From the same group that just today announced it booted Ohio ACORN out of Ohio,  Buckeye Institute’s Mayer finds the latest government data troubling:

With the March 2010 employment data, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) revised its state employment data back to 1990 (www.bls.gov/eag/eag.oh.htm).  As you may recall, our report, “State of the State: Two Decades of Weak Job Growth and Skyrocketing Government Costs Pose Daunting Challenges for Ohioans,” highlighted several sobering pieces of BLS employment data (original data from the report in parens below).  The new BLS data paints an even more troubling outlook for Ohio.

Specifically, from January 1990 to January 2000, Ohio’s job market added 714,900 jobs (720,200), which was the 37th best in America.  From January 2000 to January 2010, Ohio’s job market lost 635,000 jobs (544,100), which was the 2nd worst in America.  From January 1990 to January 2010, Ohio had the 3rd (6th) worst job market in America — Ohio added a net of 79,900 jobs (176,100) over 20 years, or less than 4,000 per year (9,000) for Ohio’s 11.4 million people.  This growth amounted to an increase in jobs of 1.9% (4%) from 20 years earlier.  Only Rhode Island (-1.7%), Michigan (-2.2%), and Connecticut (-4.9%) had worse job markets.

Yikes! Read the rest of the details here.

An astute RightOhio reader noted that I missed a crucial fact about State Rep. Debbie Phillip’s hippie commune:

It was a “clothing optional hippie commune.”

Now there is a mental image.

LOVE FREE MONEY!

Good Lord, as someone who pushed an amendment in OSU’s student government to kick this convict off the university’s Board of Trustees, I can’t overemphasize how important it is for Republicans to defeat Brian Hicks in everything he does.

Last week, I introduced you to B.J. Schuerger.

Today, Lyndsey Teter in The (Columbus) Other Paper has a fascinating update as to what’s going on in the Franklin County Democrat Party:

First, the gathered officials told Anthony that they didn’t want him serving as both the county’s elections chief and the party chairman. And second, they did not want Robert “B.J.” Schuerger to be Anthony’s successor.

It appears that message hasn’t resonated completely.

Anthony certainly didn’t look like a man who was preparing to step down as chairman of the Franklin Party Democrats Tuesday evening. Behind a podium at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union hall, Anthony presided over a group of more than 100 Democrats at a Central Committee meeting, as party endorsements were handed out rapid-fire in more than a dozen races. He’d spent much of the afternoon setting up his executive office at the county Board of Elections, after being named the BOE’s director—as predicted—last week.

“I intend to stay on as chairman,” he said after the meeting.

Although there’s precedent—party chairmen serve administrative roles at boards of election in other counties around Ohio—working as the ultimate partisan while also overseeing the day-to-day operations of the county’s elections board would put Anthony and the party in a position ripe for questioning, party sources are saying.

Mayor Mike Coleman is staunchly opposed to Schuerger. And when B.J. was asked about his involvement in the State Senator Capri Caparo/mafioso fundraising scandals, he said:

“I’ve done nothing wrong,” Schuerger said Tuesday. He emphasized the “blood, sweat and tears” he’s put into the county party, saying he hoped the Central Committee would recognize that when making a decision about the next county leader of the party.

Weeks after winning a major battle against the Ohio smoking ban, The Buckeye Institute’s 1851 Center for Constitutional Law’s Maurice Thompson just gave Ohio ACORN the boot!

From James Nash in The Columbus Dispatch:

ACORN, the liberal group notorious for allegedly trying to inflate voter rolls through fraudulent practices, has seen its last election in Ohio.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now will permanently surrender its Ohio business license by June1 as part of a legal settlement with the conservative Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, both sides said yesterday.

ACORN was active in Ohio in the 2006 and 2008 elections, working to register thousands of low-income people to vote and get them to the polls. The group’s efforts were marred by irregularities, including one case in which ACORN workers allegedly induced a Cleveland man to register to vote 72 times, offering cigarettes as an incentive.

The Buckeye Institute’s 1851 Center for Constitutional Law teamed with two Warren County residents to sue ACORN in Warren County Common Pleas Court just before the 2008 election. The residents alleged that their rights were abridged by thousands of fraudulent voter registrations, each representing “a potential illegal vote that has the capacity to dilute (legitimate) votes.”

The case was moved to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.

Yesterday’s settlement is mostly confidential, said Maurice A. Thompson, the conservative group’s attorney.

“They will surrender their business license by June 1 and cease to operate in Ohio and cease to support or enable other groups to do what they do,” Thompson said.

ACORN, the organization which President Obama used to be a community agitator and lawyer for, was founded by Wade Rathke and others Alinsky-radicals in 1970. Funded by major lefty groups like the Tides Foundation and unions, ACORN is a criminal racket which exists to keep inner-city blacks poor while exploiting them for political purposes.

Here is a good primer on the history of just how ACORN’s ultimate goal is to collapse the American economic system, in hopes of it being replaced with more socialism:

(Here is the original 1966 article from Cloward and Piven which Beck mentions in the video.)

The problem here is, even though Thompson successfully gave ACORN the book, the dirty money which funds ACORN will always be back in Ohio to commit more voter fraud and other crimes. As it is, ACORN is such a complex network of 501c3s and 501c4s that it would make your head spin, and this design is on purpose to allow it to adapt when government cuts off it’s funds for various voting/census issues while allowing money to be funneled around. As it is, ACORN is quickly trying to rebrand itself with new names. And there are closely associated groups that still exist in our state, such as the Coalition on Homeless and Housing in Ohio. And efforts will always continue to give indigents and ex-convicts the ability to register voters, while giving them strong incentives to falsify registration forms.

This lawsuit is over two years old, and the Buckeye Institute, in their fight for economic freedom and liberty, kicked these criminals out of Ohio. H0wever, not only will they be back, the money, the agitators, and the efforts to abuse inner-city residents on behalf of the Democrat Party will still be a major part of the 2010 election cycle.

And… not if… but when ACORN violates this agreement, the process of nailing them for contempt of court is a much faster process.

Therefore, please give a tax-deductible donation to the Buckeye Institute as they keep these important (and insanely expensive!) legal fights going.

Apparently he never went inside, but he was roaming around the parking lot and people were recognizing this squirrely bastard from my blog. It was quite warm out today, so he did not wear his infamous trenchcoat.

As you can see, he was busy on his phone, perhaps talking to Chris Redfern as he and Kim are at home lying naked on a giant pile of lobbying cash.

Instead of just just having a BlackBerry to record audio from, he had a camcorder this time… and was perhaps waiting for me?:

See previous posts on this douchebag here, here, here, and here.

So what’s going on here? He is literally being stopped dead in his tracks everywhere he goes, so why can’t the ODP and whatever outside organization is funding this guy find someone new? Perhaps they could find one person who can go to a casual event, quietly eat chicken, and not be a nervous, sweaty mess?

I live in Franklin County but was quite busy and could not attend. But all day, I couldn’t stop thinking about how fun it would be to give him a swirly or perhaps conduct an experiment to see if a human body could literally bounce off of parking lot pavement.

This spy is cruisin’ for a bruisin’, and I’m ready to use ALL the kick-ass moves I learned from this fantastic movie!:

Things only get worse for Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, as there is no way for them to definitely prove they didn’t receive extra signatures. This is from the Steve Christopher for Attorney General campaign:

Yesterday, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner issued a press release entitled, “SECRETARY BRUNNER RESPONDS TO UNFOUNDED ALLEGATIONS.” In this release, Secretary Brunner stated that she did not know why Steve Christopher would not contact her office. In fact, a representative for the Christopher campaign did visit the Secretary of State’s office on Monday regarding this situation. In this meeting, it was reiterated by Secretary of State personnel that the 788-signature count would stand. Election laws are very specific and if Christopher would have waited for a resolution, he would have lost his legal recourse to be placed on the ballot. Christopher retained legal representation to ensure his right to be on the ballot. Christopher’s legal counsel is attempting to arrange a meeting with the Secretary of State’s office, and will discuss the issue of the campaign’s copies of its petitions.

Secretary Brunner states, in this same press release, that the number of signatures purported on the receipt is given by the candidate. The number of signatures on the receipt given to Christopher was filled out by a Secretary of State employee. The employee accepting these petitions does this for a living and could easily detect a discrepancy of almost 2,000 signatures, merely by size of the stack of paper.

Today we obtained an Excel spreadsheet file that was created and distributed by the Secretary of State’s office to all 88 Ohio county Boards of Elections. This spreadsheet was created on February 18^th at 5:51 PM, over five hours after Steve’s petition submittal. We can produce this document upon request, pending the approval of the campaign’s attorney.

It sounds like total incompetence at the Secretary of State’s office, which is backed up by reports from those who personally went around their neighborhoods collecting signatures…

First, from Phil Herzing in Dayton:

I see that a narrative has developed: Steve Christopher is crazy. He can’t count, and wasted all his time going to the Sec. of State’s office to turn in a pile of signatures that he ought to have known was inadequate. Except that I called the S.o.S. office myself to inquire after the location of the signatures I myself gathered (about 90). Montgomery County Board of Elections only received 4 (you read right: FOUR) for validation. A nice young lady named Alison in the Brunner’s office claims that the candidate never turned them in.

Fair enough, I said to her. “Suppose in a couple years I want to run for some office, and I have to turn in my nominating petitions in the Secretary of State’s office, like Christopher did last month. What process do I have to follow to ensure that I don’t end up in the same boat that he’s in now, holding a receipt for 2750 submitted signatures, but being subsequently told that I only turned in 788?”

(A Their word against mine. More precisely, their word on Feb 18th versus their word now!)

“What procedure does your office have in place to prevent discrepancies like this?”

The answer I got: “We don’t have one.”

“In other words, the receipt you give out is worthless. Is that what you’re telling me now?”

Silence.

So, in the absence of any verifiable proof that Brunner’s office is telling me the truth, I guess I’m free to believe whom I choose. Since I gathered nearly 100 signatures myself, I choose to believe that the Candidate turned them in. Why shouldn’t I?

And this is from Thea Shoemake, Vice Chair of the Clermont County GOP Central Committee:

On Wednesday, February 17, Steve Christopher spoke to the Clermont County Central Committee in Batavia.  He was very well-received.  In addition to the signatures I procured for him in Clermont, a few other people who had been circulating his petitions here as well as in neighboring counties, came to the meeting that night to hand-deliver them to Steve.  I’m estimating that he had – from that stop alone – approx. 300 signatures from Clermont, Warren & Hamilton counties (combined).  It was my understanding that Steve was going to drive to Columbus after the meeting – petitions in hand – and would file the next day.  Somewhere between then and March 5th, those signatures ceased to exist, including my own and other committee members’ (which I know are valid).

Here is the information that I have confirmed with our county Board of Elections:

1.      The SoS’s office sent out a worksheet of estimated signatures from all candidates, parties & races (ours reads 2,750 for Christopher).

2.      The next step in the process dictates that the SoS then sends the candidates’ petitions back to the respective county BoE’s for validation.

a.       Attached is the Directive sent by the SoS regarding Steve Christopher’s petitions. Near the end it reads:

§  “Please return the original completed certification form and part petitions to this office by a trackable method; e.g., in person or by certified U.S. Mail, U.S. Post Office Express Mail, UPS, or Fed EX.”

b.      But according to our BoE, none were ever received from the SoS office.  So where are those Clermont petitions?  Where are the others?  This isn’t about the validity of the signatures, it’s about signatures that never made it back to the counties for validation.

While we could speculate ad nauseam about other scenarios and their suppositional motives, at the end of the day, the issue at hand is that many Ohioans just got “lost in transmission,” and it is in the best interest of everyone involved to get definitive answers and an acceptable resolution.

Best,
Thea Shoemake

And from Kimberly Fletcher, President and Founder of Homemakers for America, in Dayton:

I would be happy to comment on this issue.

I opened my home for an entire day during those huge snow days and despite the terrible weather I had 65 people file in my house apologizing all the way for tramping through my living room wet snow covered boots. And I just looked at them and said with a big smile, “You just bring those patriotic, snow covered boots right in her and sign. This is much important than a floor or carpet.”

I collected signatures at church, community events, door to door for a week in the snow. My friend Phil and I organized signing parties. He took south Dayton and I took north. I had all the petitions and I needed to get them to him but I was heading to Cleveland for a speaking engagement (where I also collected signatures) so we coordinated a drop site. I told him I would just drive down I 75 find a good place and leave the envelope and then let him know where to pick it up. I found an old abandoned building just off the Main St exit downtown Dayton. He picked them up that afternoon and started gathering signatures. He had over 100 people meet him at Starbucks to sign petitions. It was like this over the state.

Once we had our petitions done we organized drop sites for Steve to pick them up. I took all my petitions and the ones people collected from north Dayton to Miami county where there several more waiting. Others dropped theirs at the south drop point. The Steve drove through and picked them up. It was amazing. Because of all our efforts we collected over 2000 signatures in four days. Steve already had 800 he had already had turned in to him. This is the power of the people in action. Ms. Brunner and ever corrupt politician out there should be shaking in their boots. We the people are rising up and in America the people rule. Ms. Brunner might want to remind herself of that. We are her boss. And the boss is not happy with her performance.

And this is just the surface of dedicated conservative activists who worked hard to collect signatures, but somehow Secretary of State Brunner’s office lost them. But with at least 2000 of the signatures photocopied and in the hands of Steve Christopher, he has a strong legal case to make here.

Stay tuned for more details!

Jesse Hathaway, OU’s unofficial Democrat assassin, has been all over State Rep. Debbie Phillips from Athens of the 92nd District. She not only did she live in a hippie commune, but she was arrested for disorderly conduct in 1991 for protesting the first Iraq War.

She, the Athens newspaper (where her husband works), and Ohio Democrat operatives have been working desperately to knock a liberal college student off the 2010 ballot. His name is Ty Collingsworth, and had a letter to the editor today in the OU post:

Post Letter: Bid to block candidacy part of shady agenda

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

After reviewing the protest to my candidacy, I am ready to respond. These charges are baseless, without merit and politically motivated by Debbie Phillips and her cronies who support her votes that will destroy our state park, bankrupt our schools and will decimate our mental health system. People deserve to know if their state representative is trying to take away my constitutional right to run for elected office.

It’s a simple yes or no answer for Debbie; does she have any involvement in or connection to this election challenge to my candidacy, or are we supposed to believe that out of tens of thousands of Ohio attorneys that it’s a pure coincidence that Mr. Metcalf is using the same Columbus attorney that Debbie Phillips uses?

Debbie Phillips is not being up-front and honest with her constituents. Phillips knows she’s losing votes to a true progressive because she voted for mining at Burr Oak State Park and voted to cut state funding for mental health and our schools.

Ty Collinsworth is a candidate for 92nd district in the Ohio House of Representatives and resides in Nelsonville.

The hearing was today, and I’m happy to report that Collinsworth WILL be on the ballot.

Ken Blackwell, my friend, mentor and reason I got involved in state politics, has endorsed Dave Yost for Auditor:

Ken Blackwell today endorsed Prosecutor Dave Yost for Auditor of State.

“Dave Yost is one of us — a man of integrity who shares and lives our values and convictions,” Blackwell said. “He knows that the government is reaching too far into our lives and too far into our pockets – and with his record and his experience, he has the tools he needs to fight for us.”

Blackwell is an icon among Ohio social conservatives and has often been the standard-bearer for people disaffected with the moderate wing of the Republican Party. “Ken Blackwell, like Barry Goldwater, was conservative long before it was cool to be conservative,” said Gene Pierce, a conservative political analyst. “Like Ken, Dave is pro-smaller government, pro-life, pro-family and pro-tax cuts. There should be no argument from Ohio Republicans about Dave’s heartfelt commitment to a conservative platform of government.”

Blackwell won the Statewide Republican Primary for Governor in 2006. “Ken anticipated and led the ‘No More RINOs’ movement,” Pierce added. “His endorsement will speak volumes in this primary, when people want true conservative leadership.”

Prosecutor Yost welcomed the endorsement. “I’ve known Ken Blackwell for years, and he does not speak lightly, or for the sake of convenience – he’s always about what he believes to be right. I am humbled and honored to have his strong support.”

Ken Blackwell is the most conservative candidate Ohio has ever had for Governor, and is now a major force within the national conservative movement.

After so many embarrassing YouTubes of the Gov. looking off his A-game, I don’t blame him:

Let that be a lesson to you “Cheerleaders for Failure.” Get out of line, and Gov. Strickland becomes a “Skull Crusher for Success.”

From Dave Yost’s campaign for Auditor:

Dave Yost earned the unanimous endorsement of the Belmont County Republican party for his bid to be Ohio’s next State Auditor last night, and picked up strong support in Knox County as well.

“We’re proud to stand with Dave Yost to carry on the legacy of Mary Taylor as a watchdog of our tax dollars,” said Belmont County GOP Chair Kent Moore. “I cannot think of a better candidate than Dave Yost,” he said.

Also, the Knox County Republican Central Committee voted 2-to-1 in favor of Yost for Auditor of State, although the vote tally was one vote short of the supermajority required for a formal endorsement under that county’s bylaws.

“I’m pleased and honored to have the support of Republicans all over the state,” said Yost, who was campaigning along with John Kasich in Putnam County. “Ohio’s government is a mess, and this campaign is about choosing who is ready to tackle that challenge. The last decade of my life has uniquely prepared me to step up for the people of this great State.”

As an update to my post from this morning, I have it from unimpeachable sources that  the Sec of State’s office sent a spreadsheet to all the county BoE’s listing how many signatures were submitted by each statewide candidate. Under Steve Christopher’s name, the number was listed as 2,750—which matches the receipt Steve got the day he filed.

It’s a shame that Christopher doesn’t have the extra 734 signatures which the campaign received at the last minute. But the numbers don’t match anyway.

Brian Shinn and others in Secretary Jennifer Brunner’s office should be updating their resumes now. Heads are about to roll…

Yesterday, from the ticklish Congressman:

From 2006:

Not that it’s any of my business, but Massa might LOVE the new “metro designer colors” on the 2nd floor of the mansion and flashy pink marble Strickland had installed in his private shower in 2007.

Encouraging background information from David Wolfford in the print edition of the Weekly Standard:

[Rob Portman] rode the ’94 GOP wave back for a full term and won five more, typically with 70 percent of the vote. Portman was popular in Washington, too. His proudest moments in his 12 years in the House, he said, were “when we passed the balanced budget agreement and the welfare reform bill.” Pete Sepp of the National Taxpayer’s Union recalls Portman’s leadership on the IRS restructuring of 1998. “He set a professional work environment that rose above partisanship and ultimately gave taxpayers more rights.”

In 2005, George W. Bush named Portman U.S. trade representative, then later budget director. In his year at the Office of Management and Budget, Portman fought to contain spending and earned the sobriquet “Dr. No.” He also pushed for a revised line-item veto bill that would stand constitutional muster, and after consulting with taxpayer groups he established an online listing of earmarks. “He was extremely interested in engaging us and others,” said Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste. Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, confirmed that Portman’s efforts “moved earmarks out of the shadows.”

Over the weekend, I made fun of a few kook suggestions that Board of Election’s purposefully ruined Ohio AG candidate Steve Christopher’s petitions. But ever since, the buzz has been that there was a good old fashion example of incompetence, and as more details come out- Secretary of State Brunner is looking worse.

From James Nash in The Dispatch:

Nearly 2,000 petition signatures simply vanished in the hands of Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a man whom Brunner disqualified from the May ballot for attorney general alleged yesterday.

Kenton lawyer Steve Christopher, a conservative Republican who had sought Ohio’s top legal job, was one of five candidates Brunner scrubbed from the ballot Friday for failing to turn in 1,000 valid signatures of registered Ohio voters.

While three have accepted Brunner’s judgment, Christopher and a U.S. Senate hopeful are accusing the state’s chief elections official of bungling the signature-verification process. The would-be Senate candidate, Traci “TJ” Johnson, had hoped to run in the Democratic primary in which Brunner is a candidate.

While Johnson is alleging a conflict of interest on Brunner’s part, Christopher’s charges are even more explosive. In effect, the lawyer says the secretary of state simply lost petition forms containing 1,962 signatures. His campaign says it turned in 2,750 signatures in all.[...]

Brunner’s office said the phantom signatures never existed.

The secretary of state said Christopher’s campaign submitted 788 signatures, of which 638 were deemed valid by county boards of elections. The candidate turned in 104 part-petitions, with 27 lines available for signatures on each part-petition, so the maximum number of signatures is 2,808, Brunner’s office said.[...]

Christopher’s wife, Jill, said the campaign has copies of about 2,000 signatures that it submitted to Brunner’s office. The campaign doesn’t have records of the 750 others because they were collected in the final hours before they were submitted Feb. 18, she said.

The problem here is, why would Secretary Brunner even bother to check the names at all, if there weren’t at least the minimum requirement of 1000? I think the very fact that she is looking is proof that her office thinks they screwed up.

Below is Brunner’s receipt showing that he filed approximately 2750 signatures… along with his “disqualification letter.”

And below that is the “worklogs,” showing how many signatures and petitions were sent out from Brunner’s office to various counties. The problem here is that they do not match with reality at all. TEA party activists swear that the number of reported circulators in many counties are far too low.

Steve Christopher Receipt for 2750 Sigs

Steve Christopher Sec of State Worklog

Brunner’s office messed up, and is too busy running a partisan office with allowing the homeless to register at park benches and working on behalf of gambling interests…. and not to mention running for the US Senate…. to do the job she was elected to do. Brunner is am embarrassment and I’m glad Christopher isn’t backing down.

If any Christopher petition gatherers want to tell their story and dispute these numbers, please send me an email.

Update: Bill Hershey reports in the Dayton Daily’s political blog:

Christopher’s campaign has said he has copies of a majority but not all of the petitions he submitted to Brunner’s office.

Meanwhile, Phil Herzing of Washington Township said that he gathered about 100 signatures on his own for Christopher’s campaign, most of which came from Montgomery County. Some came from Warren and Greene counties. Including the 100 he gathered himself, he and acquaintances gathered about 400 signatures from Montgomery, Greene, Miami and neighboring counties.

Herzing said he collected 60 signatures gathered by a woman from Mercer County. Brunner’s log showed no signatures from Mercer County.

Brunner’s office released a log that her office sent only four signatures from Montgomery County voters to the Montgomery County Board of Elections for validation and that all four were validated.

Something is rotten in the state of Ohio. And someone, such as Brian Shinn, is about to get fired.

From the Seth Morgan for Auditor campaign:

Auditor of State candidate Seth Morgan, CPA was endorsed by both the Scioto County Republican Party and the Mansfield North Central Tea Party on Tuesday, March 9.

“Seth Morgan clearly is the peoples’ candidate for Auditor of State,” said Rob Scott, Friends of Seth Morgan Communications Director. “Not only is he garnering support of county Republican parties across Ohio, but also is supported by the Tea Party movement. Ohio Republican Chairman Kevin DeWine said just this week what an integral role the tea party movement will play in this year’s election.”

Additionally, the Knox County Republican Party , which neighbors Delaware County, chose not to endorse either candidate in the Auditor of State’s race but to allow the voters in Knox County make their endorsement on May 4.

Team Morgan is really racking up the county endorsements.

I’m waiting for the Yost’s campaign announcement of their endorsement from Belmont County. Their Chairman, Kent Moore, is not exactly a Morgan fan.

So what’s David Pepper up to lately, other than spending his allowance from his parents?

Here is video of State Rep. Jim Zehringer at the recent Darke County GOP Lincoln Day introducing Rob Portman:

Seems like a nice guy. He is engaging, funny, self-deprecating, and knows how to give a standard Lincoln Day introduction.

BUT national kook-lefty blogger Christina Bellantoni apparently doesn’t agree, and posted audio which probably came from one of the two Democrat trackers I’ve been writing about:

Two Ohio Republicans this weekend made birther jokes questioning President Obama’s citizenship status at a local fundraising dinner starring Senate candidate and former Bush administration official Rob Portman.

Master of ceremonies and former state Rep. Jim Buchy, president of Buchy Food Service, opened his remarks at the Darke County Lincoln Day Dinner Saturday with a comparison between Obama and the 16th president.

According to audio recorded by someone at the dinner and obtained by TPMDC, the joke concludes with: “Lincoln was a skinny lawyer. Obama is a skinny lawyer. Lincoln was a Republican. Obama is a skinny lawyer. Lincoln was highly respected. Obama is a skinny lawyer. Lincoln was born in the United States. Obama is a skinny lawyer.”

That was followed up with a more subtle crack from State Rep. James Zehringer, who said he read over Portman’s Wikipedia entry, which starts by identifying him as an American lawyer. “Rob Portman is an American lawyer. That’s the first sentence [on his Wikipedia page]. That’s something our president can’t say,” Zehringer said.

Bellaantoni’s nonsense continues, and she notes that SOME JOKES WERE “NOT WELL RECEIVED!” Geesh **nervously adjusts tie** tough crowd, cough crowd!

It’s nice to see that the spies that the Ohio Democrat Party sends around to Licoln Day dinners finally accomplished something… but this is weak.

The problem here is, people wouldn’t be nearly so touchy about jokes about the President if he wasn’t black.

If you liked President Bush or not, no one can deny that the insults thrown his way by the hard left were not only vulgar, they didn’t weren’t remotely humorous: Nazi, fascist, imperialist, “Bush Lied, People Died,” “George W. Bush doesn’t care about black people”… even fantasy documentaries were made about him being assassinated. Bush Derangement Syndrome spread like wildfire, and with the help of accomplices in the dinosaur media, these disgusting smears were repeated and repeated and repeated and repeated until Bush left office with very low approval ratings. Unlike Obama, nothing with Bush was off limits.

We have all told jokes (or at least laughed at jokes) that were offensive and over the top. For example, I’ve repeated these old jokes about Obama:

Q: What’s the difference between God and Obama?
A: God doesn’t think he’s Obama.

and

Q: What does God and Obama have in common?
A: God also doesn’t have a birth certificate.

And as you could guess, these lame jokes went over just about as well as Rep. Buchy’s. But I don’t really believe President Obama thinks he is God. And for how weird it is that I think so much time and and money has been spend in court over this issue, President Obama is an American citizen. And for all of the legitimate disagreements the right has with his administration, the birth certificate issue is a stupid distraction.

But apparently the left has no time for a sense of humor, as they are too miserable wallowing in their own self-pity, as this progressive utopia they try to legislate into existence never quite works out.

Could Zehringer use some better jokes? Perhaps. But he has a cheerful, folksy style… and as a true conservative, he can speak from the heart instead of a carefully-controlled teleprompter. Why give that up just because some limp-wristed Democrat operative records so bloggers might take clips out of context?

And for future reference, where should a speaker draw the line with off-the-cuff Obama jokes? I’m not exactly sure… but it’s probably somewhere near watermelons:

At the Mansfield Tea Party’s candidate last night, the Boyce Bandit was back, recording candidates and causing problems:

He earned his name after I chased him out of a Josh Mandel speech during a GOP summer picnic in Grandview. But he better get busy if he’s going to catch up with his sidekick super-duper spy John Pollard!

This is very Monty Pythonish… saving a guy to kill him:

Prison officials have found themselves in a conundrum: saving the life of an inmate in order to carry out his death sentence.

With his execution less than 36 hours away, guards on Ohio’s death row found inmate Lawrence Reynolds Jr. unconscious Sunday night inside his cell.

Instead of traveling to the state’s death house near Lucasville, Reynolds was taken to a nearby hospital in Youngstown to be treated for a possible drug overdose.

His condition merely delayed his execution. By Monday afternoon, Reynolds, 43, was emerging from the coma and Gov. Ted Strickland had issued a seven-day reprieve.

So instead of just letting him die, the State of Ohio spares no expense, in terms of money and time, to save this man’s life and slowly nurse him back to health… before sending him to Hell.

Spokesbabe Julie Walburn’s (Ohio’s Glam Reaper) lack of answers makes me suspicious:

Prison spokeswoman Julie Walburn, said Reynolds, like other inmates nearing execution, was under a ”death watch” Sunday and his actions and mood were being monitored closely.

Walburn could not say what pills were used or how Reynolds might have acquired them. She said it appears to be an intentional overdose, but the prison wouldn’t classify it as a suicide attempt.

An investigation is under way, she said.

State Rep. Peter Ujvagi, who was just hired as the Lucas County administrator with a the pittance of a salary ($105,684/year plus generous benefits on top of whatever the legislature offers), is leaving the Ohio House.

So Speaker Budish and Ohio House Democrats used this as a perfect excuse to play ugly, partisan games with the Veterans Affairs Committee.

They took the occasion of Ujvagi’s planned departure and combined piles of amendments, forcing votes on them without allowing Republicans to read. While on a smaller scale, Armond Budish’s ugly tactics are like Nancy Pelosi on steroids. He needs to be stopped.

Here is the letter from IRAQ WAR VETERAN Rep. Danny Bubp, who serves on the committee. It was sent on Friday, and as of today, House Democrats still have no interest in discussing this matter with him or apologizing.: