[UPDATE] Wanna Tea Party during Obama’s visit to Lorain County on Friday?

January 18, 2010 — buckeyerino

If you’ve missed some opportunities to attend Tea Parties on Capitol Hill in DC because it was so far away, then perhaps you’d like to be at a Tea Party closer to home.

If you’ve missed some opportunities to show your true genius in designing your own homemade protest signs and banners, January 22, 2010 (this Friday) might be a fortuitous occasion.  Who knows?  Perhaps someone in the Presidential motorcade might even spot your sign.

Lorain County Community College is on the outskirts of Elyria, and it’s a venue where President Obama will make an appearance on Friday, though I’m not sure of the exact time of the President’s appearance.

For the Tea Party, however, you’re welcome to stay the whole day.  You can pack food, if you like, but there are also plenty of fast food joints and other restaurants just down the road, to the north of the campus.  I have no idea what the weather forecast is, but be prepared for the outdoor conditions.

Mike Hellyar of the Lorain North Shore Patriots is designated as the organizer of the rally.  The plan for Tea Party attendees is to park at Elyria’s Hilltop Park Cobblestone.  It’s a little bit of a walk to the LCCC campus from there.  If by chance there’s no available parking at the park or at the campus, there is a shopping center called Cobblestone on the same road (State Route 301–also known as Abbe Road) as the campus.  State Route 301 is a heavily traveled thoroughfare, so as you walk along the way, plenty of motorists will have an opportunity to see your signs at virtually any time during daylight hours (just be careful not to get run over if you have to cross any intersections).

Driving-wise, LCCC is not that far from an interchange with I-90.  If traveling from Cleveland or other points east, you’d make a left off of the exit ramp onto State Route 254, and then make a right on State Route 301.  If traveling from Sandusky or other points west, you’d make a right off the exit ramp onto State Route 254 and then make a right on State Route 301.

You’ll see the Cobblestone shopping plaza on your right hand side fairly soon after turning on to SR 301 (Abbe Road).  The LCCC campus will be further south, along the left hand side of the road.  The sign at the entrance of campus is clearly visible.

I’ve always accessed Hilltop Park from Gulf Road (roughly parallel to Abbe, but further west), but it’s not the only access point, but the park stretches over to Abbe Road and up to Burns Road.  There is an intersection with Burns Road just south, beyond the LCCC campus, along Abbe Road.  Hilltop Park lies a little further south, just beyond that Abbe-Burns intersection, on the right hand side.

HilltopPark

If you feel your clever banner didn’t get enough exposure to viewers during the Tea Party, you might consider sending me a photograph of it, snapped on the LCCC grounds, and I’ll consider posting it here on Buckeye RINO.

Let the President know what you REALLY think about the bailouts, cap and trade, and Obamacare.

[UPDATE 1/20/2010] Two more links to help you get there and know what’s going on:

Cleveland Tea Party Patriots

Lorain NorthShore Patriots

Posted in Health Care, National Politics. Tags: , . 6 Comments »

Take back our country in this year’s elections

January 7, 2010 — buckeyerino

Watch.

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

[UPDATE]Civil trial before federal judge to be “YouTubed”–on trial: California’s Prop 8

January 7, 2010 — buckeyerino

Ah, the wonders of the world wide web . . . in this case, YouTube.

In the November 2008 elections, not only were Presidential candidates on the ballot in California, so was Proposition 8.  Proposition 8 sought to affirm that lawful marriage in California would be reserved for matrimonially joining one woman with one man.  Voters approved the measure.  Those opposed to the measure are apparently still miffed at “democracy” spelled with a little “d,” and have made numerous attempts to do an end run around voters and the fundamentals of American governance.

Among the latest attempts to circumvent democracy, those opposed to California’s Proposition 8 are in the process of litigating the measure as a civil matter in a federal court where one judge (no jury) will decide the case.   In an unprecedented move, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker has ruled that courtroom proceedings will be recorded on video for display on YouTube.  (All the handier for harvesting sound bites out of context, don’t you think?  After all, who’d stare glassy-eyed at a computer monitor for hours upon hours watching courtroom YouTube clips to wrap their heads around the full scope and context of everything presented at trial?)

Michelle Malkin points out, in her blog post on the upcoming trial, that the move to YouTube the trial may be an attempt to intimidate witnesses that might be called to testify.

My advice to Prop 8 supporters who will be testifying:  Don’t let the opposing side sucker you into their straw man arguments wherein religion is the bogeyman.  Don’t let them turn this trial into a referendum on religion.  The opposing side has attempted to use that trick to sidetrack debating the real issue time after time.  As I’ve argued in a prior blog entry here at Buckeye RINO, one can be an atheist who subscribes to Darwinian evolution and still see the wisdom of withholding state recognition of same-sex “marriages.”

Of course, I’m not surprised that the opposing side is pushing for video coverage.  I’ve noted the opposing side’s double-speak before, when they’ve said that they want the government to stay out of bedrooms yet their actions demonstrate that they really want to parade their bedroom activity in full public view.

I suppose we could be thankful that the liberal left will only be presenting us with a courtroom video and not a bedroom video.

UPDATE 1/11/10: At least for the near future, the Supreme Court has blocked cameras from the courtroom for this trial.

Posted in National Politics, Political Blogosphere. Tags: , . 1 Comment »

Obama to visit Lorain County on January 22

January 5, 2010 — buckeyerino

Several media sources are reporting that President Obama will be visiting Lorain County on January 22.  Ostensibly, his message will focus on employment and economic recovery for Main Streets all over America.

Of course, politically speaking, Ohio is a bellweather state, so I understand why the President would, from time to time, schedule appearances here.  I suppose U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown is quite pleased with himself that the President has selected Lorain County for the upcoming occasion.  I’m sure local residents, whether they voted for the President or not, will be eager to make the President’s acquaintance.

Since 2002, I’ve been campaigning for improvements to Lorain County’s economy, and my proposals aren’t really on the same page as Senator Brown’s.  I’m curious what the President will say, but, if I were a betting man, which I’m not, I’d venture to say that the President’s message to Lorain County residents will not substantively differ from what Senator Brown’s message has been.  If the President did say anything that marked a departure from what Senator Brown says, that would raise lots of eyebrows in the blogosphere, and perhaps in the MSM, as well.

I’ve been less active in posting on my blog in recent weeks.  Perhaps I should give myself a swift kick-in-the-pants to increase my blog content before the President arrives.  My transportation series, in particular, keeps nagging at me.  I need to complete it.

I’m sure to weigh in on the President’s message in the aftermath of his visit . . . unless, of course, he hires me to be the czar in charge of scheduling sports events in order to save the BCS from itself, in which case, as a czar, I’d have to recuse myself from criticizing the President.

Will the President’s appearance be carefully stage-managed?  Or will there be unscripted and impromptu moments in which local residents can interact authentically with the President?  I’m curious to see how that turns out.

Reader’s opinions are welcome.  What are your thoughts and feelings about the President’s upcoming visit?

Posted in Local Politics, National Politics. Tags: , . 15 Comments »

Federal judges interfering with petition laws set by the states?

December 23, 2009 — buckeyerino

Hat-tip to Ballotpedia.org for raising my awareness of what may be an emerging trend: Federal courts are being asked to invalidate laws passed by states that contain residency requirements for petition circulators.

In Ohio, voters, by way of petition and a subsequent vote, can enact and repeal laws through an initiative and referendum process spelled out by our state constitution, codified by state statute, and further clarified in the state administrative code, with any gray areas that can’t be decided by bipartisan county boards of election referred to Ohio’s Secretary of State.  Legal challenges within this scope ought to be handled by Ohio’s judicial branch.

At the level of the Federal government, there is no such petition process.  Any voter petitions presented to those who represent us in Washington DC are merely symbolic.  No petition has the power to compel the U.S. Congress or the U.S. President to act.  Petitions are clearly creations of the various states.  As one might expect, laws regarding petitions are not uniform throughout the nation, as each state sets forth its own laws governing petitions.

How is it that Federal courts are being asked to decide cases involving petition laws when there’s no such thing as a Federal petition?  Clearly, if the 10th Amendment to the Constitution means anything at all, then it’s a slam-dunk that state judiciaries, not the Federal judiciary, have jurisdiction over legal challenges to the laws that govern the petition process.

I found a Ballotpedia entry from Michigan and another Ballotpedia entry from Nebraska that made me scratch my head.

The Detroit Free Press reports that a Federal judge–got that?  Federal judge?–ruled that residency requirements for recall petitions (a Michigan state legislator, specifically, House Speaker Andy Dillon, was the target of the recall effort) were an unconstitutional restriction upon the freedom of speech.  Never mind that the judge, himself, trampled the 10th Amendment.  What did the statute say?  It said that for a recall of the state legislator, the petitions had to be circulated by those who resided within the state legislator’s district.  Who gets to vote for the state legislator in the first place?  Those who reside in the state legislator’s district.  Should I file suit because my freedom of speech is restricted because I don’t get to vote on that state legislator race because I’m not a resident of that Michigan legislative district?  To do so would be nonsense.

Yet, the Free Press article reports:

Judge Robert Holmes Bell found that requiring a petition circulator in a recall campaign to live in the district of the targeted officeholder violated the First Amendment because it substantially limited the pool of people who might participate.

I’m sure thousands of people reside in said district.  If not enough petition circulators can be rounded up from amongst that group, then perhaps there isn’t sufficient outcry for a recall.  One only needs to look at the chain of events to see this point borne out:  The motive behind the recall effort to oust Speaker Dillon was an anti-tax sentiment.  I certainly sympathize with anti-tax sentiments.  I have anti-tax sentiments, myself.  However, in 2008, a number of circulators for the anti-tax group’s recall petitions were circulated by those who were outsiders, not residing within Dillon’s district.  Understandably, the first response from elections officials were to invalidate the petitions circulated by the non-residents, in compliance with Michigan law.  Judge Bell, however, in a preliminary ruling, overrode the Michigan law, directed that the signatures from the invalidated petitions be counted anyway, so that the recall would appear on the ballot.  It did appear on the ballot.  Did the anti-tax group win their recall vote?  Nope.  Speaker Dillon easily prevailed.  There was no groundswell against Speaker Dillon after all.  Shouldn’t that have been all too predictable, considering an astro-turf effort was required to circulate the recall petitions in the first place?

But, if Michigan’s petition requirements really do squelch the voice of the people (which, apparently, they don’t), the matter should be challenged in Michigan’s courts, if the Michigan legislature and/or Michigan elections officials aren’t acting in the public’s interests.

Potentially, Judge Bell’s ruling, if it stands, could mean that out-of-state residents could invade Michigan to conduct whatever astro-turf petition drive strikes their fancy, burdening elections officials with paperwork that has little to do with the agendas of Michigan’s own registered voters.  And if out-of-staters are the ones circulating petitions, then Michigan wouldn’t even be in a position to determine whether the petition circulators are even citizens of the United States.  Foreign governments, multi-national corporations, and/or international NGO’s might conspire to conduct astro-turf campaigns on Michigan soil.  Whatever happened to self-determination?

The Omaha World Herald brings us the report of a suit filed in a U.S. District Court that challenges Nebraska’s petition laws.  In the case known as Citizens in Charge vs. Gale (John Gale is Nebraska Secretary of State), there are four legal provisions being challenged.  As in the Michigan case, the plaintiffs appear to be right-of-center on key platform planks.  Two of the legal provisions being challenged, I believe, are worthy of debate (but not in U.S. District Court, mind you, in a Nebraska state courtroom), as one provision stipulates that an independent candidate for statewide office must collect more valid signatures than partisan candidates are required to gather.

Another allegedly onerous provision is that an independent candidate’s petitions must include at least 50 valid signatures from at least 31 different counties.  That’s a lot of territory to cover, especially from the perspective of an Ohioan, since Ohio is a more compact state than Nebraska.  Such a stipulation would favor candidates from eastern Nebraska, where counties are smaller in size, than candidates from central or western Nebraska, where you have to put lots and lots of miles on your vehicle to string together 31 counties.

But the third provision being challenged in Federal court is the residency requirement for petition circulators.  To run for statewide office in Nebraska, your petitions need to be circulated by those who are eligible to vote in Nebraska.  Just like the Michigan case, I don’t see what’s wrong with that.  It’s a safeguard that prevents a guy like Iranian President Ahmadinejad from clandestinely putting a Quisling on the Nebraska ballot.

The fourth provision being challenged in Federal Court is particularly telling.  Nebraska law says the petition itself must disclose whether the circulator is a paid for his/her petition-circulating services or whether he/she is strictly a volunteer.  Why is it so telling?  Referring back to a sentence from the Detroit Free Press article about the case in Michigan:

Petition signature collecting has been a growth industry in the last decade, with professional collectors traveling from state to state to work for whoever would pay them.

I’m not exactly enamored with these enterprises who collect signatures for money.  Remember the dead people in Erie County, Ohio, who signed the casino petitions?  Paid circulators collected those signatures, and they were a nightmare for local officials to deal with when a majority of the signatures gathered were invalid.

In the Nebraska case, Citizens in Charge is an organization that would mobilize paid out-of-staters to invade Nebraska to circulate petitions.  It doesn’t matter to me that they are more conservative on issues than ACORN, and it doesn’t matter to me that they are a non-profit (like ACORN) rather than a for-profit (like the firm that circulated the casino petitions in Erie County), it reeks of astro-turf to have out-of-staters shape your state’s election ballot.

I see no harm in Nebraska’s requirement that circulators must be identified as either paid or volunteer, even though Ohio has no such statute.  But the challenge of that provision reveals what’s really at work in undermining these residency requirements, and by extension, eroding the 10th Amendment.

Frankly, I’ve had my fill of ACORN electioneering, but if these “conservative” plaintiffs prevail in these cases being heard in Federal courtrooms (where they don’t even belong), then we’ve got a lot more of ACORN headed our way.

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

Consider running for office in 2010

November 25, 2009 — buckeyerino

Up in arms over the direction your county is headed in?  Up in arms over the direction the state is headed in?  Up in arms over the direction our nation is headed in?  I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if that’s the case.

Wonder what you can do about it besides contacting your elected officials, attending civic meetings, signing petitions, voting, and rallying for causes?

You could run for office in 2010!  Despite all our gripes about elected officials, how many times do we see unopposed candidates on our ballots?  Far too often!  Voters need choices on ballots!

For many races, the eligibility rules for candidates aren’t all that complicated, especially legislative races, where citizenship, residency, and voter registration are often the only criteria for eligibility.  Don’t automatically suppose you wouldn’t be qualified to run.  There’s an excellent chance you’re eligible for a great many positions.  The Ohio Secretary of State webpage can be a starting point for checking on candidacy requirements and deadlines.  Some of the pointers I shared about launching a candidacy for municipal offices apply to running for county, state, and federal offices, too.

Don’t know much about running a campaign?  Phil Van Treuren, who ran a successful campaign this year, has a blog titled “Killer Campaigning,” which is very thought-provoking.  I bet you’ll find highly useful information there.  Start with this important advice about consulting family about a potential candidacy, then feel free to absorb the remainder of the blog’s articles thereafter.  Thanksgiving is a time for families to gather.  That’s a great opportunity to discuss launching a campaign with family members.  December’s holidays are also great opportunities to further communicate with family about launching an election bid.

On the ballot for next year:

  • Judicial branch: county court, state appellate court, and state Supreme Court judge positions
  • Legislative branch: county commissioner, some state school board seats, all state rep seats, odd-numbered state senate district seats, all seats for U.S. House of Representatives, and a U.S. Senate seat
  • Executive branch: county auditor, Ohio governor and lieutenant governor, Ohio Secretary of State, Ohio Treasurer, Ohio Auditor, and Ohio Attorney General

I’m hoping voters are swamped with choices next year.  Please consider putting your name on the ballot.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted in Local Politics, National Politics, Political Blogosphere, State Politics. Tags: , , , . 9 Comments »

Transportation, part 2, the city of Lorain

November 22, 2009 — buckeyerino

In response to my post that launched this transportation series, Brandon Rutherford asked a perfectly good question about how much importance to attach to transportation infrastructure.  Sometimes a site, at first glance, appears to be sufficiently connected, yet the site remains vacant or underutilized.  I didn’t fully respond to Mr. Rutherford’s comment, but I hope to fully address it over the course of this transportation series.  Mr. Rutherford cited the specific example of the former location of a Ford assembly plant in Lorain, so let me use that as a springboard to share a collection of my thoughts about transportation in Lorain.

So here is Lorain, that had it good as a port on Lake Erie when water transport was best.  Lorain was also well situated when railroads and surface roads were built, because, in relation to US geography, commerce between the Northeast US and the Midwest, where the bulk of the population lived, was compressed as it passed through Ohio because Lake Erie is the southernmost of the Great Lakes.  When freight travels from Boston or New York to Chicago, it can only go west as far as Buffalo and then it has to dip south through Ohio on its way to Chicago.  Just like today where I-80 and I-90 converge and follow the same route, or nearly so, for hundreds of miles, this was true of railroad networks and US highways, like US 6 and US 20, before interstates.  Ohio was a conduit for all this East Coast-Midwest transit.  The emergence of Detroit as the Motor City only helped, as it added a longitudinal dimension to shipping through Ohio.  Lorain had many things going for it, and Lorain thrived until the 1970’s.  Since the 1970 Census, Lorain’s population has declined.

Northern Ohio, including Lorain, had an excellent location for many years, as there was a time when two-thirds of the population of the United States and half of the population of Canada lived within 500 miles of the boundaries of Ohio.  Though the US has experienced southward and westward migration and Canada has seen more growth in the Vancouver area, Ohio is still very well situated among the most densely populated areas of North America north of the Mexican border.  In terms of sheer geography and demography, Ohio is still a great location for distribution centers, manufacturers, and corporate headquarters.  So, no matter what has gone wrong that led to the urban decline in Lorain, there is still a lot of potential for recovery.

Transportation has so much to do with the decline of Lorain.  Supertankers cannot travel on the Great Lakes, so freight moved upon the water has to take place in smaller vessels than are available elsewhere.  Lorain is not conveniently linked to Cleveland Hopkins Int’l Airport (Lorain isn’t even well linked to the county’s airport in New Russia Township).  Most noticeably, limited access divided highways bypassed Lorain instead of penetrating it.  Is it any wonder that business has dwindled as Lorain’s transportation advantages have disappeared?

By virtue of existing highways, Lorain is closely tied to Cleveland to the point that if Cleveland’s economy bottoms out, so does Lorain’s, and Lorain only prospers when Cleveland is also prospering. We need to branch out. We need to diversify. We need better connections with prospering, more diversified economies like that of Columbus. If we had a north-south highway that connected Lorain with I-71 at Ashland, commerce and innovation from Columbus could reach Lorain at the same rate that it reaches Cleveland. Right now, it is channeled up I-71 to Cleveland, and from there it is diffused slowly out to neighboring communities in concentric waves until finally it reaches Lorain, if it ever reaches Lorain at all. Lorain County has forecast a need for such a north-south corridor, but their proposal is to build it parallel to Quarry Road, cutting through the farmland of the western Lorain County townships.

I am fully aware that it costs less to build a highway through farmland than it is through developed areas, but to do so only heightens the problems we are trying to eradicate. When we think of the costs of building a highway, we must think beyond mere construction costs to the costs of the consequences of where we build. For example, it may have cost less to build the Ohio Turnpike between Lorain and Elyria rather than through the heart of either town, but what has it cost in terms of shoveling money into Lorain and Elyria to revitalize them when the revitalization never takes hold? What kind of a money pit did we create when we bypassed the already urbanized areas? And what about the sprawl that will only increase if a north-south highway is built parallel to and in the vicinity of Quarry Road? Will that suck more of the life blood out of the communities already in existence?  I know that they have talked about this in Oberlin, and Oberlin is fully aware that a highway in such a location will have negative repercussions for Oberlin’s downtown commerce. Right now, the lands that are most heavily commercially zoned in the western townships along a north-south artery stretch alongside SR 58. I say: Let’s make SR 58 the limited-access divided highway, with frontage roads alongside, so that we do not kill off the commerce that already exists along SR 58 to transplant it into the cornfields near Quarry Road. Why create more abandoned businesses? If the new highway runs exactly where SR 58 is now, wouldn’t that buttress the businesses that already exist there? Isn’t that what we want? Besides, those that live out in the vicinity of Quarry Road probably like the rural nature of their environs and would prefer to keep it that way. When the highway reaches Wellington and Oberlin, I have ideas on how to keep the downtown intact, especially buildings of historical significance, without building bypasses on the edge of town that would kill those downtowns, but I do not wish to elaborate on that here. I wish to focus more in depth on Lorain.

In this age of instant gratification, who wants to wend their way through all of Lorain’s stoplights, railroad crossings, and 20 mph school zones on crampingly narrow and potholed surface streets to reach downtown? A “smart” transportation system would make a lot of sense. In chronically congested places such as Los Angeles, they have installed “smart” transportation systems that use cameras and sensors to gauge traffic flow on city streets and highways. This ties into a nerve center where the flow of traffic across the transportation grid can be diagrammed. Signals can then be sent to traffic lights to optimize the timing to allow for the best traffic flow, to flashing message signs along the highway that alert motorists to traffic conditions and alternate routes, and to police officers on highway patrols and street patrols to mobilize them to bottlenecks where needed. But we need more than “smart” transportation to get people downtown.

Once this new SR 58 highway reaches an interchange with SR 2 and SR 254, I want to make it more likely that traffic will flow through Lorain closer to its downtown. Right now, SR 2 traffic flows eastward to where it converges with I-90 and heads to Cuyahoga County. There are some major bends in the existing highway. Let’s take advantage of these bends in the existing highway–we can build a shorter one. If we draw a line straight across from the SR 2 interchange with SR 58 to the I-90 interchange with SR 611, we will have built a straighter highway that crosses the Black River south of E. 21st St. but north of the steel mills on E. 28th St. That will put traffic flow much closer to downtown. The Colorado industrial park will also have much better access. East-west through traffic would prefer to flow through Lorain if it is faster than taking the existing route. The straighter we can make the highway, the bigger the advantage.

With this new cross-town highway built, what if we took SR 57 from the Ohio Turnpike interchange northward and turned it into a limited access divided highway that connected with the cross-town highway? Wouldn’t that allow more motorists to head toward downtown? Wouldn’t it also bolster South Lorain to have this major artery flowing through it? Wouldn’t the two highways combined bolster the industrial area that includes the steel mills?  Wouldn’t it vastly improve Lorain’s access to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport?

Consider the following map.  Existing surface streets are shown in yellow.  Existing limited access highways in the vicinity of Lorain are shown in magenta.  The additional highways I’ve just proposed in the preceding paragraphs are shown in red.

Lorain

My proposal is just one way in which Lorain could address its outdated transportation infrastructure. If others have alternative proposals that address Lorain’s transportation deficiencies, I’d love to see some additional debate on the topic, but so far, I haven’t heard a peep out of anyone about any alternative proposals, so I’ll continue to promote my own proposal in order to fill the vacuum.

LCCC once hosted a community forum that talked about Lorain County’s future based on trends reflected in the most recent Census data. When they talked about comparing the fastest growing urban areas in the country with those that were declining, they said that the growing cities were the most DRIVABLE! Get it? DRIVABLE! Lorain is not drivable. Not yet, anyway. Yes, what I propose is expensive, but it’s worth it if it achieves what we design it to do. A cheaper highway through nowhere gets us . . . nowhere.  As an illustration, the Flats in Cleveland are difficult to drive to, yet the city is constantly fighting blight there. A few years ago we heard about a much-ballyhooed revitalization of the Flats. Only properties were fixed up–the Flats were not made more drivable. Guess what?  There will never cease to be more calls for urban renewal of Cleveland’s Flats so long as the urban renewals undertaken are nothing but cosmetic facelifts without addressing drivability. How much money does it cost to pay for the same urban renewal over and over and over again? Add that into the cost of a highway through nowhere.  Urban renewal efforts in Lorain will fail to take hold so long as those efforts only result in cosmetic facelifts.

I will have more to say about paying for the expenses of transportation projects in future installments of this series, and I’ll branch out to addressing the transportation deficiencies of other communities such as Elyria, Norwalk, Sandusky, Tiffin, and Fostoria, as well.  I also want to address other modes of transportation besides highways, though I’ve already posted some thoughts pertaining to passenger rail here.

To be continued at a future date . . .

Posted in International Politics, Local Politics, National Politics, State Politics, Transportation. Tags: , , , , . 9 Comments »

The Obamacare vote among Ohio’s representatives in Congress

November 9, 2009 — buckeyerino

Late Saturday night, 11/7/2009, the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed an Obamacare bill, 220-215.

As you may recall, this past summer, when Obamacare opponents said that the proposed legislation hadn’t ruled out federal subsidies for abortions, Obamacare supporters said that such a charge was as fictitious as death panels and coverage for illegal immigrants.  “Stop telling lies!” was the mantra of the Obamacare supporters.  Obamacare opponents, of course, were not telling lies, and federal subsidies of abortion weren’t stricken from the Obamacare bill until Saturday, just an hour before the final Obamacare bill vote, when an amendment to the bill, the Stupak amendment, was passed.

Not until the final hour had abortions been ruled out of the bill.

Could Congress have saved themselves some headaches by ruling out abortions much earlier in the process?  I think so.  Speaker Pelosi, however, has been playing a game of brinksmanship, to squeak uber-leftist legislation through.  Moderate Democrats have been left in a bind.

Many moderate Democrats arrived in Congress on the heels of Republican scandals.  Other moderate Democrats won seats because Republican officeholders voted like liberal Democrats on key issues.  Moderate Democrats pledged that they would represent voters’ interests more faithfully than their Republican opponents, and that they’d be scandal-free.  Voters in many conservative-leaning districts took a big risk by electing Democrats instead of Republicans.

While the moderate Democrats may have remained true to the pledge that they would not embroil themselves in scandal, their voting records under Pelosi’s leadership have been quite liberal, as Pelosi hasn’t sought middle ground on any issue whatsoever.  Conservative-leaning districts are quickly learning that the Democrats they elected aren’t really championing voters’ interests.

Let’s recap how the Ohio delegation voted on the Stupak amendment and on the House’s finalized version of the Obamacare bill:

  • Republicans Boehner, Turner, Latta, LaTourette, Tiberi, Jordan, Schmidt, and Austria all voted for the Stupak amendment (to rule out federal subsidization of abortion) and against the final Obamacare bill.
  • Democrat Boccieri voted for the Stupak amendment and against the final Obamacare bill.
  • Democrat Kucinich voted against the Stupak amendment and against the final Obamacare bill.
  • Democrats Space, Wilson, Kaptur, Ryan, and Driehaus voted for the Stupak amendment and for the final Obamacare bill.
  • Democrats Sutton, Kilroy, and Fudge voted against the Stupak amendment and for the final Obamacare bill.

Question:  Whose re-election bids were helped and whose were hurt by their votes on Saturday?

Republicans are helping themselves with these Saturday votes, and some need all the help they can get.  For Austria, he’s a freshman, so he needs votes like these to establish himself.  Boehner, Tiberi, and Schmidt all voted for the initial Wall Street bailout last fall, so they’ve got some catching up to do, as their votes started our nation down the socialist path.  LaTourette, who, in past years, has always faced very liberal campaign opponents, and who’d also been labeled as a RINO by many inside the GOP, has really benefited by Pelosi’s uber-left agenda.  With no middle ground being sought in the Pelosi house, LaTourette has had no middle ground to steer towards, and, having to steer either left or right, LaTourette has steered right, thus bolstering his conservative credentials and winning greater favor from the base.  Though his district lies in Northeast Ohio, and though local Democrats may postulate that LaTourette has moved too far to the right to be relevant in his district, I think LaTourette has strengthened his hold on the district, as Pelosi has steered Congress much further to the left than voters in LaTourette’s district can stomach.  LaTourette’s liberal campaign opponents didn’t gain enough traction against him in the past, and now that the true colors of liberals are openly displayed, I don’t think they’ll gain enough traction against him in 2010.

Leave it to Dennis Kucinich to march to the beat of a different drum.  Some speculate that if the vote had been 217 to 217 on the Obamacare bill, with Kucinich being the last person to cast a vote, that he would’ve capitulated, and voted for the measure.  He was given wiggle-room this time.  I’m not sure whether his constituents will be amused or annoyed by his capriciousness, but he’s dodged every bullet so far.

Though there are some liberal Democrats around Ohio that are incensed by Boccieri’s vote, I think the vote helps him.  The lefty voices claim that Boccieri can’t win over conservatives because they’ll still fault him for cap-and-trade and various sundry bailout votes, which is true, yet I think this vote, because it’s so highly publicized, will help Boccieri among independent, middle-of-the-road voters.

For Kaptur and Ryan, they haven’t sufficiently alienated their constituencies by these votes.  Their support of the Stupak amendment spares them from Catholic backlash while their support of the Obamacare bill leaves them in good standing with the unions.  Though Driehaus voted the same way, I don’t think it helps.  The high tide of Democrat turnout that carried Driehaus into office on Obama’s coattails won’t recur in the 2010 election, and I think his seat reverts back to Republican control.  Space and Wilson like to talk as if they are middle-of-the-road, but with no middle ground in the Pelosi House, they’ve chosen to steer to the left on every vote.  Somehow, eastern Ohio doesn’t keep close tabs on their Congressional representatives until scandal erupts, like it did with Bob Ney, Jim Traficant, and Wayne Hays.  If they were keeping close tabs, Space and Wilson would be dead meat in 2010.

Lastly, there are the Emily’s List delegation members.  In Fudge’s district, she’s a shoo-in.  I can’t imagine her re-election being screwed up by any Congressional vote. Whether she votes uber-liberal or ultra-conservative for the rest of her term, just the fact that she’ll have a “D” by her name in November 2010 will ensure her election.  Sutton has shown that she cares more about the views of liberal lobbyists around the Beltway than she does about the views of voters in her district.  Though her district leans slightly left, it’s not an uber-liberal district, so I think Sutton is hurting herself and increasing the risk that she could be successfully outflanked on the right.  Finally, there’s Kilroy.  Come November 2010, she’s toast.

One final note about the gamesmanship of Beltway lobbyists, I highly recommend this BizzyBlog post that explains how Obamacare might have been defeated if not for National Right-to-Life blocking the route.  Pathetic.

Posted in Health Care, National Politics, State Politics. Tags: , , . 2 Comments »

I wanna be a czar

November 7, 2009 — buckeyerino

It’s another Saturday of college football,  a government-subsidized, tax-exempt moneymaker for the biggest collegiate athletic programs.

I’m not suggesting we should start taxing college athletics to death.  I definitely think the federal government needs to drastically cut both spending and taxes.

But I do want to call attention to a charade.

At the end of the season, there will be bowl games, and a mythical champion will be crowned.

No playoffs.  But there’ll be a champion.

The two teams vying for the championship will be chosen by . . . pundits.

Since pundits do the choosing, why not have the championship at the beginning of the season, and what is currently the regular schedule can become mere exhibition games?  The pundits just have to pick the best team from the SEC and the best team from the Big 12, and those’ll be the contenders for the big championship game that kicks off the exhibition season.

Think that makes no sense?  What happens in reality makes only slightly more sense.  There is this ranking formula called the BCS that automatically assumes that the SEC is strongest conference.

Oh, but on the gridiron, the SEC proves its dominance with its winning record against its non-conference opponents, right?

Oh yeah!  I was totally impressed with that 62-3 beatdown that Florida gave to Charleston Southern.

I can’t wait to see how the Alabama Crimson Tide fares against Tennessee-Chattanooga.

That’s sarcasm, in case you missed it.

Charleston Southern and Chattanooga are colleges that aren’t even in the NCAA Bowl Subdivision.  It’s like a high school varsity squad cushioning the schedule with JV teams.  Yeah, there’s a chance the game will be competitive, but will the outcome of such games really inform you how good the varsity squads are?

Despite the creampuff nonconference schedule, even an SEC team with a loss can make it into the national title game, conceivably even two losses, which means that besides Florida and Alabama, LSU is still in the running.  LSU sheduled only teams within the NCAA Bowl Subdivision this season, unlike Florida and Alabama, though it’s non-conference lineup isn’t exactly scary, with the likes of Lousiana Tech, Louisiana-Lafayette, Tulane, and a U of Washington squad that lost all of its games last season.

By the way, each team plays 12 games during its regular season.  That means 6 home games and 6 away games, right?  Well, Alabama and LSU scheduled 7 home games and 5 away games.  Florida scheduled 8 home games and 4 away games.

The deck seems a little stacked, don’t you think?

Even my favorite collegiate team, the Ohio State Buckeyes, pad their schedule.  7 home games and 5 away games is standard for the Buckeyes.

The schools in the NCAA Bowl Subdivision don’t want to switch to a playoff format.  They want to make money.  The current bowl game scheme helps the fattest cats get fatter.

I’m not saying making money is a bad thing.  In America, we are at liberty to make money.

But let’s not kid ourselves that football in the NCAA Bowl Subdivision is a wholly capitalist venture.  The government does subsidize universities, and it does grant universities tax-exempt status.  Someone might even suggest that our universities are socialist, and who am I to say they’re wrong?

Occasionally, some members of Congress, and even President Obama, have called out the football bowl scheme and the so-called championship game for what it is: a charade.  Is there an approach that might improve the system that wouldn’t totally overturn it?  Sure!  That’s where I come in!

Daniel Jack Williamson is the solution.

For an annual salary of $48,000 (that’s less than $1000 per week!) and reimbursement for any job-related travel expenses (I’ll fly coach, or take Amtrak, and stay at budget motels, I promise!) I’ll go to work as the Obama Administration’s sports scheduling czar!  That’s right!  I’ll work for Obama!  Do you hear me, Mr. President?  If I work for you, that means I won’t be able to blog about you, and I won’t be in a position to criticize you!  Doesn’t that sound like a great deal?  And when Glenn Beck picks on me for being a White House czar, I won’t be thin-skinned like Van Jones, and, if Glenn Beck says something about me that’s untrue, I will not be afraid to call Mr. Beck’s phone, unlike Anita Dunn. (Oh, I’m sorry–I assumed Ms. Dunn was afraid.  I guess I assumed wrong.  Ms. Dunn is not afraid of Glenn Beck.  It’s just that the record didn’t need to be corrected because Mr. Beck was 100% correct.  My bad.)

As sports scheduling czar, I will schedule all the regular season games so that teams play meaningful schedules.  The teams won’t be playing schools who aren’t in the NCAA Bowl Subdivision (perhaps with the exception of schools who are in their first year after transitioning to the Bowl Subdivision).  If the typical school has 4 non-conference games, then, for the most part, they’ll play 2 games (one home, one away) against teams from 2 different major conferences and 2 games (one home, one away) against teams from 2 different mid-major conferences.  The regular season will have 6 home games and 6 away games for all teams, whether the team happens to be Florida, or the team happens to be Eastern Michigan.  With the more balanced regular season schedule, that I, as White House sports schedule czar, will impement, pundits will be able to compare apples to apples instead of apples to oranges when bowl selection takes place.

By taking the scheduling privileges away from college athletic directors and giving them to me, your sports scheduling czar, you will be reminding the schools that they are dependent on government for a great many things.  They are socialist institutions, not capitalist institutions, and you aren’t about to let them forget it.

If you’d like, I’ll even schedule all the other NCAA sports teams from all the divisions–big school, little school, volleyball, synchronized swimming, fencing, you name it, I’ll schedule it.

I’ll have my rolodex filled with contacts at all the sports venues so I’ll know when concerts and other events have dibs on the stadiums and arenas.  For venues that house home games of more than one team, I’ll make sure there are no time conflicts.  If a game is postponed due to weather, I’ll get that make-up game on the schedule.

Major League Baseball has an exemption from anti-trust laws.  As a bonus, at no extra charge, as White House sports schedule czar, I’ll schedule the MLB regular season, too.

NFL, NBA, NHL, MLS, WNBA, I’ll whip up regular seasons schedules for all of them, if you’d like.  Any day of the week you’d like to sink into a sofa and watch sports on TV while dithering and procrastinating decisions about Afghanistan, I’ll make sure there’s a compelling sports matchup on tap.

Mr. President, just email me (email address appears on my “About” page), to let me know you’d like to set up an interview for the czar job, and I’ll respond with my phone number so we can iron out the remaining details by phone and in person.  Like Glenn Beck, I’ll be waiting by my phone for your call.

😀

Posted in National Politics, Politics in the MSM. Tags: , . 3 Comments »

Hoping somebody’s listening

November 6, 2009 — buckeyerino

Nov52009DC

This was forwarded to me by way of some Ohioans who trekked to Washington DC yesterday to express their disapproval of how the U.S. House of Representatives is shaping their health care bill.

The AARP, in defiance of the wishes of a great number of its members, has endorsed the House version of the bill, which not only doesn’t have bipartisan support, it doesn’t even have the support of all the Democrats.

Michelle Malkin always has riveting blog entries about this topic.  4 of her blog entries posted during this past week can be found here, here, here, and here.  I recommend reading through them.

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

Cuyahoga County Issues 5, 6, and predictions about voting over the next 50 years into the future

October 26, 2009 — buckeyerino

First of all, on the issue of Cuyahoga County reform, voting NO on Issue 3 would be quite helpful in keeping a lid on corruption.  Access to a casino, with its money-laundering potential, facilitates crime and political corruption.  Even the police will have a hard time trying to keep everything above board in a casino environment.

I urge support for Issue 6 and defeat of Issue 5.

Issue 6 is not a cure-all.  Even with the restructuring of Cuyahoga County government under Issue 6, the “good old boys” will eventually figure out how to game the system.  But, under Issue 6, there is provision for a charter review down the road that will allow the new structure to be re-evaluated and refined to address any unwanted unintended consequences that crop up in the short run.

The charter review process provided for in Issue 6 therefore makes Issue 5 a moot point.  Issue 5 would merely continue study of the issue of county reform, without any commitment to adopting any recommendations that might result from such a study.  If you think the issue of reform requires more study, this can still be accomplished with Issue 6, which does commit to a structural change, but which can and will be revisited.  For the “good old boys” who’ve been gaming the system for years, Issue 5 is all about gaming the system.  Thus, even though Issue 6 isn’t fool-proof,  Issue 5 is an attempt to fool the naive and gullible into thinking progress toward reform will still be underway when the opposite is more likely to materialize: the death of reform.

Issue 5 asks the voter to choose a slate of members for the reform-study commission.  Whether you vote yes or no on Issue 5, you are directed to choose one slate or the other.  If Issue 6 is defeated and Issue 5 passes, your best bet to avoid the death of reform is to choose the following slate:

Angela Thi Bennett
Jack Boyle
James Brady
Ruth Brady
Thomas Kelly
Roz McAllister
Joseph Miller
Mary O’Malley
Jamie Pilla
William I. Russo
Thomas P. Slavin
Linda Smigel
Elaine Trapp
Tom Wilson
Pat Wright

Here, at Buckeye RINO blog, I’d advanced a remedy of my own relative to cleaning up county-level corruption throughout Ohio.  My remedy included moving county commissioner races to odd-numbered years so that the county commissioner candidates would face more voter and media scrutiny rather than get swept into office by hiding in the coat-tails of presidential and gubernatorial candidates.

It just so happens that, during my present exile in Pierce County, WA, fighting county-level corruption is also fueling ballot issues.  What proposal is on the table to reform Pierce County government?  Voila!  Moving several county-level election races to odd-numbered years!  Just the kind of thing I’d recommend for Ohio!

I’ve looked into my crystal ball, and I’ve seen the future of voting.  Within the next 50 years, election calendars all over the nation will be introducing staggered elections and staggered start dates for terms in office.  Federal elections will still occur on the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November of even numbered years, with terms beginning the following January, but I predict a shake-up in state, county, and local election calendars.

There are 4 years between Presidential elections, and 2 years between Congressional elections.  There are 12 months in each year.  There are 52 weeks in each year.  As political corruption that has gone on for decades at all government levels continues to come to light, there will be a mounting public outcry for greater transparency.  Transparency will be among the chief motivations for changing our election calendars.

Leading up to these election calendar changes will be refinements in election technology that allow for greater automation, tamper-proof security, result tabulation speed, remote voter ballot access, and streamlined voter registration processes.  We’ve witnessed experiments in early voting periods, same-day voting, voting by mail, voting by internet, touch-screen voting, optical-scan voting, voter paper trails and receipts, motor-voter registrations, and, of course, security upgrades.  We are on a learning curve.  Eventually, this learning curve will create all the technology needed for the greater flexibility that changes to our election calendars will require.

Currently, our election calendar features deadline dates that are fairly standardized from year to year.  There are deadlines for filing candidate petitions.  There are deadlines for filing issue petitions.  There are deadlines for registering to vote.  There are deadlines for requesting absentee ballots.  There are deadlines for registering as a write-in candidate.  There are primary election deadlines, general election deadlines, and even special election deadlines.  There are campaign finance reporting deadlines.  The work at a Board of Elections office, therefore, fluctuates on a seasonal basis, according to the deadlines.  During peak times, such as the general election, dozens upon dozens of temporary election workers have to be added in each county, and the permanent staff is on the clock for lots of overtime hours.

What if there were ways to make the work of the Board of Elections less cyclical, spreading out the work throughout the year more evenly, requiring less peak loads, thus reducing the need for temporary staffing and overtime pay?  If technology upgrades yielded by our experimentation and our learning curve allowed us to more evenly space out the elections calendar, could we save a lot of taxpayer dollars expended for elections operations?  I think so.

So, at first, in the interest of transparency, I foresee lower-profile election races from even-numbered years migrating to odd-numbered years.

Next, I see Boards of Election acquiring the ability to handle elections on a more frequent basis throughout each year.

Next, I foresee that start dates for terms in office will be staggered, so that not all governments at all levels start from a blank slate each January as they currently do.  Congress may begin in January, but perhaps the Ohio General Assembly may begin in September, or some other month.   School boards may begin in July, or some other month.  County commissions may begin in March, or some other month.  City councils may start in December, or some other month, etc., etc., etc.

Next, a revolving door of election cycles will be reflective of the staggered starting dates for terms in office.  Potentially, each elected office will have its own unique campaign cycle and term commencement date.  Voting booths will not need to be deployed county-wide through every county.  Instead, voters will have remote access to the ballot, and technology will assure that votes are securely tamper-proof.  Each new week could possibly usher in a new candidate election period for one office or another.  This week might be county auditor week.  Next week might be county coroner week.  The following week might be county clerk of courts week, and so on.  Peaks of the election cycle will be minimized, and the work of election boards more balanced throughout the year, and more automated.

Campaigns could be less costly, as a low-profile candidate won’t as likely be priced out of the TV advertising market by Presidential candidates who’ve bought up the bulk of air time.  With the staggered election cycle, every public office will have it’s time in the spotlight.  Like Andy Warhol said, everybody will be famous for 15 minutes.

Remembering to vote each week or so would be like remembering which day to set the garbage can by the curb for trash collection.  If a voter desires election reminders, the board of elections can send out a weekly tweet.  A voter can respond to the tweet, if they so choose, by casting their ballot du jour.

Pollsters wouldn’t have to rely so much on collecting random samples of the population to survey.  Each week, new election results would come in from many parts of the country, and they’d be able to analyze those results for shifting moods within the electorate.  Polimetrics would become more easily and cheaply interpretable.

Why am I so confident that election calendars will morph into revolving doors during the next 50 years?  The push for transparency, the desire to reduce the role of cash in campaigns, the convenience to voters and election boards, the revolutionized technology, the efficiency and cost savings of operations at election boards, and especially the outraged public who want to bring an end to the culture of political corruption will force these changes to our election calendar.

Posted in Local Politics, National Politics, State Politics. Tags: , , . 4 Comments »

More self-dealing for Treasury afoot?

October 21, 2009 — buckeyerino

Last week, the Boston Globe released a story by a staff reporter named Bryan Bender that suggests that some Beltway politicos may be contemplating changing the mission of the Secret Service.

The Secret Service is entrusted with protecting our nation’s currency from counterfeiting and is also entrusted with guarding our nation’s president.  The Secret Service was created during the 1860’s to battle counterfeiting, and its mission was expanded to presidential protection in the wake of President McKinley’s assassination at the start of the 20th century.  When the Department of Homeland Security was created, the Secret Service was placed within that department.

The question at hand:  Does the Secret Service have the resources to handle these twin missions when far more safety threats to the President are being identified and when counterfeiting is so much more technologically advanced?

I’m not even sure it’s an honest question.

How are we to know the scope of resources at the Secret Service’s disposal?  How are we to know if there truly are more threats against the President’s safety?  How are we to assess the sophistication and proliferation of present-day counterfeiting schemes?

The answers to these three questions being unknowable to the public can enable alarmists to inflate the risks and to downplay the available resources with the intent of framing an ensuing debate that may be based solely on conjecture.  What fact-checking tools are available to the public to quantify and qualify the risks vis-a-vis the resources?

It’s with that skeptical eye toward the original question that I peruse the rest of Bender’s report.

What if the Secret Service were given one mission instead of two?  Would it make sense that the Secret Service be divested of the anti-counterfeiting role that it’s held since its founding?  If so, should that responsibility be handed over to the Treasury Department?

Let me ask that last question another way:  Should the Secret Service’s powers to investigate specified types of financial crimes be handed off to . . . Tim Geithner???????????

I can answer that last question:  NO WAY!

Last year, when Hank Paulson was Treasury Secretary, I blogged against the power that would be granted to Treasury Secretaries by the bailout bill (which, sadly, was passed into law):

The fundamental crux of the matter is that this bill gives Hank Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury, friend to the Wall Street crooks and enemy of the taxpayer, $250 billion of taxpayer money right up front, and perhaps $700 billion over all (and maybe more, since the precedent has already been set) to bailout whoever he pleases, with no judicial review.  He already acted on behalf of Bear Stearns without getting permission from the American people.  He already acted on behalf of AIG without getting permission from the American people.  He was able to coax Congress into going along with a bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  He’s been a crybaby that threw a tantrum to get this latest bailout approved, but it didn’t work.  Now he’s handing out candy to get this bailout approved.  Paulson and his Wall Street cronies have been more manipulative than any spoiled rotten brat I know.  Has it occurred to anyone on Capitol Hill and in the MSM that Paulson has been wrong with every move he makes?  Has it occurred to anyone that on Capitol Hill and in the MSM that Paulson has quietly assured his Wall Street cronies that the fix is in, and that he guaranteed to them that he’ll deliver the goods?  If we want accountability and oversight, it has to start with denying any of this bailout money.  It has to start with not granting additional power to the Secretary of the Treasury.

My dim view of Paulson is coupled with my dim view of Geithner, Paulson’s successor.  I distrust them both.

With a further consolidation of power over all financial aspects of our nation, what mechanisms are at the people’s disposal to check and balance any abuses that might occur at the Treasury Department?

I doubt that it would ever become necessary to trim the Secret Service’s twin missions down to one, but if it ever came down to it, I’d be much more comfortable with the Department of Homeland Security retaining the role of investigating the types of financial crimes that the Secret Service currently has jurisdiction over, and letting the Treasury Department guard our President, than doing it the other way around.

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

Religious intolerance from the political right

October 5, 2009 — buckeyerino

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States allows freedom of religion, yet even those who are the most unabashedly religious are capable of openly expressing religious intolerance.

I don’t seek to excuse religious intolerance practiced by some from the political left, but since I’m on the political right, I’m more sensitive to broad-brush criticisms of the political right being dominated by narrow-minded Bible-thumpers.  Personally, I don’t think that belief in the Bible makes me or anyone else narrow-minded.  I think the perception of narrow-mindedness more likely springs from politically active religious persons who publicly demonize other religious persuasions.

You already know the prime example of what I’m talking about even before I say it, don’t you?  In case you don’t, Exhibit A would have to be Christian conservatives that demonize the Muslim religion.  A common refrain is that our nation was founded upon Judeo-Christian values.  I know that the nation’s founders were religious, and I know that their sense of morals and ethics are the bedrock from which they conceived the framework for our laws and Constitution, but must we frame the nation’s history in such a way as to be exclusionary toward religions that aren’t identified as Jewish or Christian?

I’ve attended services of a number of Christian denominations in my lifetime.  I’ve heard some preachers from the pulpit say that the Muslim religion is the religion of the devil.  Oh, really?  Those preachers seriously can’t tell the difference between the Muslim religion and Satan-worship?  I cannot fathom how anyone can possibly confuse the two, but, apparently, there are those who do.  Granted that Muslims don’t teach that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, but they do believe he was a prophet, and some of his precepts are expressed within the Qu’ran.  If the 10 Commandments revealed to Moses are among the foundations of the legal system of our so-called Judeo-Christian nation, why do Christian conservatives widely ignore the fact that the Muslim religion also incorporates observance of the 10 Commandments (probably observing the commandments more faithfully than many Christians do)?  I ask you, does Satan-worship advocate the observance of the 10 Commandments?  I don’t think so.  Therefore, I submit that the Muslim religion is not the religion of the devil.

I acknowledge that there are terrorists who have used perversions of the Muslim religion in attempts to seize political power by any means they can devise, but I’ve never known any of these terrorists personally.  I’ve known many Muslims personally during my lifetime, especially during the time I lived, studied, and worked in Columbus.  I met a few who didn’t adhere closely to the Muslim faith, and I met many who did adhere closely to the Muslim faith.  Of the latter group, I see no reason why they wouldn’t fit in with the political right.  They believe in accountability, socially conservative values, and a high standard of ethics.  If they identify themselves as Democrats, it’s only because Republicans have pushed them away, not because they aren’t conservative.

Another criticism I’ve heard is that Muslims are Marxists.  Excuse me, but the Muslim religion pre-dates Marxism by a few centuries.  That should tell you that Marxism is only very recently making headway within the realm of Muslim philosophy.  Those seeking to advance Marxism within the Muslim sphere are, like the terrorists I noted above, seeking to seize power through perverting the religion.  It’s difficult to seize power when the populace is economically empowered by capitalism, so Marxism is a ploy by an unscrupulous minority to weaken the clout of the people.  I think it’s important to make these distinctions.

Another argument I’ve heard from Christian conservatives is that Muslims are intolerant of other religions.  What examples are Christian conservatives setting for religious tolerance?  If Muslims are unaccustomed to religious tolerance prior to settling in our country, shouldn’t they notice a night-and-day difference once they arrive here, in a land of religious freedom?  Who are they to look to for an example of a religious people who practice religious tolerance?  Who can they pattern themselves after?  Ideally, they should be able to pattern themselves after all other Americans, as we should all practice religious tolerance, but, in real life, religious intolerance is pervasive.

Let’s move from Exhibit A to Exhibit B.  Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck are annoying me with their diatribes against black liberation theology.  Again, an outcry against Marxism is used in the rationale against it.  Last year, I said attacking Obama by parading Reverend Wright in front of the voters was the wrong thing to do.  I haven’t changed my mind.  It’s a mistake to portray Reverend Wright as the poster boy for how black liberation theology is promulgated in most predominantly African-American churches.  There is a great diversity of teachings among the ministers of predominantly African-American churches, just as there are a wide array of Christian denominations to be found within African-American communities.  Reverend Wright is just one preacher among the thousands that are out there.  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, I don’t fear liberation theology. I’ve attended the Sunday services of predominantly African-American churches in places such as Columbus, Oberlin, Elyria, Lorain, Toledo, Cincinnati, rural Mississippi, Detroit, and Chicago.  I’ve met clones of Reverend Wright in exactly zero of those churches.  Does that mean they aren’t preaching liberation theology?  No.  They teach many elements of liberation theology, but the principles they advance the most have to do with . . . liberation! (gasp! imagine that!) Empowerment!   Self-reliance!  Individual responsibility!  Also, there is a strong sense of community within liberation theology, but the word community is not to be confused with the word commune or communism.  Conservatives talk of community when they talk of local government that’s closer to the people than state or national governments.  Should that be construed as code for communism?  Of course not.  And what about the concept of cooperative economics within the philosophy of liberation theology?  Is that code for communism?  Hmm . . . in the health care debate, conservatives were pushing a co-op as an alternative to a government-provided insurance option.  I don’t think co-op is a code word for communism in that sense, nor do I think it’s code in the sense that’s taught from pulpits.  Even if the originators of the liberation theology philosophy purposely sought to promote Marxism, that’s not how it’s been preached from the pulpit in the many services I’ve attended.  Application doesn’t necessarily match theory.  No preacher that I’ve heard ever extolled the virtues of dependency, whether government-sponsored dependency, or otherwise.  If you don’t choose to attend a predominantly African-American church on Sunday to see for yourself how liberation theology is applied, then I at least invite you to participate in a Kwanzaa observance at the end of the year.  Kwanzaa is not religious, per se, but a philosophy is presented during Kwanzaa that resembles some of the principles of liberation theology.  I think you’ll find that you’d have to be overly cynical to conclude that the principles of Kwanzaa are Marxist.  I’ve been somewhat surprised that more African-Americans don’t identify themselves as Republican when some of the commonly values taught from the pulpit are well-aligned with social conservatism.  Then again, if we don’t call into question the portrayal of liberation theology as presented by Hannity and Beck, who may have studied up on theory, but know nothing of application, it becomes readily understandable that religious intolerance may be the most limiting factor in the GOP’s attempts to attract more African-Americans to join its ranks.

Exhibit C is the lack of unity among Christian conservatives due to animosity between denominations that have been stirred up by territorial ministers who want to make sure that they aren’t losing parishioners (and $$$) to their rivals.  For a number of Christian ministers, religion is big business.  A minister’s income increases with donations, and donations increase with the size of the congregation, thus ministers may play a game of “keep-away,” similar to the sport played on American playgrounds.  The ball would be the parishioners.  The object is to keep the parishioners coming to your own church and prevent them from ending up in rival churches.  How do ministers play this game?  Demonizing other denominations, chiefly.  Do you remember how traditional churches treated the emergence of the charismatic movement?  I remember a denomination that established roots in Bellevue (the town where I went to high school) that was among the trailblazers of the charismatic movement.  Instead of a solemn pipe organ to accompany centuries-old hymns sung by a well-dressed congregation that sat still in the pews, the charismatic movement featured Christian rock bands singing new compositions as casually-clad parishioners danced along.  The traditional churches of Bellevue, in an effort to play keep-away, labeled the newly-arrived charismatic denomination as a “cult.”  It didn’t work, as the denomination grew rapidly, expanding their building in the process.  The enmity between the denominations still exists, though.  Eventually, many of the traditional churches began to offer some charismatic services of their own, revealing the weakness of their allegations that the charismatic denomination was a “cult.”  Nowadays, charismatic denominations are ubiquitous, but they play keep-away, too, even cavalierly using the word “cult” against some denominations that evangelize prolifically, even though that prejudicial term was once used against their own denominations.  The divisions within Christianity amplified by the rhetoric of self-serving ministers are reflected in political activity, too.  Those within the GOP who decry the fragmentation of the power once wielded by Christian conservatives during the Reagan years should recognize that religious intolerance has splintered the Christian conservative bloc.  We saw this played out in the 2008 GOP primaries, and it continues to play out, today.  Certain candidates are rejected and others are embraced according to assessments of the denominations that candidates consider to be their church home.  One group may embrace Huckabee, but reject McCain, Romney, Thompson, Giuliani, Paul, Brownback, etc., while another group may embrace Brownback, but reject Huckabee, McCain, Romney, Paul, Thompson, and Giuliani based partly on religious prejudice.  As the trend continues, the Christian conservatives can’t deliver a vote for anybody.  The heightened intolerance leads to heightened irrelevance.

When you hear denigration of another religion or denomination, whether from your own minister, or from Beck, or from Hannity, or any other source, I suggest that you reserve your own judgment rather than take their word for it.  Notice that I didn’t call out any particular Christian denomination by name throughout this critique.  There’s a reason for that.

I consider myself to be both Christian and conservative.  I also believe that true freedom of religion begins with religious tolerance.  With tolerance, we can become relevant within the GOP again and we can stop pushing away voters who have more in common with conservative Republicans than they have in common with liberal Democrats.

Posted in National Politics. Tags: . Comments Off on Religious intolerance from the political right

The managed economy

September 22, 2009 — buckeyerino

The managed economy.  Not to be confused with the free market economy.

I could provide dozens of examples, but this one, concerning University Hospitals in Cleveland, as reported in the Plain Dealer, works about as well as any.

Ohio’s legislators in DC are already naming the price at which their votes can be bought for the Obamacare bill:  earmarks for University Hospitals.

Apparently, this is not a move that all hospitals in Ohio would agree upon.  Cleveland Clinic decried the move as favoritism.

Many voters are catching on to this trend of political manipulation of the marketplace since Obama took office, but, unfortunately, our pay-to-play legislators have been picking winners and losers in the marketplace for years.  It happens at the state level, too, so there’s not a level playing field, and we’ve seen up close how that drives business away from Ohio.

In a free market economy, consumers do the picking and choosing.

If we want to return to a free market economy, government will have to relinquish the reins and stop trying to micromanage it.  That’s partly why I feel a campaign slogan of “DO LESS!“ would appeal to me, as a voter.

Posted in National Politics, State Politics. Tags: , . 5 Comments »

DO LESS!

September 22, 2009 — buckeyerino

Want my vote for Congress next year?  Want my vote for state elections in 2010?  Then let “DO LESS!” be your campaign slogan.

One caveat would be that our nation needs to retain its leadership role internationally, but on the domestic front, the people of our nation are highly literate and highly technologically advanced compared with earlier eras in our nation’s history.  Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness can be maintained more readily through decentralized government in this era than through any prior era in our history.  Paradoxically, the centralization of government, the consolidation of power, continues to flow away from the people, away from the communities, and toward the state capitals, and especially toward DC.  We, the People, are better equipped than ever before to take responsibility for ourselves.  Stop trying to baby us.

Even if you politicians lack confidence in We, the People, you need to rein in government spending, anyway.  The economy can’t sustain the government’s growth.  We, taxpayers, can’t sustain your growth.  By fiscal necessity, you must shrink, whether you think it’s prudent or not.

Don’t try to do more with less.  DO LESS with less.

I want my government to do less.  I want bureaucracies merged or eradicated.  Non-profit organizations that depend on big government to award them funding as if our national and state treasuries are Santa Claus?  Sorry, but non-profits, like the for-profit sector, will have to downsize in this economy, too.

Pay raises in government?  Don’t even think about it.  What’s the justification you always try to hoodwink us with?  Doesn’t it go something like this?  “We need the best people, and the private sector could lure them away if we don’t offer competitive compensation.”  Well, I tell you, in this economic environment, such justification is PHONEY!  Let them go to where the compensation is more to their liking.  We need the most selfless people, not the most selfish people, in our government.  Don’t kid yourselves that you had the best people to begin with, anyway.  Can’t you see that those “best” people have created a mess?

The government’s social safety net?  Make it a smaller net.  The most important net should be private-sector employment.  If employment opportunities are curtailed because of the safety net, guess what?  Employment gets higher priority.  Apparently, you aren’t listening, because unemployment is on the rise.

Politicos in Columbus, stop issuing bonds.  They have to be repaid with interest.  If the objectives that we financed with bonds are important enough, then we can budget them out of current expenditures.  If they aren’t important enough that we’d budget for them out of current expenditures, then they aren’t important enough to issue bonds for, since we must pay interest on on them.

Stop fretting that eliminating programs will hurt the most vulnerable members of society.  Under the current regime that you’ve concocted, we’re all being hurt, we’re all vulnerable, and the members of society most capable of sustaining the rest of society are being penalized the most.  If private sector employment rises, it not only benefits the most fit, it also increases opportunities for those who are less so.

There are too many government agendas.  They must be streamlined and prioritized.

Case in point:  Merge the ORSC, the Ohio Rehabilitation Services Commission, with ODJFS.  Right now, the ORSC has separate offices from ODJFS, but I have no idea why.  Merge the Department of Aging with ODJFS, as well.  Merge all the social service delivery systems into one to eradicate duplication.

Eliminate the Department of Development.  You already have a Department of Commerce.  In fact the Department of Commerce could absorb the Department of Transportation, the Department of Insurance, the Department of Travel and Tourism, among others.

The Ohio Department of Public Safety could absorb the Department of Corrections, the Ohio EPA, and the Department of Youth Services, among others.  Why do we need these additional line items in our budget?

We don’t need a Department of Education as it is currently structured.  We don’t need a state superintendent.  School districts can handle this at the local level.  For collecting data from the school districts across the state, all you need are clerical workers.  You don’t need a think tank staffed with expensive consultants.  If local school districts need some help along that vein, they can consult with the education faculties at our state universities.

When you incumbent politicians campaign, don’t brag to me about what funding you secured for whatever lofty noble goal or whatever down-on-their-luck constituency.  I don’t think your worth to us taxpayers is measured by the $$$$ you spent.  I think the $$$$ you saved us is more worth our while.

The more you politicians do, and the more you spend to do it, the more burdened We, the People are.  Not only are you costing us money, you are costing us liberty.

Want my vote?

DO LESS!

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