

In order to understand more clearly what is wrong with the government acting beyond its delegated authority we must understand why the Constitution was established in the first place.  To find this, let’s look at the preamble to the Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

So, first of all, we understand that the federal government was created by the people of the United States.  It was created by the several states (not the other way around) and can (in theory) be abolished by the states by amendment.  So, it follows that the states, collectively, are superior, not inferior, to the federal government.  Furthermore, the people, collectively, are superior to both the state and federal governments.  Sovereignty lies with the people.  They hold the supreme power and, with it, the right to organize, alter, or abolish government as the need arises.  I have at least one friend who agrees with my view: Thomas Jefferson.  To quote the Declaration of Independence:

…Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed… [and when it becomes destructive]… it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government

The governed (the people or public)  in the thirteen former British colonies (now independent states) already recognized that there was a union among the several states before the Constitution was adopted and that it was imperfect.  They proposed forming a central government because they wanted to establish a more perfect union.  Why?

{To}… establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…

This is the reason the Constitution exists:  It’s to preserve liberty.  Liberty must be preserved or it will be taken away by those who wish to exercise control over others.  The colonists wanted to control their own destiny, not have it controlled by a king that didn’t even live on the same continent as they did.  Our founding fathers recognized that the people are sovereign and have the inherent authority to govern.  So, when authority is given to the government, it is given to it by the consent of the people.

Now I ask you: Where in the Constitution of the United States is the mandate that says that the federal government needs to ensure everyone has money in their pocket and food on their table?  Is that promoting “the general Welfare?” No, absolutely not.

Remember that the colonists organized the Boston Tea party and numerous other protests because the government of Great Britain impeded the promotion of general welfare by imposing financial burdens on the colonists for government actions they weren’t even party to.  (Obamacare?  Libya?  Foreign aid to the Middle East?)  Furthermore, the taxes were imposed by the government in London without any representation or public support from the colonies.  That was an infringement on liberty.  The protests only increased when King George tried to crack down on the rebellion and used his ability to designate when, where, and how citizens could be tried for crimes to deter the resistance.  By delaying trials and holding them in distant places with no jury (the judge’s decision was final) the average citizen could not adequately protect himself from the abuses of government. (Justice and domestic tranquility weren’t priorities for the British crown.) The general welfare is promoted by maintaining liberty and individual rights (defense being a necessary element in a hostile world), not by robbing the rich to feed the poor.  (The Robin Hood principle actually degrades the general welfare of the people . . . but that is an argument for a different day.)  I will say, however, that the protests didn’t have anything to do with a lack of common defense.  Britain did a pretty good job of protecting their piggy bank in the Americas.

So I ask you, after we threw off the oppression of George III and we established a government for the express purpose of preserving liberty, how are we doing now?  Is allowing people who plot and carry out designs to kill Americans to be tried in civil court promoting justice?  Is refusing to enforce our immigration laws and suing the states that try to deal with the problem promoting domestic tranquility?  Is military involvement in Libya or Yemen providing for the common defense?  Is taking approximately 19% of everything that is produced in the country in the form of taxation promoting the general welfare?  Is forcing your own citizens to purchase health insurance against their will promoting liberty?

I could go on but I don’t need to.  You are all aware that our own government is now guilty of many of the abuses that caused us to throw off the British government in the first place.  The reason we fought the Revolutionary War was because the outcry of the public fell on deaf ears.  The government in London did not listen to its constituents.  Now we have a government in Washington DC that does not listen to its constituents.  It doesn’t need to end in bloodshed, though.  There is another way.

The solution:  The federal government needs to get back to the basics:

{To}… establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…

Remember that, in the United States of America, the people are sovereign.  They have the right to govern themselves.  They only delegate authority to governments, . . . they don’t abdicate it.  The people delegated certain powers to the states and the states delegated certain (enumerated) powers to the federal government.

The federal government needs to preserve liberty, not trample it.    They also need to recognize that they are dependent on the states and the people for their existence, not the other way around.  If the federal government was looking out for the best interest of the citizens at large and not just the best interests of campaign donors, we would not have this problem.

This change can only happen from within.  This is the essence of the tea party movement.  So far no one in the national media has been able to articulate it, but the reason the tea party exists is because the federal government has become what we threw off over 200 years ago: Despotic!   This is a natural response from freedom loving people.  It is not radical, racist, or extreme.

The Declaration of Independence provides the remedy for the malady of despotism:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government

So I ask you:  Do you think the federal government is preserving your rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?  Or are they becoming destructive to such ends?  How does taxing the rich and refunding to the poor promote liberty and the pursuit of happiness?  I suppose if you are on the receiving end, you might think the idea is great, but what if you are the one having money taken out of your wallet against your will and having it given to someone else just because they make less money than you do?  How does allowing guns to be smuggled to Mexico by drug cartels promote our right to life?  How does forcing everyone to buy health insurance preserve our liberty?

If you believe, as I do, that the federal government (and, by the way, state governments are not guiltless) has overreached, then please support candidates that truly believe in limited government.  If they don’t live up to their promises, replace them.  As long as the political elites control Washington, this problem will only grow until it financially crushes the state governments and simultaneously usurps their authority to govern.  This is already beginning to happen.  Obamacare and high-speed rail are only aiding in the power grab by forcing spending on the states while only funding about half of it.  By bankrupting the states, there will be less resistance for the next usurpation of authority since there will be fewer funds available to fight the measure.

I was recently issued a citation for a traffic violation while traveling on a state highway here in Nevada by a Bureau of Land Management officer.  I was not even on or near BLM land.  Police power is not delegated by the Constitution (and my Congressional representative’s office even agreed with me) and yet I am being tried by the federal government for a traffic violation on a state highway that does not even border BLM land.  This is a blatant violation of the Constitution, yet the BLM claims that they are acting within the law.  What law?  The law that Congress created that was in direct violation of the 10th amendment?  That law?  Inexplicably, my Congressional representative’s office also agrees with the BLM officer in that he acted within the law.  What further evidence do we need to show that we need new leadership in Washington?

The political elites deride and berate the tea party movement because it is in direct opposition to their goals, not because it is bad for the country.  They don’t want their power limited. They want to expand it.  They usually use the pretext of solving societal problems, but they don’t solve society’s problems because they can’t.  Only we, as a people, can do that.  Government regulations will not make our kids smarter nor get them better jobs nor will it magically create wealth for our citizens.  The federal government needs to get back to preserving liberty by protecting against foreign invasion (Mexico anyone?), minting (real) money, and regulating trade (with China maybe?).  That is what the Constitution gave them the authority to do and that is what will allow the states and the public the liberty to focus on the issues of education, local commerce, rule of law, and the well-being of its citizens.

It is paramount that we elect representatives that will uphold the principles of liberty.  Time is short.  If we do not act soon, the only alternative we will have is the alternative that the colonists felt compelled to take: Exercise the right to bear arms.

Posted in National Politics. 7 Comments »

A basketball player like no other in NCAA was key to Toledo’s WNIT championship

April 3, 2011 — buckeyerino

Usually when March Madness rolls around, my stomach is tied up in knots, I’m pacing the floor, hoping against hope that my teams will win.

This year, I had a calm feeling. I took it as an omen that, as a fan of both men’s and women’s NCAA basketball, I’d be celebrating a championship this time around.

Lo and behold, it’s the University of Toledo hoisting the championship trophy of the Women’s National Invitational Tournament (WNIT). The Blade has printed a recap of Toledo’s win over the University of Southern California in the title game.

Toledo features a player like no other in the NCAA, Naama Shafir. In the championship game, the junior guard from Israel scored 40 points. Here’s a summary of her basketball feats dating all the way back to high school, but that’s not what sets her apart from all the other players. That information can be found here. She’s a very principled woman, to be sure.

Posted in International Politics. Tags: . Leave a Comment »

Press release: U.S. Rep. Latta to host U.S. Rep Bachmann at 5th Congressional District Lincoln Day Dinner

March 30, 2011 — buckeyerino

Editor’s note: This press release was issued 3/30/2011. Rep. Bob Latta’s campaign website includes a page where you can enter your email address to have information about the event sent directly to your inbox. The Lincoln Day Dinner video announcement on his website can also be found on YouTube. Rep. Michele Bachmann represents Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District. It seems that the mainstream media has been openly wondering whether Rep. Bachmann will, at some point in time, be making a high-profile announcement having something to do with a very ambitious 2012 campaign for some sort of national elected office. Have you been hearing such chatter, too?

REP. BACHMANN TO HEADLINE 5TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT LINCOLN DAY DINNER

BOWLING GREEN – Congressman Bob Latta (R-Bowling Green) welcomes potential presidential contender Congresswoman Michele Bachmann as the featured speaker at his 2011 Lincoln Day Dinner scheduled for Friday, May 20, 2011 at 7:00 p.m. at Sauder Village, Founder’s Hall located at 22611 State Route 2 Archbold, Ohio 43502.

Congresswoman Bachmann is a 3rd term Republican from Minnesota’s 6th District. She is the first Republican woman to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Minnesota. She currently sits on the House Financial Services Committee and chairs the Tea Party Caucus.

Tickets are $25 per person and are now available on a first-come, first-served basis. To purchase tickets, contact a county Republican Party chairperson.

County>>Chairperson

Ashland>>Bill Harris

Crawford>>Matt Crall

Defiance>>Ted Penner

Fulton>>Sandy Barber

Henry>>Ron Behm

Huron>>Rob Duncan

Lucas>>Jon Stainbrook

Mercer>>Matt Gilmore

Paulding>>Fred Pieper

Putnam>>Lyle McKanna

Sandusky>>Justin Smith

Seneca>>David Koehl

Van Wert>>Martin Burchfield

Williams>>Brian Davis

Wood>>John Miller

Wyandot>>Sherman Stansbery

For more information, please visit www.lattaforcongress.com. To view a welcome message from Congresswoman Bachmann and Congressman Latta, please watch this video.

Posted in Announcements, National Politics. Tags: , . Leave a Comment »

Forget Vegas! This is all about VCU! VCU’s got to do what VCU’s got to do!

March 28, 2011 — buckeyerino

In men’s hoops, the NCAA Final Four is not comprised of teams that most sports fans were expecting: A 3rd-seeded Connecticut, a 4th-seeded Kentucky, an 8th-seeded Butler, and an 11th-seeded Virginia Commonwealth (which I will abbreviate as VCU).  Picking this Final Four field was as easy as posting the names of the 68 tournament teams on a dartboard, putting a blindfold on, throwing four darts, taking the blindfold off, and reading the names of the universities where the darts landed.  You didn’t need to know much about men’s college basketball to figure this out.  In fact, the more you knew about men’s hoops, the more likely you were to predict the wrong Final Four.

Two Associated Press stories about the NCAA tourney caught my eye that I’d like to share with readers.

A story written by AP’s Paul J. Weber recaps VCU’s stunning upset victory against a 1st-seeded Kansas squad.  Kansas was so heavily favored to win, not just this game, but the entire tournament, that even President Obama predicted that Kansas would win it all.

VCU’s coach, Shaka Smart, has an Ohio connection.  A history major, he graduated magna cum laude from Kenyon College, where he also played men’s basketball at the Division III level of the NCAA.

As if the pre-game taunts from Kansas players weren’t enough, as if the arena chock-full of Kansas fans weren’t enough, as if the naysaying sports reporters and pundits weren’t enough to get under the skin of Shaka Smart, VCU’s coach plainly saw that the game’s referees weren’t going to call the game the way Smart saw it.  Adversity reared its head anywhere the coach cared to look.  There was no friend to be found anywhere outside the VCU camp.  Every last one of those converging on the VCU contingent were foes.

And then Coach Smart was whistled for a technical foul.  That’s it.  That’s the last straw.  Enough.  To seek redress for these grievances, there was only one option left open to VCU: WIN!

Here’s an excerpt from the story, and I’ve taken the liberty of highlighting the most salient quote from the coach in bold print:

Smart, the 33-year-old whose enigmatic personality has made him a breakout star, was so animated shuffling in front of his bench that officials shooed him back. Another official later served Smart his first technical all season.

Smart said he used that moment as a motivator – though he had to clean up his language first.

“It was basically forget the refs, forget Kansas, this is all about us,” Smart said. “We got to do what we got to do.”

Among the field of Kentucky, Connecticut, Butler, and VCU, I was feeling mixed emotions about whether I’d like to see Kentucky win it all or Butler win it all.

Butler, located in Indianapolis, is another giant-killer small school, just like VCU, but I tend to favor teams from the Midwest.  Butler competes in the Horizon League, against schools such as Cleveland State, Wright State, and Youngstown State.

Kentucky is the team that ousted Ohio State by just a smidgeon in a game that went down to the wire.  If Ohio State can’t win it all, then a consolation would be that OSU lost to the eventual champion.  Kentucky is legendary in the annals of men’s basketball lore, so it’s no great shame for Ohio State to lose to such a highly-vaunted hoops program.

Kentucky?  Butler?  Kentucky?  Butler?  Kentucky?  Butler?  Kentucky?  Butler?

Which brings me to the other AP story, penned by Oskar Garcia, about who the Las Vegas oddsmakers favor for the men’s NCAA championship.

You’re not a regular long-time reader of Buckeye RINO if you are unaware of the fact that I have always vehemently opposed gambling.  Let’s see . . . there are at least . . . let me count (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, . . .) at least 22 blog posts chiefly about my anti-gambling views.  There are additional blog posts in which some other issue is more prominent, yet my opposition to gambling still gets expressed.  So, to the casual, infrequent Buckeye RINO readers or those who are just recently coming into regular contact with my blog, let me just say, “Hi!  My name is Daniel Jack Williamson, and I’m opposed to gambling.”

As I contemplated whether I wanted Butler or Kentucky to win it all, I had an epiphany.  I ought to be rooting for VCU, and the Oskar Garcia article explains why.  Here’s the opening paragraph:

Las Vegas casinos have tabbed Kentucky the latest favorite in an NCAA tournament full of upsets, and are hoping that Virginia Commonwealth ends its improbable run without a title.

Now here’s the clincher.  It’s a quote from Mike Colbert, an insider in the sports betting industry in Las Vegas.

“VCU is the one team that we don’t want to win,” he said. “Every other team is good for the house.”

Right now, VCU is the underdog among the four with 7 to 1 odds.  Back when VCU reached the round of 16, however, the odds of them winning it all were 80 to 1 , so, to say the odds have improved dramatically since VCU has advanced through two more tourney rounds is perhaps an understatement.  Apparently, some big wagers were placed on VCU last week at the 80 to 1 odds.  If a VCU championship materializes, it’s going to sting the sports gambling apparatus.

My antennas are up.  My radar is beeping.  The trajectory of whatever is out there faintly portends that Vegas might take a direct hit.  Bwahahahahahaha! I’m rubbing my hands together with cocked eyebrows and a mischievous grin on my face as my imagination plays out the complete annihilation of the gambling industry of Vegas in my mind’s eye.  I cackle some more and dance a little jig.

I do realize that, in the grand scheme of things, a VCU championship would be just a tiny setback for an industry that wins day in and day out.  Sporting events are strewn throughout the calendar, so the pipeline of $$$$ flowing to the industry won’t really be interrupted, as the house will win 99.99999999% of the time no matter which contestants win or which ones lose.  The industry almost always has all bases covered, but apparently VCU is one of those very rare exceptions.

Just the same, I derive some perverse delight from any event that causes the gambling industry to flinch because of pain, however fleeting the hurt may be, so VCU is my team leading up to this year’s Final Four match-ups.

I hope that Coach Smart takes offense against Las Vegas for not just disrespecting VCU, but for openly spouting its venomous contempt of VCU.  This is disrespect beyond opposing players, opponents’ fans, the media, or even the refs, for they might not want you to win, but they wouldn’t want actual harm to come to you.  Vegas would probably break the legs of every VCU player if they figured they could get away with it.  I hope that becomes bulletin board material in the VCU locker room.

Nobody’s looking out for the best interests of VCU in Vegas.

If it enraged Coach Smart that he could find no one outside the VCU camp who possessed even an ounce of goodwill toward his team at the Kansas game, then it has now been confirmed that the coach is not the least bit paranoid as VCU heads into the last two games. Vegas is truly out to get him and the team.  Winning it all is the only way to turn the tables on Vegas.

Forget those hateful conspirators!  This is not about what the haters want.  It’s all about VCU and what its players actually do on the basketball court at the appointed hour.  When play commences, the haters will have no power to determine the outcome.  Only the team that steps out onto that floor has that power.

Forget Las Vegas!  This is all about you, VCU!  Do what you gotta do!

Posted in gambling. Tags: . 1 Comment »

BYU did the right thing

March 18, 2011 — buckeyerino

March Madness.  Aside from birthdays of two of my brothers, March Madness is what makes the month of March worthwhile.

I’m not all that fond of March.  March temperatures are very fickle in Ohio.  It could be balmy, but more likely its snowy.  If it’s above freezing, March in Ohio can be very muddy.  Mud is probably my number one gripe about March.  Melting snows sometimes close roads because of too much standing water, and those in flood plains should be wary.  March is quite windy, and I don’t much care for really windy conditions.  The leaves are not back on the trees yet, so the landscape looks rather stark and inhospitable.  Not too long ago, March was made even worse by moving the start date of Daylight Savings Time from April.  I’d like to remain on Standard Time year-round.

I have plenty of similar gripes about April, too, but at least the Cleveland Indians baseball season gets underway.

Ohio gets really pretty in May.  I think the lush green beauty of Ohio reaches the peak of its perfection around Memorial Day weekend.

I’m getting ahead of myself.  I love college basketball, men’s or women’s teams. I love it far more than I do NBA basketball.  I graduated from Ohio State.  I’ve always been a fan of the Ohio State Buckeyes.  I bleed Scarlet and Gray.

The Buckeyes are expected to do well this year.  I won’t hold my breath, because I’ve seen them lose so many NCAA tourney games that they weren’t supposed to lose, but I’m not feeling nervous–on edge–apprehensive–like I usually do at this time of year.  For some reason, I feel calm.  Maybe that’s a good omen.  Maybe that means that this year, finally, OSU, a number 1 seed in the men’s tournament, triumphs.  Or, if the men stumble, perhaps the OSU women, a lower seed (4), will surprise everyone in their tournament.

I have a brother and a sister who graduated from Brigham Young University, so I keep tab on their sports teams, too.  Both the men’s and women’s teams seemed to be on autopilot, in control of their destiny, both of them dominating the Mountain West Conference, and the men’s program getting a lot of national buzz with the nation’s leading scorer, Jimmer Fredette.  There was even some anticipation that the BYU men would even receive a number 1 seed in the tournament.

Then there was a bump in the road.

The BYU women did not win the post-season tourney of the conference they dominated all season long.  They didn’t even receive an invite to the women’s NCAA tournament.  They had to settle for the WNIT, instead.

Jimmer Fredette, though wowing spectators across the nation with his stellar on-court achievements, cannot do all of the work of the men’s team by himself.  There are five men on the court for each team at all times, and Jimmer needs those four other men or Jimmermania isn’t even possible.  BYU usually has 5 solid players on the floor, but many of the players coming off the bench are unproven.  It is widely acknowledged that BYU is not a deep team.

Then, the unthinkable happened.  Brandon Davies, the team’s leading rebounder, was kicked off the team and out of school for the rest of the season.  He’d committed no crime, nor had he violated any NCAA rules, yet the decision by the university’s administration to dismiss him was final.  There was no going back on the decision.  There was no further appeal that would receive consideration.

All of a sudden, one of the nation’s premier men’s basketball teams was an also-ran, Jimmer Fredette notwithstanding.  The team was not the same team as it used to be.  Over the course of the bulk of the season, BYU had only suffered two losses.  During the very brief stretch of the season after Davies was dismissed, BYU went down to defeat two more times.

Instead of a number 1 seed, BYU received a number 3 seed.  Many sports pundits believe a number 3 seed, for a BYU team without Brandon Davies, is way too generous.  BYU was blessed with a number 3 seed as a congratulatory hat-tip for the success they’d had over the course of the season, not because anyone believes them to be that good now that Davies is gone.

BYU won its first tourney game yesterday, against Wofford.  The win was expected, but it wasn’t stellar.  The game wasn’t particularly intense, as college basketball games go.  BYU’s win would’ve been lopsided with Davies on the court, but without him, BYU never amassed much of a lead.

Even before tourney play began yesterday, the talking heads were saying that the number 11 seed, Gonzaga, would be the one to win the first two rounds and advance to the Sweet 16.  Gonzaga has fulfilled half of that expectation, already, having beaten the number 6 seed, St. John’s, last night.  Tomorrow, BYU and Gonzaga will be facing off against each other.  Is BYU really all washed up?  Maybe.  We’ll find out more about that tomorrow, I suppose.

What was the reason for Davies dismissal in the first place that caused this trainwreck and possibly have even cost the BYU Cougars a first-ever national championship? He’d violated the student honor code, a pledge of high ethical standards that all BYU students must promise to abide by prior to enrollment.

Almost all students are privately screened by Mormon pastors (there are small variations in the screening process for non-Mormon applicants, but the promise to follow the student honor code is required of all BYU applicants) to assure that the applicants already conform to the standards of the honor code prior to admission and re-enrollment.  The nature of Davies’ violation wasn’t discussed by the university, but Davies, himself, acknowledged the nature of it to his teammates, and physical intimacy (consensual) with his girlfriend was apparently at the heart of the matter.  I can’t imagine that any other NCAA Division 1 university in the U.S.A. would have dismissed Davies on these grounds.  BYU’s expectations of students are incredibly high, and, quite frankly, most late teens and 20-somethings wouldn’t put up with such stringent rules.

I think BYU did the right thing.

Brandon Davies is a much more positive role model than me.  My conduct over the course of my adult life is far more checkered than Davies’ is.  I assure everyone that I approve of Davies’ dismissal knowing full well that, by no means, am I holier than he is.  For me, it boils down to this:  Does BYU excuse a violation by a prominent student-athlete just because they want to win a national championship?  Or, instead, is BYU fair to every student because no student is excused from fulfilling the pledge, not even a star athlete whose name is famous among all die-hard men’s college hoops fans throughout the nation?  The university administration had no doubt in its mind that being fair by holding every single student to the same standard was far more important than a championship.  I think they’re right.

What about second chances?  Doesn’t everyone deserve a second chance?  Sure they do, and life will provide Brandon Davies’ with second, third, fourth, fifth (and so on) chances over the decades to come.  In my own life, I’ve been given many chances for redemption, too.  I don’t know if Davies feels as if his world has crumpled around him or not, but I know that it truly hasn’t.  The world keeps spinning.  The sun keeps rising.  The calendar keeps advancing.  Life’s journey for Brandon Davies can be a very rewarding one, and this moment of his life can become just a blip on the radar.

He just can’t play basketball for BYU right now.

Though he’ll get second chances, the immediate consequences for the violation cannot be circumvented or else the university would be entirely unfair to its whole student body.  The second chances will have to materialize in some other form.  Playing this tournament with BYU is out of the question.

Fairness to the student body, harumph!  What about fairness to the team?  Why should the team be penalized for one person’s infraction that wouldn’t count as an infraction at any other university in the nation?  Is it fair that the BYU team has to adhere to a very different standard than that of all the teams they play against?  So why is it fair to dismiss a player and hurt a whole team because of something that doesn’t matter anywhere else?

This is where it gets political, as it reminds me of one of the reasons I’m not a Libertarian.

The Libertarians I’ve known have repeatedly decried nanny-state governance.  Why should the government tell us not to grow marijuana, or even smoke it?  Why should the government restrict gambling?  Why forbid prostitution when adult participants willingly consent to it?  Why must I wear a seat belt while driving my automobile?  Why should I allow government to make decisions for me and take away my personal liberty just because they believe their decisions are for my own good?  If I make a decision that isn’t for my own good, I could create some trouble for myself, but isn’t that my concern and no one else’s?

Libertarians also decry the tyranny of the majority.  Why should a portion of revenues from a county sales tax be set aside for public transit that so few people actually use?  Why pay property tax to a school district when none of those students are my own children?  Why does city hall, against my own wishes, install speed bumps on our street just because most of my neighbors want them?  And why do zoning ordinances restrict what I can do on my own property just because those ordinances are deemed to be for the benefit of all?  If I don’t agree with the majority opinion, why can’t I opt out?

My response to all these questions is that no human being is an island.

The consequences of what we do does not stop with us.  It ripples far beyond us.  If I create trouble for myself because of my own bad decision, it IS of concern to others, because others are linked to me, and therefore are impacted.

If you choose to be an alcoholic, you might cause the rest of us to have higher insurance premiums. You might collide with me while you’re driving. You might use your money on alcohol rather than the mortgage payments and the resulting foreclosure lower my property’s value.  You might not maintain your property well and and the rest of us neighbors have to contend with the vermin that migrate from your property.  You might get in violent fights with your spouse and disturb the peace in the neighborhood.  You might act inappropriately in front of my children.  You are not the only one who would suffer from your incorrect choices, therefore the law limits your personal liberties regarding alcohol consumption.  The government isn’t just protecting you from yourself.  It’s protecting the rest of us, too.

When laws are enacted in accordance with the will of the majority, opting out would decrease cooperation, which would increase friction, which would disrupt order, which could disintegrate our society into a lawless one.  A disordered, lawless society would only increase individual liberty if one had hegemonic power over others who might stand in the way.  Somalia is a disordered lawless place, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no system of governance.  Government exists wherever people interact together.  If there isn’t a system of laws to govern those interactions, and if persuasion fails to govern those interactions, then force governs those interactions.  That’s why warlords tussle with each other in lawless regions such as Somalia, because governance of interactions is determined by successful physical aggression and cunning.  Opting out can easily lead to a far more malignant tyranny than the “tyranny of the majority” that exists in the U.S.A.

The spillover effects of Brandon Davies’ dismissal from the men’s basketball team at BYU illustrates that the impact of one person’s actions, the exercise of one person’s liberties, for good or ill, ripples beyond self.  Opting out of Davies’ obligations separated him from the community he was once a part of.  Both Davies and that BYU community suffer because of the breakdown of order.

Libertarianism, even in a nation far less ordered than the BYU community, yields these very same consequences, and at several levels of magnitude greater.

Posted in Politics in the MSM. Tags: . 2 Comments »

A link to 2011 Cuyahoga County GOP calendar

March 17, 2011 — buckeyerino

Considering all the blog visitors looking for Lincoln Day Dinner information across Ohio, I should have posted this notice about Cuyahoga County’s Lincoln Day Dinner already.  Sorry about the delay.

19th Annual Republican Party of Cuyahoga County Lincoln Day Dinner

  • Wednesday, March 30, 2011 5:30 pm VIP reception and 6:30 pm dinner
  • Downtown Renaissance Hotel Ballroom, 24 Public Square, Cleveland, OH 44113
  • Cost: $50/person for dinner and $250/person for VIP reception
  • Contact: Matt Clever at 216-621-5418 or mclever@cuyahogacountygop.com
  • Guest Speakers: Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty and Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel

For other events on the RPCC calendar, please follow this link: http://www.cuyahogacountygop.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=18&Itemid=21.

Posted in Announcements, Local Politics. Tags: , . Leave a Comment »

Americans for Prosperity-Ohio press release: Former state rep Seth Morgan is the new Director of Policy for AFP-Ohio

March 17, 2011 — buckeyerino

Editor’s note: Perhaps you remember last year’s GOP primary in which Seth Morgan, a CPA, vied for nomination to the office of Ohio Auditor. This press release from Americans for Prosperity-Ohio was issued on 3/17/2011.

FORMER STATE REPRESENTATIVE SETH MORGAN JOINS AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY OF OHIO AS DIRECTOR OF POLICY

DAYTON – Grassroots free-market group Americans for Prosperity is pleased to welcome aboard former State Representative Seth Morgan as Ohio Director of Policy.

Morgan is recognized as a leader in advocating for free markets, fiscal responsibility in government, and limiting government’s intrusion into Ohioans’ liberties and pocketbooks. He entered politics as a young man, seeking to make a difference for the Community by putting to use his passion for public policy, philosophy of a responsible government, and love for the City of Huber Heights and the surrounding region.

In 2001, Morgan ran and was elected to the position of Huber Heights City Council, representing Ward 3. He won this first race by a mere three votes. He first took office in January 2002 and, at the age of 23, became the youngest Council member ever to represent the citizens of Huber Heights. In 2004 he was selected by his peers to serve as the city’s youngest ever Vice-Mayor. Morgan was reelected in 2005 to the Huber Heights City Council.

Morgan was elected in 2008 to serve as the Ohio State Representative for the 36th District, serving northern and western portions of Montgomery County. With his aggressive but resolute and consistent leadership style, Morgan “hit the ground running” and was most active leading in his role as the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Primary and Secondary Education. His effort for Ohio’s children lead him to take Governor Ted Strickland to the Ohio Supreme Court in his effort to force transparency and accountability for some of Ohio’s most important and far-reaching policies.

“The heart of American politics is not about Republican or Democrat or which ‘team’ one belongs to. Rather it is about helping individuals learn to love the liberty they’ve been given and the policies that best preserve that liberty. AFP is playing an important role in that effort in Ohio and for that I’m grateful to be assisting in their efforts,” said Seth Morgan.

Morgan accepts this position alongside his continued commitments as a Certified Public Accountant and President of MLA Management Systems, Inc. Morgan serves small to medium sized organizations with business consulting and part-time CFO services. He is also a Member of Morgan Troutwine & Associates, CPAs, LLC. Morgan and his wife Debra have three children.

Posted in Announcements, State Politics. Tags: , . Leave a Comment »

Halfway agreeing with Kucinich on Libya

March 16, 2011 — buckeyerino

The rest of the world is wondering when the United States will officially make up its mind on the appeal put to it to impose a no-fly zone over Libya.  I suppose the rest of the world appeals to the U.S. to perform this task because they know full well that we are capable of this task in a way that no other nation is capable of doing.

The Obama Administration has dithered on the issue as time passes and dissenters get crushed by tanks.  The Obama Administration has said that it will not act unilaterally, so it is sending out feelers to see whether the U.S. has a mandate from the international community to take action on the request for the no-fly zone.  The Obama Administration dithers because the international community is divided on the issue.  For some strange reason, the President can’t decide which nations’ opinions count and which ones don’t.  If one were to base a decision upon what other nations think, one would suppose that the opinions of the Arab League, France, and the U.K.  would be more persuasive than the opinions of Russia and Germany, don’t you think?

Umm . . . I think, in one sense, it is OK for the U.S. to act unilaterally.  We don’t  need to ask the international community what the U.S. ought to do.  We never did need to.  Our nation makes up its own mind and then acts accordingly.  The international community is not the entity that is entitled to mandate what the U.S. does.

In another sense, the President should not act unilaterally.  It is the people of the United States of America who are sovereign.  We are the ones who issue mandates, and in the case of war, we do that through our representatives in Congress.  The U.S. Constitution even says so.

Congress moves as slowly as molasses running uphill in January.  Waiting for an act of Congress would cost precious time.  I’m of the opinion, however, that the President has wasted precious time already consulting the international community when he should have been using that time to appeal directly to Congress to affirm, one way or the other, what action is to be taken.  He might have to take a whip to Congress to swiftly draft a resolution and vote upon it, but Congress, as the representatives of We, the People, are the ones who make the binding decision, not the international community.

Legislatures prescribe what the executive branch is to do.  The executive branch is to carry out the directives of the legislative branch.

Some would argue that it is the prerogative of the President to make an executive decision on the matter in his role as Commander-in-Chief.  He does command the armed forces of the United States, true.  He’s directed some armed forces to assist Japan in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami.  Assisting Japan, though, is not an act of war.

The President could reasonably take immediate action against Libya if Libya were engaged in an assault upon the U.S., its citizens, or its diplomatic or military institutions abroad.  Libya is not carrying out an assault against the United States.

Under these circumstances, military intervention against the government of Libya, such as imposing a no-fly zone upon it, would require a Declaration of War from the United States Congress.  Upon that point, I readily agree with Dennis Kucinich, who has posted his position on his website.

My question is:  Where is the resolution at?  What I mean is, where is the bill before Congress that would officially declare war if it won passage?

Senator Kerry and Senator McCain have talked about resolutions to authorize implementation of a no-fly zone, but I agree with Dennis Kucinich that such authorization is insufficient because it is not in keeping with the U.S. Constitution.

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul has vowed to introduce a resolution that stipulates that the President cannot take part in any action in Libya without first being approved by Congress.  Wimpy, wimpy, wimpy, . . . and redundant.  That’s not the resolution that’s needed, since it only repeats the Constitution.  When it comes to foreign policy, when has Ron Paul ever exhibited signs of leadership?  That’s why I can never vote for him in GOP presidential primary elections.  Do you, Ron Paul, want to demonstrate leadership?  Put a war resolution before Congress, even though you’ll obviously vote against it.  Get the matter decided right now and put an end to Obama’s dithering.  Do whatever you want within the rules of Congress to ensure that your side prevails and wins the day, but cease the inaction.

Likewise to Dennis Kucinich.  Urge the Congress to vote on a war resolution, nothing less.  Put the matter to rest once and for all.

Some have said that our Congress should never vote in favor of a declaration of war when it is taking sides in some other nation’s civil war.  They say that a declaration of war should only win passage if the United States is under attack.  I don’t agree with that assessment, and neither does history.  During our Revolutionary War (a civil war within the territory ruled by the British crown) the American army did, in fact, receive valuable assistance from abroad.  Likewise, during our Civil War, some foreign influences aided the North and some foreign influences aided the South.  We did not waive off foreign involvement.  We accepted whatever foreign aid we could lay hold of to support our war efforts.  This precedent was set from the very founding era of our nation, so I reject the notion that we must automatically vote against going to war amidst some other nation’s civil war.  We can consider each proposed war resolution without being bound by such constraints.  I’m not saying we should be hawkish.  I’m not saying we should be dovish, either.  I’m saying we can make such decisions on a case-by-case basis, and whatever decision the Congress makes, yes or no, carries the full weight and force of the Constitution with it.

Having said that, I’d like to review a few specific sentences within Kucinich’s statement.

“A no-fly zone begins with an attack on the air defenses of Libya.  It is an act of war that can only be approved by Congressional action, not by any international body.  There is a civil war in Libya, which must be resolved by Libya.”

Instead of underscoring the words “It is an act of war” as Kucinich did on his webpage, I have highlighted those words in italics and bold print, since I think, on my blog page, the contrast with the rest of the text stands out more.  I do need to disclose, though, that Kucinich underscored it.

I agree with the first sentence.  It is an attack on Libya.

I would take the second sentence a bit further:  Not only is it an act of war that can only be approved by Congress, I would add that the approval from Congress (should it decide to do so) must come in the form of a declaration of war.  Authorizing a no-fly zone, I believe, would not pass muster.  The Congress declares war, then the Commander-in-Chief determines how to execute the war, whether to include a no-fly zone as part of the strategy, or not.  The chief purpose of the war would be to vanquish the forces of the government of Libya.  If that is accomplished, then a treaty is drafted, then ratified by the Senate, and the war is concluded.

The third sentence jumps to a conclusion.  That conclusion is that it is a civil war that must be resolved by Libya.  Instead, I wouldn’t speak for the rest of the nations of the world whether they are content to let Libya resolve this on its own or not.  Other nations might decide to involve themselves in the war and shape how it is resolved.  We might disagree with the actions of other nations who choose to involve themselves, but even if we disagree with the interference of any and all nations on the principle that Libya, itself, settle the matter as an internal concern, the word “should” needs to replace the word “must.”  We can have an opinion on what should happen, pertaining to the resolution of the Libyan civil war, but we aren’t able to decree what must happen.  In addition to not speaking for the rest of the nations, I don’t believe that Kucinich can speak for our own nation until the votes are tallied on the war resolution.  The Libyan civil war is not a matter that the U.S. should try to resolve if the Congress says “no” to a war resolution.  However, the U.S. will not leave the matter to be resolved by Libya, alone, if the U.S. Congress declares war on Libya.

Here are two more sentences from Kucinich that I want to examine:

“It is time for the Administration to stop looking for someone else to make the decision.  The U.S. must make a firm declaration that it will not intervene in Libya by means of enforcing a no-fly zone or any other aggressive military means.”

Kucinich hits the nail on the head with that first sentence, as the “someone else” refers to someone beyond Congress, and that especially applies to looking for other nations to make our decision.  Congress makes the decision.  Obama has no authority to look to someone else.

As to the second sentence, I would have to say, “Has the Congressional vote been held and tallied already?”  Only if the Congress has already voted against a declaration of war on Libya can the second sentence be binding upon the United States.  As much as Kucinich would like to dictate how all other members of Congress should vote, he can’t tell them how to vote.  If the other side prevails, then Kucinich ought to acknowledge that the United States really is at war with Libya.  The Constitution does not constrain the Congress from voting one way or the other.  What does the Constitution do?  It requires the United States to act upon the will of Congress, whether the vote is yes or no.  Much as Kucinich doesn’t like it, nothing bars a colleague from voting “yes.”

The bottom line here is that the Congress should render a decision on the matter so that President Obama knows what the mandate is.  Don’t tell him he can’t act without a mandate from Congress and then withhold a Congressional decision on what the mandate is, which is what Ron Paul’s proposed resolution amounts to.  Once Congress acts decisively, then Obama can act decisively.  Got it?  Do it!

Posted in International Politics, National Politics. Tags: , . Leave a Comment »

Japanese store shelves tell the tale: The time to hoard is long before the calamity strikes

March 15, 2011 — buckeyerino

I’m hopping back up on my soapbox again.  I’ve been blogging about preparing your family for catastrophes since 2008.  I’ve racked my brain to pinpoint of a number of ways in which your family can prepare, and put those thoughts on my blog, too.  I’m blogging again to remind everyone that the time to prepare for catastrophe is sooner rather than later.

AP business writer Yuri Kageyama produced this report about consumers throughout Japan, not just in the earthquake/tsunami ravaged zone of northeast Honshu island, descending on stores to buy up all products with any shelf life that could have some use in an emergency. (Hint: Just click on the above link and read the AP article. You need to take a look at it. Got that?)

The scarcity of these consumer goods throughout Japan is hampering the humanitarian relief efforts.  How do you ship survival goods, such as food, water, blankets, batteries, flashlights, tents, sleeping bags, etc., to the victims of the earthquake and tsunami when the unaffected population throughout the rest of the nation has siphoned away all those supplies?  Government officials are urging the public not to hoard, but the public is panicked.

Don’t feel vulnerable in a crisis.  You should have what you need for an emergency now.  If you don’t have it now, when will you have it?  In your hour of need?  And if a natural disaster, such as a house fire or tornado, wipes out your own emergency supplies, won’t you be grateful to your neighbors if they’ve got emergency supplies on hand that they can share with you?  Wouldn’t you be glad you could help out a neighbor if the roles are reversed?  And then, when widespread disasters wipe out the emergency supplies of everyone in the community, wouldn’t you be thankful that humanitarian relief efforts aren’t starved of resources because the population beyond the disaster zone has no reason to panic, since they’re already prepared?

One more thing to keep in mind:  The world economy is fragile.  This earthquake/tsunami disaster has sent seismic waves rippling out into the rest of the world.  If our nation’s economy collapsed (and there’s so much that’s straining our economy and threatening our currency right now), what you already have on hand might be all that you can obtain . . . until an economic recovery ensues.  How long would it take before you can rely on economic recovery to lift you out of your emergency?  Who knows?

No community is immune from disaster.  Don’t bet that it won’t be your family that is calamity-stricken next.  If you haven’t already, get your family ready for emergencies ASAP.

Posted in International Politics, Local Politics, National Politics, Politics in the MSM. Tags: , , , . Leave a Comment »

Press release: Boose town hall, Saturday 3/12/2011, Norwalk–topic is SB5

March 9, 2011 — buckeyerino

Editor’s note: This press release was issued on 3/9/2011. Can’t get all the way down to Columbus to make noise about SB5? There’s good news if you live in the 58th Ohio House District. It’s short notice, but State Rep. Terry Boose will be hosting a town hall in Norwalk on Saturday, 3/12/2011.  Please note that only the voters of the 58th district are invited to this town hall.  For those outside the 58th district, feel free to browse this directory to locate contact information for your own state representative.

BOOSE TO CONDUCT TOWN HALL MEETING ON COLLECTIVE BARGAINING LEGISLATION

LOCAL LEGISLATOR REQUESTS FEEDBACK FROM CONSTITUENTS ON SENATE BILL  5

State Representative Terry Boose (R-Norwalk) announced today that he will be holding a special town hall meeting in his district. The purpose of this meeting will be to give a brief overview of Senate Bill 5, which is the Collective Bargaining Reform bill which was recently passed in the Senate. After giving the brief overview of the bill, the representative will open up the floor to allow constituents to make suggestions and voice their concerns.

“The purpose of this meeting is for me to listen,” Rep. Boose said. “Senate Bill 5 is an important piece of legislation that is before us and I would like to take this opportunity to make sure that everyone has the facts about the bill, while giving the people I represent the opportunity to make their voice heard.”

The meeting will take place at the following time and location:

Sat. 3/12/2011 Norwalk 9:00am – 11:00am

Main St. Intermediate School
80 E. Main St. Norwalk, OH 44857

This meeting is open to constituents of the 58th House District only. No signs will be permitted in the building.

For more information, people are encouraged to call the representative’s office at 614-466-9628. The 58th House District includes Huron County, western and southern Lorain County, and eastern Seneca County.

Posted in State Politics. Tags: . Leave a Comment »

Ballot issues & school board roles: starting points for local control of schools

February 28, 2011 — buckeyerino

It’s been awhile (nearly 2 years) since I’ve composed any wonkish blog pieces on the topic of K-12 education.  I’ve blogged about a school enterprise zone proposal to facilitate opportunities for supplemental learning.  I’ve blogged about my opposition to charter schools.  But there is so much more ground to cover on the topic of education.

The public schools are the public’s schools–the people’s schools.  The people pay taxes for them.  We have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people (or, that’s the way it’s supposed to work).  So the people’s schools are the government’s schools, and vice-versa.

If the public schools are broken, it behooves us to fix them.  Us.  As in people.

Why are we letting our government leaders, including President Obama and Governor Kasich, do an end run around getting into the nuts and bolts of fixing inadequate public schools (think charter schools, think vouchers)?

Why are the federal and state governments even involved in mandating what our schools ought and ought not to do?  What do they know about the needs of your specific community and what do they know about the desires you have for your children, the students?  Does one size fit all?  I suppose they try to meddle in school affairs because the media press them to know, during the campaign season, what their education platform consists of.  Then, because they make some promises to the media about what they will do about education, they actually stick their noses into it.  But I don’t necessarily think their noses belong there.

I would like parents and members of the community to make the important decisions about their schools.  We are grown-ups, right?  Why do we need to shirk this civic responsibility?  Why do we either put it on the shoulders of the teachers to bring about positive academic outcomes or on the shoulders of Columbus and Washington DC?  Why are we absolving ourselves of our responsibilities to ensure that our, the people’s, schools achieve the standards that we, the people, set?

Maybe we, the people, have not felt empowered to fix our local schools.  If we go to a school board meeting to voice a concern, it often seems the concern doesn’t get adequately addressed.  Sometimes, even, the superintendent and/or school board members will say that their hands are tied by mandates from Columbus and Washington DC, and that’s why our concerns cannot be addressed.

It takes the wind right out of you to attempt to make a difference and then find out you are powerless to have any input about the school right down the street from your house.  If you feel powerless, then forget about it.  You don’t bother.  Apathy sets in.  The community drops out.  The parents drop out.  And then we wonder why the students drop out.

If we, the people, could feel like we could make a difference in we, the people’s, the public’s, the government’s, schools–wouldn’t it be more likely that our involvement would increase?  If our community invests themselves in education, if parents invest themselves in education, do you think the students would invest themselves in education?  I think so.

Empowerment.  Empowerment is the key.  One size DOES NOT fit all.  The power over the schools needs to be decentralized.  It needs to be wrested away from Washington DC, first, and Columbus, next.

Where do we start?  How about we transform the role of the school board?  As it stands, school administration, led by the superintendent, often sets the agenda for the school board meetings.  The school board then either decides to ratify the agenda items put forward by the superintendent, or not to ratify them.  If the school board is too often dissatisfied with the superintendent’s agenda, withholding ratification seems not to be making much difference.  The recourse, at that point, is for the school board to get a new superintendent.  They either decide not to renew the superintendent’s contract, buy out the superintendent’s contract, or sever the superintendent’s contract (which will likely result in a lawsuit initiated by the dismissed superintendent, which only goes to show that the superintendent was never really an ally to the schools, after all).

At the local level, it should be the school board who sets the agenda, not the superintendent.  At other levels of government, the legislative branch prescribes what is to be done and the executive branch carries it out.  Why should it be any different in a school district?  A role-reversal is needed.  This prescriptive legislative role is the empowering role for the school board.

And what empowering the rest of the members of the community?  How do we bring an end to the powerlessness that they feel?

Voting.  The ballot box.

As it stands, a school board can only put two kinds of issues on the ballot:  bonds and tax levies.  Whoop-de-doo.  We don’t get much say in how the schools are run, but we’re charged with the responsibility to figure out how we’ll pay for them.  That seems kind of unfair, doesn’t it?

We, the people, need to be allowed to vote on issues beyond just bonds and levies.  When a contentious issue arises in the school district and the school board is in a quandary . . . and then when very vocal proponents and very vocal proponents show up at the school board meeting and school board members don’t really know which camp is more representative of the wishes of the community . . . why can’t  either the proponents or opponents file to put the issue before the people?  I don’t think the school board, themselves, ought to have to pony up the money out of the school treasury to put the issue before the voters.  Are the proponents or opponents ready to put their money where there mouth is?  Are they ready to launch an election campaign concerning this issue?  If neither camp is, then the public should live with the school board’s decision, whatever it may be.  The public would have to absolve the school board of blame if its decision didn’t win everyone over.  But if a committee of citizens really truly felt strongly enough about an issue, why should that committee be handcuffed by state law?  Why should the issue be forbidden from appearing on the ballot?

Here’s a real-life example of an issue that citizens might have wanted on the ballot:  Oberlin High School sports teams, for decades, had been known as the Oberlin Indians.  There were two very vocal camps:  Those who had deep affection for the Oberlin Indian legacy (usually long-time residents who were alumni of the high school themselves) and wanted to retain the name; and those (usually those with ties to the college who are transplants in the Oberlin community) who took a stand against the name because of politically incorrect insensitivity toward the various Nations of the Native Americans–descendants of those who lived in the Americas before the arrival of Christopher Columbus.  Both groups were very vocal, and the school board was caught in the middle of this tug of war.  I spoke recently with a former member of the school board, a school board member who said such a vote by the school district’s electorate would have been very helpful in resolving the issue.  The school board voted in favor of the latter group, and the sports teams are now known as the Oberlin Phoenix.

Another example from Oberlin:  A group of parents thought it would be appropriate for the students to begin the day with a recitation of the pledge of allegiance.  Others thought it would be inappropriate to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in the public schools.  The school board sided with the latter group.  Would it have been so bad if those in favor of the Pledge of Allegiance had been allowed to collect signatures and to file petitions in order for the issue to appear on the ballot?

Other issues that citizens might want to put on the ballot:

  • Dress code:  The primary purpose of the schools is to educate.  If a student’s attire detracts from the learning that is to take place at school, it’s reasonable that it be addressed in the dress code.  What detracts from the learning environment and what doesn’t?  Well, community standards play a role in what’s acceptable and what’s not.  Some communities would demand more modesty than others.  One size does not fit all.  If the community were to actually vote on a dress code, then a judge wouldn’t have much difficulty in upholding the dress code if a student took the matter to court.
  • Contraceptive distribution:  There are some schools that supplied students with contraceptives with no questions asked.  It has even caught some communities by surprise, as the school administrators had quietly made their own unilateral decision on the matter without the input of the school board, let alone the community.  Would it be so wrong to have this issue on the ballot to see if the community supported the distribution of contraceptives in the school or not?
  • Sexuality:  How early in life should youngsters be introduced to concepts of sexuality by their teachers, such as the differentiation between homosexuality and heterosexuality?  Is education on sexuality even a role that the schools should undertake?  Would it be wrong to allow this issue to appear on the ballot?  Or do we let individual classroom teachers make this decision unilaterally?
  • School closures:  Dropping enrollment (an all-too-frequent phenomenon in Ohio) and saving money are the two primary causes for mothballing a school somewhere in a school district.  It’s just that no one wants the school in their neighborhood be the one that closes.  Instead of appealing a school’s closure to the courts (as sometimes happens), would it be so wrong to appeal to the electorate, instead?
  • Censorship:  When students contribute material that appears in school publications (yearbook, newspaper, etc.), should it be subject to censorship?  It’s kind of like the dress code . . . what standard should be applied?
  • Public access to the classroom:  Is it permissible for a parent or other local citizen to be a silent observer in a classroom while school is in session?
  • Cell phones:  Are students restricted during certain times and in certain places from using their cell phones?  What restrictions should apply?
  • Politicians taking the stage at student assemblies:  Should politicians be featured speakers at school assemblies?  Only if they visit in their official capacity as elected officeholders?  During election season?  Equal time for the political opponent?  Photo ops at the school to appear in the media or in campaign literature?  Or only visiting the school as a private citizen?
  • Raffles and other fundraisers:  Are raffles permitted to be used as a means of fundraising?  Or are raffles off-limits, recognized by the community as a form of gambling?  Who can raise funds on school property?  Any student group?  For any purpose?  By any means?  What about community groups?  Charities?  Political parties and candidates?  Commercial vendors?

The school board can make these decisions, but if the public wants to have a referendum, why not?  It sends a message that you can make a difference.  You can have input.  You are empowered.  You can be involved.  You care.

With the school board directing the superintendent (rather than voting to ratify the superintendents agenda), and with citizens able to put school district issues on the ballot (rather than voting to ratify bonds and levies only) we, the people, can begin to fix our, the people’s, the public’s, schools.

Posted in Local Politics, State Politics. Tags: , . Leave a Comment »

Partial listing of 2011 Lincoln Day Dinners in Ohio counties

February 11, 2011 — buckeyerino

I’ve noticed that recent traffic to my website came as a result of searches for the term “Lincoln Day Dinner.” The problem is that the search yields a list from last year. I consulted the website of the Ohio Republican Party to cull what information I could find about Lincoln Day Dinners being held this year. The ones I found listings for show only dates in February and March, thus, for April and beyond, I guess your best bet is to search this county-by-county directory of Republican Party chairs (sometimes showing links to the county’s GOP website) so that you can contact your county’s party chair directly. Even if your county’s Lincoln Day Dinner appears on the February-March calendar, you should contact county party leaders anyway because dates, places, and times for these events can (and sometimes do) change, even as the listed date fast approaches. In addition, many of the listings have incomplete information, so, by all means, contact the county chair or someone in the county party leadership that will keep you informed about these events.

Holmes County Lincoln Day Dinner

  • Monday 2/14/2011 6 pm
  • Carlisle Village Inn, 4949 Walnut St, Walnut Creek
  • Contact:  Rob Hovis

Knox County Lincoln Day Dinner

  • Saturday 2/19/2011 5:30 pm reception and 6:30 pm dinner
  • Dan Emmett Conference Center, 160 Howard St, Mt. Vernon
  • Contact:  Chip McConville
  • Guest Speaker:  Ohio Auditor Dave Yost

Hancock County Lincoln Day Dinner

  • Monday 2/21/2011 5:30 pm
  • Senior Center, 339 E. Melrose Ave, Findlay
  • Contact:  Mark Miller

Hamilton County Lincoln-Reagan Day Dinner

  • Wednesday 2/23/2011 5 pm
  • Duke Energy Center, 525 Elm St, Cincinnati
  • Contact:  Maggie Nuellmer
  • Guest Speaker:  Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels

Clinton County Lincoln Day Dinner

  • Monday 2/28/2011 6:30 pm
  • Expo Center at the Fairgrounds, Wilmington
  • Contact:  Geoff Phillips
  • Guest Speaker:  Ohio Senate President Tom Niehaus

Muskingum County Lincoln Day Dinner

  • Monday 2/28/2011 6 pm reception and 7 pm dinner
  • Prophets Park Amrou Grotto, 2560 Old River Rd, Zanesville
  • Contact:  Pat Hennessey

Ashtabula County Lincoln Day Dinner

  • Saturday 3/5/2011 5 pm reception and 6 pm dinner
  • Dorset Community Center, 2681 State Route 193, Dorset
  • Contact:  Charlie Frye
  • Guest Speaker: State Rep. Casey Kozlowski

Athens County Lincoln Day Dinner

  • Thursday 3/10/2011 5:30 pm reception and 6:30 pm dinner
  • American Legion, 520 W. Union St, Athens
  • Contact:  Pete Couladis
  • Guest Speaker:  Ohio Auditor Dave Yost

Morrow County Lincoln Day Dinner

  • Saturday 3/12/2011 6 pm reception and 6:30 pm dinner
  • Trinity United Methodist Church, Mt. Gilead
  • Cost:  $15 per person
  • Contact:  Tom Wiston (419) 560-1595
  • Guest Speaker:  Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted

Washington County Lincoln Day Dinner

  • Friday 3/18/2011 5:30 pm reception and 6:30 pm dinner
  • Shrine Building, 249 Pennsylvania Ave, Marietta
  • Contact:  Marilyn Ashcraft
  • Guest Speaker:  U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson

Monroe County Lincoln Day Dinner

  • Saturday 3/19/2011 6:30 pm
  • Midway Community & Senior Citizens Center, 37358 State Route 800, Sardis
  • Contact:  Roger Claus

Lorain County Lincoln Day Dinner

  • Saturday 3/26/2011
  • DeLuca’s Place In the Park, 6075 Middle Ridge Rd, Lorain
  • Contact:  Helen Hurst
  • Guest Speaker:  Ohio House Speaker Bill Batchelder

Scioto County Lincoln Day Dinner

  • Tuesday 3/29/2011 6 pm
  • Friends Center, 1202 18th St, Portsmouth
  • Contact:: Kay Reynolds
Posted in Local Politics, State Politics, Uncategorized. Tags: , . 1 Comment »
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