With Boehner out, the crazies will romp even more

A moment of silence for John Boehner, please.  The dour weepy House speaker, I mean.  Remember?

A square peg in a deep round hole dug by the beastly carnivores in the Republican caucus who , of all things,  considered him too liberal  for their suicidal quest to rule anybody who wasn't as certifiably crazy.  His efforts to please often led him at times to be certifiably crazy , too.  The more than 50 failed attempts to kill Obamacare in the House.    The loopy invitation to Bibi Netanyahu to be his guest to kill the Iran deal.

Folks, don't let them fool you.  With Boehner's opponents, it has nothing to do with ideology.  Instead, it springs from idiot-ology.  They would shut down the government over Planned Parenthood, for God's sake?

We normally would say history won't be kind for such servility by the speaker in the face of his Potomac enemies.  In this instance, Boehner fell  on his sword, saying enough is enough as he made instant history to save future historians the trouble of panning him. .

Among the Ohioan's more toxic Republican tormentors was his fellow Buckeye  from a farm in southwestern Ohio, Rep. Jim Jordan, a possessed  hoofbeater who heads the congressional Freedom Caucus  and is regarded around Capitol Hill as in the arch-conservative crazy class.

Summit County Republicans may know him as a featured guest at one of the local party's
 (i.e., Chairman Alex Arshinkoff's) glistening dinners.  On other festive occasions as the locals moved farther to the right, Alex also enjoyed the camaraderie on the dinner dais  of Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum in their Sunday clothes. Nothing reslly worked as the chairman continued to  raise money for local candidates who didn't win, including former Republican mainstay, failed former Cuyahoga Falls Mayor Don Robart.

I wasn't among Boehner's fans, but when the wild bunch now shaping the party
talked of impeaching the speaker (Jordan thought it might be nice if a strong
Tea Partier challenged the speaker in his own district) I at least had a shiver over how far the GOP has fallen. And will continue to fall.

Am I right, Sen.McConnell?  You could be next.  It would be ironic, I'd think, that as the one who dedicated himself to the instant demise of President Obama, you might be gone before the president.

Jordanites accuse Boehner Republicans of cannibalism

Republicans  who will be laying down $50 or more for the Summit County party's annual Lincoln (!) Day dinner Saturday night will be treated to an upfront look at the guy who has dedicated himself to tearing the national party into oblivion.  I refer,  of course, to the local event's prized speaker, Rep. Jim Jordan of Urbana, a fringe conservative who  has  been leading a poisonous  assault on Speaker John Boehner  & Co. through Jordan's House Freedom Caucus - one of those wacko far right outfits that lean more toward anarchy than to whatever might be left of Republican centrism.

Anyone attempting to digest dinner at Quaker Station won't hear any of the negatives that night because the way Chairman Alex Arshinkoff has put it in the  invitation, his guest is a national recognized conservative and "second to none watchdog of President Obama's failed...(fill in the many blanks) policies."

As has been evidenced many times in the past, The Boss can get absolutely hysterical when he starts damning the people he doesn't like.  But does Jordan represent the new norm for the county   party's more sober days under the late Ray Bliss, who never encouraged a raised voice against any other Republican?

On the other hand, Jordan has close ties with Rep. Steve King of Iowa,  who seldom lets a week go by without saying something stupid, and enjoys doing so from his outpost somewhere out in Iowa.

Jordan and King were among those  maddening congressmen who condemned Boehner for not  agreeing to shut down  the Homeland Security Department in the fracas over Obama's immigration policies.   Their scandalous motives have so enraged the Boehner side of  wealthy influential Republicans that the latter staged a $300,000 advertising campaign  accusing Jordan and a couple of his congressional buddies on national TV , including Fox News, of  placing America's "security at risk."

That peeved King, who described the ads as party "cannibalism," or as King went on to explain:

"It looks like cannibalism by leadership to me.   I mean when you go after your own people, what else would you call it?"

Well, I would say it's a lot like what the anti-Boehner crowd  in the party has been doing to the Speaker.    (Trust me: I do not speak as an ally of Boehner, either.)

So, isn't it fair to ask whether the Summit gang under Arshinkoff has stooped to a shameful new norm in a party that once was known for centrism and quiet reflection by Ray Bliss?

Keep that in mind, Republicans, when Alex lights the fuse after dinner to introduce Jordan with a flood of compliments.  When you stop to think about what the chairman won't tell you -  as I just did -  you'll know what I'm talking about. And it didn't cost me fifty bucks.

P.S. Jordan sent out a release thanking Benjamin Netanyahu for speaking to Congress as a man who wants  to secure Israel from its enemies.  Homeland Security for Americans?    Apparently he'll think about it.

Chris Christie to win Arshinkoff's straw vote poll?

OK, here's the load:     If you're planning  a vacation at Lake Anna in late September, scrub it.  Chairman Alex Arshinkoff's Summit County Republican Party wants you to SAVE  THE DATE.    Chris Christie is coming to town.

For a $300 ticket, they will seat you at the party's finance dinner at the Hilton in Fairlawn on Sept. 29. You also will have a chance to get an up-front look at what  the dinner's sponsors assume will be the GOP presidential nominee in 2016.

That's a safe assumption about Alex because he caters to  fill-the-bowl VIP dinner speakers at these affairs.  You also will get  a chance to participate in his unique  straw poll that will find its way  into the next day story.  In 2112,  Rick Santorum, then (and still is) a presidential candidate, thrilled the audience with his attacks on President Obama and won a landslide victory in the straw poll.

When I last looked, Christie, though still the target of an investigation into the George Washington Bridge scandal, was in Kansas trying to dig  Gov.  Sam Brownback from a deep hole.

A couple of years ago, Brownback signed away the state's decent financial health  with huge tax cuts (25 pct.  for the richest Kansans), and turned the state's ledger from a $600 million surplus to a $2.5 billion deficit.  At the time,  Brownback cheerily proclaimed his state would  gush upward and not trickle down to demonstrate how Kansas would save America through his good works  and the Grace of God.

Once again, trickle-down economics would find a way to avoid the bullshit filter.

Joined by happy talk, both Brownback and Christie  have asserted  that Kansas' devastating path to looming bankruptcy was entirely due to - yep - President Obama's "failed economic policies".  I   have to say that when these guys move on they will leave behind no intellectual history.

A cautionary note: If you're in the neighborhood  on Sept. 29, be on the alert for a lot of orange cones and a massive traffic jam at the All-America Bridge.

For Summit GOP, three is worse than a crowd

Anyone who doubts that bad news occurs in threes might take a look at the fate of the Summit County Republican Party in recent weeks as 2013 limped through its final  days.

In quick succession, three of Chairman Alex Arshinkoff's few remaining groomed stalwarts plunged  from the party's honor role in unexpected defeat, resignation or a severe spanking by the Sixth Circuit  Court of Appeals.

Shall we begin on election day in November when Cuyahoga Falls Mayor Don
Robart, in his 28th year at City Hall and virtually having his own way in his Cuyahoga Falls fortress for nearly three decades, was defeated by City Council President Don Walters, a Democrat,  denying Robart  an  eighth term?

Four years earlier, Robart was unopposed by Democrats, which doubtless led to complacency  this time in which he was said by startled  allies to have all but abandoned campaigning, content with the endorsements of the Beacon Journal and the Cuyahoga Falls News-Press  and his own notion of invincibility.

But  in a working class suburb that leans Democratic  and has twice opted for President Obama at the polls, he hadn't left well enough alone.  He charged out of the gate in a state of the city address by describing the anti-union SB 5 on the ballot "unbelievably good".  There was some disagreement by the voters who defeated it  by more than 60 pct. of the vote.  The mayor slid farther to right by welcoming the Tea Party  rally in his town with  overwhelming praise, telling the Teepers that they were the "social, fiscal and moral conscious of America."

Finally, he became the center of attraction in opposing a family rate at the Natatorium for a wounded Iraqi veteran , a spouse in a same sex- marriage, arguing that it would be too costly. Huh?

All of these missteps  finally caught up with him to send him into overdue retirement.

Next is the saga of Arshinkoff favorite Bryan Williams, a member of  the State Education Board, who was outed as a determined  lobbyist for an anti-union construction group running a private charter school. Soon thereafter, including a call from Grumpy Abe that he resign, Williams resigned.

Finally,  there's the most recent  lashing of Federal Judge John Adams , another Arshinkoff career enabler, by a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit  Court of Appeals for his presiding role in a case involving a public defender. (Adams also was  engaged in a long delay of a Akron 's sewer plan, costing the city a fortune.).

Had any of these fellows been Democrats, we feel sure that the voluble chairman would have labeled them "scandals of Biblical proportion".  But. alas,  they are Republicans, which is the party's problems, not of anybody on the other side.






e

The week's wash , with a surprise or two

Imagine my mild surprise when I read in my hometown paper this morning that a fellow who is the executive vice president of FreedomWorks, a national Tea Party enterprise, was the campaign manager of Bryan Willams' futile effort  to unseat Mayor Don Plusquellic in 2003. The name Adam Brandon was a faint memory, although I did recall that Plusquellic swamped Williams with 71 pct. of the vote.

Brandon, bred in the Akron area and now living in Washington, was  slated to speak at the Portage County Tea Party dinner on Thursday and told the Beacon Journal that the national group's priority was to take over the Republican Party!   That's hardly a stretch because the Teeps have already lassoed  much of the GOP today, scaring the hell out of people like John Boehner that if he's naughty and not nice, they will challenge him and other similarly situated Republicans in next year's primaries.

Williams has already made a name for himself, if not as a wannabe mayor, then as a Ohio Education Board member  influencing public education policy while lobbying for a non-union construction group operating a private charter school.

But in  promising a takeover by the Tea Party, Brandon is a tad late in Summit County, where all signs of the GOP under Chairfman Alex Arshinkoff have been shifting rightward beyond the margins of the page. If you need  confirmation, check the list of the Summit "Republican" party's dinner speakers...Well???

* * * * *

Now this one is sort of a surprise:  E. Gordon Gee heading to the Mountaineer state to serve as interim president of West Virginia University. Frankly, with his golden parachute upon leaving Ohio State University, he can afford to buy the entire state.  The real challenge for him is whether he can convert his new campus into the bow tie capital of America!    From the experience of growing up in a coal town just north of the WVA line, I don't remember the area  as being that fashion conscious.

* * * * *

There's not much more I dare add to the soaring global tributes to Nelson Mandela other than to yearn for somebody in the upper class of the Republican Party on Capital Hill to be as thoughtful in healing the problems of the less privileged in America.  The contrast, say, to John Boehner,  who defines leadership as being an obstructionist, is vividly merciless.

From Berlusconi reality to Arshinkoff servility to Kasich

DAY TWO: Government Shutdown

Has Italy finally surpassed the U.S. in practical governing?  We've always been told that Italy has become at least a  6th world nation for the instability of Rome in rotating leaders.  But as America finds itself in the death grip of House psychos, Italy has staved off disaster thanks to Silvio Berlusconi, who  has called off his threat to topple the government.  Berlusconi, convicted of corruption  and a lot of other stuff, has been the nasty king of politics in Italy for many years.  But he has turned to reality by having his People of Freedom Party (sound familiar?) support a vote of confidence  to save the coalition government. Is the U.S. House listening?

* * * * *
The Tea Party defenders of the shutdown continued to insist that Obamacare is "unconstitutional", one after another preening their ignorance for the TV cameras late into the night.  What is it that they don't understand about the historical truth that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled it to be constitutional?  That the law was passed by the Congress of which many are now members?   That Obama has twice been elected even though the same critics tried to advance it as a political issue?  As I've written earlier, shouldn't they at least  be honest about it and say they hate Obama?

* * * * *

So now we encounter one of the GOP's leading dead-enders, Newt Gingrich, on Pat  Robertson's program saying such dumb things that "Obama refuses to behave as an American president"  with the giggling reverend in agreement. Gingrich said  Obama places himself above the Constitution" - there, folks, the Constitution, again.  He has also supposed that the president holds  a "Kenyan anti-colonial world view," whatever that means.  Maybe Robertson should pray for Newt's lunacy.

* * * * *

Talk about misdirected elitism:  How else can you explain the  Summit County Republican Party's servile  agreement with Gov. Kasich to bar all media, including the Beacon Journal,  from Tuesday night's finance committee dinner at the Fairlawn Hilton?  As the University of Akron's go-to guy for Kasich favors,  shouldn't we expect party Chairman Alex Arshinkoff to lobby the governor to give up his maniacal attitude toward all media interviews. But when Kasich can get away with it in the local party's house, it's bush-league politics at  both ends.  (For more, read my piece posted today on Plunderbund.)

Arshinkoff to Coughlin: Banana or orange?

Every now and then a precedent-setting moment occurs at an otherwise boring Summit County Board Elections Board meeting that could have a strong influence on how the Republican Party profiles color-coded  people to deny then a vote.

As reported by the Beacon Journal, it happened when Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff, a board member, demanded that his old adversary, Kevin Coughlin,  produce a party-ID.  Coughlin, the Republican ex-state senator, was being screened as a nonpartisan candidate for Stow Municipal Clerk.

Arshinkoff, as is his wont, went directly to the gravity of the matter by asking Coughlin:  "Are you a banana or an orange?"

Well, now.  When was any politician ever  asked a provocative question like that? (For his part Coughlin said it didn't matter.)

There was a time back in the 12th Century when one might have been asked whether he or she was a Ghibelline or a Guelph, a life or death matter at the time. Or  a Hatfield or McCoy.  Or a Rino or Defender of the Faith.

But a  banana or orange from the guy who has long considered himself to be the county party's Top Banana since the days of U.S. Grant.?

We can only assume that the idea of such juicy metaphors was seeded in Arshinkoff's subconscience years ago when a disrespectful Beacon Journal editor referred to him as a "cumquat".  Alex didn't like the sound of the word even though he didn't know what it meant.

But be ready for a new line of questioning the next time you show up at  the polls.  If you are neither a banana nor an orange nor even a cumquat, be prepared  to spend long hours trying to define yourself as an ordinary voter.  For your convenience, a trash bin will be provided for the peelings and rinds.

P.S.  Whatever he is, Coughlin was denied a spot on the ballot.

Another end run for another juvenile court judge

Talk about the elephant in the China shop! The Summit County Republican Party, in peril of being swallowed whole by the Tea Party, is staging a desperate political charade to create a second juvenile court judge.  Not that many people aside from the promoters like the idea.  It's provisioned in the proposed Republican budget down in Columbus, which makes it newsworthy even though it's not likely to be seaworthy.

It is sponsored by State Rep. Anthony DeVitis, a Republican of Green; and co-sponsored by Rep. Marilyn Slaby, a Republican of Copley Township.  They say the juvenile court system in the county  is overworked and causing long delays.  A second judge alongside Linda Tucci Teodosio, an elected Democrat, would expedite matters, which is one way at looking at justice. And, if as County Executive Russ Pry (Democrat)  and  others point out,  the county budget  is already so tight that it can't afford to have another mouth to feed  in the courts, the Republican sponsors insist the  problem could be resolved by laying off some magistrates who, quite likely, are Democrats.

In a bi-partisan vote, the Akron Bar Association unanimously passed a resolution opposing the packing of the courts.  County council voted 9-2 against it, too, with the council's two  Republicans, of course,  supporting it.

Cautiously taking the safer  ground, another area Republican,  Sen. Frank LaRose, predictably told the Beacon Journal that he will withhold judgment until he gets more information.(A tactical response on Page 7  of the survival kit on expressing the need for more information.)     And uncharacteristically, GOP chairman Alex Arshinkoff, who doubtless was in the thick of the process, withheld comment from  the BJ.

It has been widely known for years and years and years that Arshinkoff has tested the soft spots in the judicial system to appoint his people to offices.  It's his M.O.

Otherwise, the weather the past few days has been delightful.

Are schools ready for the Armies of the Right?

Let me see if I follow this:

Wayne LaPierre, the near-million-dollar a year megaphone for the NRA, first says schools should be armed against crazy gunmen.Then the NRA puts up another million for a task force headed by former Arkansas Republican congressman Asa Hutchinson to recommend ways to  confront the monstrous problem. Then Hutchinson appears at the National Press Club to declare,  "Eureka, we think we've found the answer!"

The envelope, please.  And the winner is...the NRA, which sponsored the study in the first place.  As Hutchinson went on to assert,  every school should have gun toters on the staff - the modern version, I assume,  of the well-regulated militia. But couldn't the NRA have saved its million  instead of purchasing an echo of its original idea?

When Hutchinson turned up on Lawrence O'Donnell's show Tuesday night, he dodged a number of questions embedded in the larger gun issues: less lethal weapons and magazines, mass killings beyond America's classrooms,  background checks et al.

He repeatedly reminded O'Donnell that his mission as the NRA's rising star was limited to school safety.  When O'Donnell asked him how much he was paid to produce an overlay on the NRA's position, Hutchinson snipped: "It's none of your business."

Nor, it's beginning to seem more likely every day, is the business of blood control that a great majority of Americans want.

* * * * *

Speaking of the Armies of the Right, Summit County Republicans will be able to greet two of Ohio's staunch opponents of gun control at  the party's Lincoln (!)  Day dinner on April 27 in Quaker Square: Reps. Jim Renacci and Dave Joyce, neither of whom have yet qualified as rising stars in the increasingly crowded firmament.

Renacci, in particular, has been singled out as a leading recipient of NRA money, and both guys arrive in County Chairman's Alex Arshinkoff's circle with the authorized version of the Party of No:  Whether it be Obamacare, gun control, abortion rights, gay marriage or a lot of other right-wing guff, you can guess the drill.

As for Arshinkoff, the message in the party invitation was customarily over-the-top with his well-recorded hyperbole - even for the political world.  His two honored guests, he promised,  would help lead Obamacare into the "dustbin of history", guarantee that America would again "Stand tall" in the world and join in other fights on Capitol hill, including sending Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to the shadows of the unemployed. (The "stand tall" thing is worrisome.  Is he referring to a new invasion of Iraq?)


There was a time when Hillary Clinton, not Nancy Pelosi, was the Dragon Lady at these affairs.  Now she is leading all Republicans in the 2016 presidential sweeps.  Does that speak of a revival of Jane Fonda in these GOP klatches. And , by the way, whatever happened to Jane?

Stop misnaming Republican Lincoln Day dinners

While viewing Steven Spielberg's compelling film, "Lincoln",  I couldn't avoid  thinking of the wide gulf between the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln's age and the impostors that have kidnapped the GOP of today. In the 1860s, Republicans were the good guys who supported their president's efforts to preserve the Union and free the slaves.  Lincoln had little hope that he would be reelected.   The Democrats were the bad guys clinging to slavery while engaged in a war of secession.

But in a dramatic reversal of roles,  the capture of the Republican Party by the Tea Partyers and their wealthy enablers has openly abused the Lincoln of wisdom, courage and patriotism (so sensitively  revealed by Daniel Day-Lewis).  There is still silly talk of secession within wacko groups.
And few will deny that racism kept Barack Obama's victory closer than it might have been.  For confirmation, simply check the figures of white-guy voters.

In February, or a little later,  Republicans will stage their traditional Lincoln Day Dinners, often showing preference for right-wing GOP speakers.   The trend by the Summit County GOP, for example,  has featured   such conservative icons  as Mike Huckabee (whom, it says in the invitation, is a "leading favorite to top"  the 2012 presidential ticket;  Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the party's very very conservative Study Committee;  and Rick Santorum, who needs no further introduction.  I have occasionally referred to these misnamed "Lincoln" events as identity  thefts.

 Although I don't expect happier results, may I suggest that now that they have lost the election, the  sponsors of these political stage shows find a new name for the dinners .  The  Norquist Day Dinner?  The LaPierre Day Dinner?  At least this would be a more honest approach and not slander Lincoln in his grave.

Arshinkoff: Searching for a presidential speaker?

THE SUMMIT COUNTY Republican Finance Dinner, the premier fund-raising event for the locals, still hasn't been scheduled even though it has usually been set much earlier. According to a source at Party Headquarters, it could be held in late September or later. My hunch is that Chairman Alex Arshinkoff is still turning up his Tarot cards to determine which magnetic presidential candidate might be lured to Akron as the star attraction who satisfies the

Tea Party and his big donors.

Arshinkoff always aspires to being a player in the national arena but his list of recent speakers as potential presidential nominees has not paid off. Among them: Mississippi Gov. Haley

Barbour , former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, and Lincoln Day speaker Mike Huckabee - all of whom gave nice Republican pep talks in Akron and then decided against a presidential bid.

Anybody wanna guess? The winner will be awarded a GOP tea mug.

When Lincoln Day has no meaning for the new GOP

AS I MENTIONED earlier, I will not be attending the Summit County Republican Lincoln Day Dinner Saturday night at Quaker Station. Big deal, right?

Let me explain: First of all, as you may have guessed, I am not a Republican. Secondly, I wouldn't want to be keeping company with Chairman Alex Arshinkoff's special guest, Mike Huckabee, who will be signing his book(s), playing guardian angel with all of his well wishers and promising to lead a failing nation away from President Obama's road to perdition.

An evangelical preacher, Huckabee has been spending some time rounding up hundreds of like-minded preachers in an apparent effort to run the table in the 2012 Iowa presidential caucuses just as he did in 2008. In Iowa, the former GOP has become a subsidary of the right-wing pulpitistas who are educating people on how to be "Biblically informed" in politics.

Huckabee has left no doubt that he wants to Christianize the nation as he sees fit, and so Akron area Republicans will get a strong sense of his purifying anti-Obama, anti-gay and various other assaults on secular abominations targeted by the social conservatives.

There has been some feeling, I'm sure, that my anti-Arshinkoff pique is soley the reaction to being unceremoniously ejected from his big wingding last summer. Wrong. As a nosy reporter over the years, I've been thrown out of much better places. But the incident at the party's fundraiser fueled my stronger disdain for what little is left of the GOP as a whole. As such, Arshinkoff is merely a local apparatchik for a deranged national party whose marketing message has become the property of Tea Party favorites like Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin and an army of freshmen senators and representatives in Congress. Don't think so? Ask John Boehner.

In a relatively short time on Capitol Hill and among legislators and governors' offices across America, they have strutted around with weighty chips on their shoulders since the November election. Insisting that their thoughts have been sculpted by "the people who have spoken", they have taken enormous liberty with realities, from huffily condemning environmental concerns about global warming to downgrading the needs of the elderly and the poor. (Goodbye food stamps?)

They have become the new hucksters of the Midway, seeking novel ways to challenge voters on Election Day. In Ohio, where there has been no evidence of serious voter fraud, the GOP is intent on creating new hurdles for voters to prevent, um, serious voter fraud. They have set out to eliminate unions once and for all under the cover of restricting collective bargaining while at the same time denying the public unions the right to strike. By the most rational labor relations gambit, that is still a non sequitur.

They have bashed gays with Falwell-style license ("Love the sinner, but hate the sin" - Huh!) and disagreed with military sources who say ridding the ranks of Don't Ask Don't Tell is not causing any problems. Same sex marriages? Stem cell research? Forget it - this from a party who wants get the government off our backs.

While we're at it, how about their mind control efforts as they rework our text books and darkly monitor what they consider offensive in museums. The evangelical governor of Maine orders the removal of a mural at the state's Department of Labor as being too "pro-labor". (You can't make up such insanity.) In Wisconsin, the Republican Party has demanded to see the e-mails of a distinguished University of Wisconsin history professor who has been critical of the governor. It is purely a fishing expedition.

National Public Radio? It's too liberal - and good luck on explaining that spin. Sarah Palin, the wintry wind from the north, has slammed the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, describing the two agencies as "trivialities". She obviously has no sense of the darkness and dense culture of the Middle Ages. A real case may be made that we are not talking about liberal broadcasting here, which would be hard to prove anyway. Instead, there are religious broadcasters waiting in the wings for spots on the radio spectrum that will be vacated when some NPR stations go out of business..

In their long pursuit of an abortion-free land, these culture warriors otherwise acting as politicians also want to put Planned Parenthood out of business (with plenty of help from the Catholic and Southern Baptist hierarchies).

Sometimes the new arrivals stumble over their own far-fetched ideas. In Ohio, Gov. Kasich wants to privatize liquor sales to please his crony investors even though booze is the only profitable business run by the state. In his haste to serve his own contributors, he has been ready to privatize everything except Lake Erie. But only because the state only owns a slim part of it.

All of the above is at the heart of my scorn of the Republican Party. Arshinkoff's antics merely helped me file it under damaged goods.

It's ironic that the Lincoln Day Dinner may be held on the week end when a Gingrich 2 may be upon us - a government shutdown. And who will be hurt the most by it?

I've decided that instead of giving a $50 dinner fee to the GOP on Saturday, I'll send the money to where reality exists 24 hours a day - the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank's Harvest for Hunger. It will do a lot more good for humanity, don't you think?

Harold MacMillan, the former British prime minister, once grunted to an aide as he was uncomfortably obliged to move into a crowd of voters during a campaign.

"Beastly things," he said. "Elections."

That's where we are today, people.

UPDATE; Arshinkoff has reached farthest to the right for the Ohio congressman who will introduce Huckabee: Urbana area Republican Jim Jordan, former OSU assistant wrestling coach who has won several awards from right-wing groups , including Pro-life Legislator of the Year from the United Conservatives of Ohio. He is now chairman of the Republican Study Committee in Washington, a conservative outfit with no peer. He has joined four other congressmen in sponsoring a bill whose provisions include capping food stamps for all recipients and even denying them to a family if one of its members is on strike. Among his other positions, needless to mention, are limits to sex education, opposition to gay marriage and support of the teaching of intelligent design in public schools. Whew! Way to go, Alex, who happily describes Jordan in a press release as a "fast rising conservative star"!

The Summit Arshinkoff Party invests $150,000 in Kasich

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH reports that the Summit County Republican Party, which represents about 10 pct. of the registered voters within our borders, is the leading contributor - by far - to John Kasich among the state's 88 GOP county parties. Party Chairman Alex Arshinkoff has come through with $150,000 for the Republican candidate! No other county Republican party appears in the Top 10. In fact, the list of contributors falls off to $22,791 from the next in line - ABC Northern Ohio PAC. (The leading contributor at $485,835 is the Ohio Republican party, but that's to be expected.)

It's no secret that Arshinkoff is looking at this race as possibly his Last Hurrah for statewide recognition with a job in the Kasich Administration. He's been Kasich's champion and regular host since the mercurial right-wing Republican announced for office. He tried that years ago with George Voinovich by raising a fortune for him in hopes of getting George's blessing to support him for state chairman. Didn't work out that way. In the end Voinovich went for Robert Bennett.

May we assume that since Arshinkoff gave up his $52,000 party salary to, as he has explained it, keep the headquarters afloat, that a third of the money that went Kasich came out of the chairman's pocket? Secondly, as another Republican pointed out to me, what does that say about the local party's debt of about $92,000 that has been on the books for several years?

The Summit County Democratic Party has given $151,175 to Gov. Strickland but that has been spread across his four-year term in both money and in-kind services.

How important is it to have a governor from your party? For Arshinkoff, it would increase his power in appointing his choices to university boards of trustees, to the judiciary and for the various other perks that are handed down from above. With the race now being called a tossup, you can imagine how many sleepless nights the always-emotional Alex is suffering these days.

UPDATE: The Summit GOP s latest financial report filed this week now lists its debt at $99,046.

Alex Arshinkoff, chairman in perpetuity

NOW THAT the Summit County Republican Party's inner circle has again elected Alex Arshinkoff as chairman in perpetuity, isn't it time to concede that his opponents represent a powerless faction that will remain that way until it finds a leader who will do more than simply dream about kicking him out? The party grows older with a shrinking number (10 pct.?) of registered voters, few elected officials outside of the judiciary and , according to Arshinkoff's own accounts, an increasingly hard time balancing its books. Although his critics have shed an ocean of tears over the state of the party, they have shown once again that they are so politically inept that they couldn't even field a candidate to oppose him this time. So from now on, any talk of deposing him is a non-story. Fact is, there's nobody else around who wants the job.

On Arshinkoff, Lincoln, socialism and whatever

REPUBLICANS DON'T have to look to Rep. John Boehner, RNC Chairman Michael Steele or Fox News to get their adrenalin flowing this election year. There's some basic fill-in-the-blank name-calling in the invitation sent out by the Summit County Republican Party for its $40-a-plate (and more) Lincoln Day dinner Saturday Night at Quaker Square. Prepared over County Chairman Alex Arshinkoff's signature, the currently fashionable plea to the party faithful is dredged up for the currently fashionable Pavlovian response - anger and more importantly, ready cash. Sigh. Times are tough all over.

In return it is promised to the dinner guests that U.S. Rep. Steve LaTourette, once slotted in the "moderate" column on Capitol Hill, will give a "lively first-hand report on what it's like to serve on the front lines in the fight against Nancy Pelosi and Obama's far-left socialist agenda."

Oh?

Actually, what it has been like on the front lines for all of the GOP congressmen has required very little effort. Just say No, or, if you prefer to be more macho, Hell, no. There has been little evidence that anybody on the Right has given the "far-left socialist agenda" much of its own blood, sweat and tears. Nice work, if you can get it. You even get some weekdays and most week-ends off, as well as great self-mandated health-care coverage.

None of this would have deserved any attention, except that it's just starting. And with the current state ticket bearing hyper-candidates who want to repeal the health care reform law, or eliminate the state income tax, the field of battle into November is looking more like Texas. I mean, will anybody take a breath long enough to find out what socialism is? Or was?

By the way, it wasn't mentioned in the letter, but Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker of the House and Barack Obama is the President. Both, I believe, are Democrats. As George Gobel once said of World War II, it's been in all of the papers.

Another chapter in Morrison epic!

THE BEACON JOURNAL's Dennis Willard reports today that Jack Morrison has now moved his case to the Ohio Supreme Court, still another chapter in his epic effort to demonstrate that an immovable object can overcome the evil effects of an irresistible force. In insisting that he was wronged by two ethics convictions in a court of law last July, the Akron lawyer and University of Akron trustee is moving on more legal fronts to protect his honor from court-decided guilt.

In the meantime, he has ignored repeated calls from the governor on down to remove himself from an embarrassed Board of Trustees (and University) as well as his seat on the Summit County Board of Elections.

But that raises other questions about a simple case of guilt or innocence. You might understand how any person would want to clear the slate of a couple of convictions. But how that bears on his persistence in hanging on to his two politically appointed jobs despite official demands that he do otherwise remains a mystery.

If his honor is at stake, that question won't be resolved by standing (or sitting!) rigidly pat but rather by a court decision that is handed down on his appeal. Are there other reasons apart from his hope that his ethics convictions will be reversed? As a powerful politician who is Summit County Republican Alex Arshinkoff's lawyer, isn't there a point where guilt or innocence intersect with the county party? As Arshinkoff, who has remained rather silent on the sidelines, once noted, if Republican Morrison leaves the board, his replacement would be a....eh....a Democrat. And is it mere coinicidence, as some legislators have noted, that State Rep. Tim Grendell, an Arshinkoff ally, has entered the fray to delay action on a Senate vote to kick Morrison off the board. Grendell, a teabagging Chesterland politician, says more time is needed for "fact checking". Good grief!

That's where we are and all of us could use a few more facts on whatever political subplots are in play.

UPDATE: A ruling judge appointed by Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has upheld her demand that Morrison be removed from the Summit County Board of Elections. But she has given Morrison until Dec. 4 to respond to the ruling.

Morrison's defiance more than guilt or innocence?

TODAY BROUGHT another dismal chapter in the tale of Jack Morrison's continued defiance of all moving parts since he was convicted of two ethics charges as a member of the University of Akron Board of Trustees. On Page One of the Beacon Journal he's reported to be glued to his seat on the Summit County Board of Elections despite Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner's initiative to remove him. He continues to defend his innocence, which is usually the refrain of prisoners heading to the gallows. He has used the same excuse to remain on the UA's Board of Trustees.

What gall! Morrison, an influential operative who knows his way around the inner-sanctum of Republican politics as the party's lawyer, obviously has elevated politics to a disgracefully high level. Folks, this is less about guilt or innocence and more about retaining a Republican seat on the Board of Trustees until the day that a Republican might get elected governor.(Governors appoint trustees on the recommendations of local pols.) That is at least GOP County Chairman Alex Arshinkoff's rationale in defending Morrison's continued presence at the university. A former board member himself, Arshinkoff has long been involved in the university's and party's interests in tandem. I wouldn't be surprised if other higher-ups in the party have worked back channels to get Morrison off the hook. A man of his wealth and power always has friends.

Now the chairman must choose: Is a single seat on the Board of Trustees (the election board is another matter since it has always been a political instrument for both parties) more important than the recurring negative stories that will accompany the Morrison saga and further dent the university's image, partricularly those enrolled in ethics classes? .

It shouldn't be that hard to answer the question. But unfortunately, it apparently is.

Here they come - without the crumpets

WELL, THERE'S going to be some light "family oriented" discussion (and doubtless heavy breathing!) about tea next Wednesday evening on the Riverfront Mall in Cuyahoga Falls. It's billed as a Tea Party by an outfit called Summit912, a protest group inspired by weepy Political Philosopher Glenn Beck , the bizarre talk show figure who most recently suggested that Nancy Pelosi be poisoned.

The area group was founded by Amy Schwan, of Akron, who told a Falls news reporter that"we've been mad for a long time. Glenn Beck just motivated us to get off our butts and start to do something." Cool.

The event is being promoted as a non-political "meetup" and family affair to talk about - it says here on the 912 website - "over-taxation, nationalized health care, cap and trade and individual rights." Cool again. But why does it bill itself as "non-political" when the site carries an exhibit of an item called "The Clock. How many days Obama has left" and goes after all of the hot-button issues aimed at you-know-who? Not cool.

According to the Falls reporter (Schwan didn't return my calls), Schwan said Summit912 (Beck's reference to the day after 9/11 - at least he can read a calendar accurately, if nothing else) the Falls was chosen for the tea party because it has a Republican mayor, Don Robart, who only incidentally will be one of the speakers along with Frank LaRose, a Republican legislative candidate. I confess I do have trouble separating speakers with clear political IDs from politics. If they had wanted to liven up the party they should have invited, as a bipartisan outreach, Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic. Now that would be cool.

I did check in with Alex Arshinkoff, the Summit County chairman, who forcefully denied any connection to the tea party. "I don't know anything about it," he asserted. "It's not a Republican Party event." But he did give it the party's Good Housekeeping seal of approval. "I am happy that they are having it. There are not a lot of right-wing Republicans in the Democratic Party and there are not a lot of left-wing socialists in the Republican Party." It's one of those careful separations of wheat from chaff, I think.

So we're back to politics, which is what I figured as soon as I read about Summit912. Cool - if not entirely forthcoming about who they are. And don't count on crumpets.