GOP issues: abortion, photo ID, unions, But jobs?

IT'S A PITY that men can't get pregnant.

Considering the proclivity of some politicians and their stablemates to get into trouble over sexual mischief, it might slow the lawmakers' pace to rule over women in such matters as abortion (among other things).

You are reminded of the biological injustice of unisex pregnancy when the Republican majority in the Ohio House of Representatives preoccupies itself with Draconian anti-abortion legislation that is said to be the most restrictive in the nation. Some supporters would even sacrifice the mother rather than permit an abortion. Nice work, guys! How did the Buckeye state survive for so many years without the benefit of your medieval wisdom?

It should be clear to all of us by now that this GOP group of intellectual stragglers, fattening up on God knows whose money, is moving in for record legislative insanity in hopes of completing their mission before the fat lady sings. Or at least until the public becomes fully aware of the highly inflammable perils of the merging of poisonous ideological lunacy with politics.

There is, for further example, the Photo ID bill passed by the Republican gang in the House (action is pending in the Senate). It would cost the state many millions to administer (at least the abhorrent poll tax of yore produced a bit of revenue.) And it supposedly addresses a fraud menace that the bill's promoters are unable to show exists. Rather, it is the Republicans' fast track solution for their longstanding commitment to blocking you-know-who Democrats from reaching for a ballot.

Sen. Tom Niehaus, the Republican who serves as Senate president, wants to hush such slandering of his party, having been quoted as insisting:

"I do not believe this is any way a voter suppression issue. This is about maintaining the integrity of the voting process."

Having followed the evolution of such blather for many years, I would be happy to lay up a dime that it has everything to do with voter suppression, senator. I would only hope that these integrity-minded folks would stop lying about their motives. Besides, what does any of this have to do with Kasich's daily avowal to create, eh... jobs?

For all of this wickedness however, there is another report out of Columbus that may have kept more than a few members of Team Kasich up a little later on this day. We Are Ohio, the group that heads the effort to repeal the anti-union meaures so eagerly enacted by those Republicans in the legislature and signed into law by the governor, declared overwhelming success Wednesday as it delivered nearly 1.3 million signatures on their petitions to cap its drive to place the repeal on the November 8 ballot.

For Team Kasich, it is cost of doing overreaching business. There isn't a politician alive in Ohio who wouldn't like to ignite a campaign with those petition numbers. It's time for Gov. Kasich and his soul brother, Wisconsin's Gov. Scott Walker, to get on their cell phones to figure out what went wrong in their feral assault on public unions. And if they don't know, there are more than a million folks in Ohio who can tell them.

But aren't Kasich and Walker only trying to create jobs in their states?

Zombies hiding in the blue grass?

WE ARE PATIENTLY waiting for the Associated Press to update its report on the hacker who invaded an electronic traffic sign along Interstate 71-75 in Kentucky to warn motorists of zombies down the road. It sounds silly, but considering the odd things that have happened in Ohio's neighboring state, it kinda makes you wonder whether the hacker wasn't kidding. Look at it this way: It's the same state where the voters have sent such luminaries as Jim Bunning, Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell to the U.S. Senate and boasts of having nearly 5 million barrels of bourbon in storage. Isn't it reasonable to assume that the state also is friendly territory for partying zombies on the prowl for a night out?

History is Bachmann's Waterloo

This comes from an alert reader:

Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has a thing for John Wayne. In an interview yesterday with Newsmax, she said she wants to live in “John Wayne’s America.” And in the Iowa town of Waterloo today, where she announced her presidential candidacy, Bachmann told Fox News, “John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa. That’s the kind of spirit that I have, too.” But unfortunately for historically challenged Bachmann, as the Washington Times points out, the John Wayne born in Waterloo is John Wayne Gacy, the notorious serial killer who murdered 33 teenage boys and young men, not the iconic Western actor.

Akron mayoral race: a quiet beginning

AS EVERYONE must know by now, Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic has a quick temper that has flared occasionally during his 24 year-career at City Hall. It's what led him to complain to the bosses at Station WAKR a few weeks ago about a question at a news conference by one of the radio station's few reporters. To be sure, it was an unwise political move at the start of his campaign for a seventh term, though not that uncharacteristic of the mayor when he heats up.

The story was exhaustively reported by the Beacon Journal's Bob Dyer, who not only sympathized with WAKR's news director Ed Esposito (who seldom deserves sympathy from anyone) but also suggested that the mayor might possess a Nixon-like enemies list. That was hardly a match inasmuch as Nixon's notorious list included some of the most highly respected journalists in the country.

Otherwise the campaign has been short on public viewing as both sides prepare for whatever skirmishes lie ahead. His leading Democratic primary opponent is Akron at-large Councilman Mike Williams, a perennial critic of Plusquellic and whose campaign motto is a less than stirring "It's time". So we must assume these quiet moments will precede some skirmishes before the Sept. 13 Democratic primary election. (They're scheduled for an Aug. 8 Press Club debate.) I do know that with a 95 pct. recognition rate, the mayor won't have to wear a name tag in front of his audiences. I also know that it will will require more than criticism of Plusquellic's decorum to defeat him.

Somebody has been coming after him for 24 years while he's successfully presided over a pretty good city. Indeed, Brent Larkin, the retired Plain Dealer editorial page editor who has seen his share of come-and-go mayors in his own city has gone so far as to write that Plusquellic is "by far, Ohio's best big-city mayor."

Although this is Williams' first bid to unseat him, the councilman has been trying to build a case against him for a long time. Williams even refused to oppose the recall in 2009. The mayor survived the test handily.

And, to no one's surprise, the latest challenge has drawn the usual suspects, including Akron lawyer Warner Mendenhall, who led the recall campaign. You can find him without much effort wearing an "It's time" campaign button. This being a democracy, you can expect him to be quite active in the race. And, as always in Plusquellic's six terms, Alex Arshinkoff, the Republican chairman, will be in the wings trying to encourage a lightning-strike in September by whatever means that present themselves.

As of now, it is, in the words of that great linguist, Yogi Berra, deja vu all over again

OOPS!

In my previous post, I incorrectly referred to Ken Blackwell as the ubiquitous ex-treasurer of Ohio. Sorry, he's not quite that ubiquitous. He is, of course, the ex -secretary of state. As you can see, some people's ubiquitous careers are harder to follow than others. Correction made.

The Senate race narrows, but to what?

STOP THE PRESSES! Or turn off the cameras. Ken Blackwell, the erstwhile ubiquitous Ohio secretary of state and gubernatorial candidate, now says he will NOT be a U.S. Senatorial candidate in Ohio this year. Does anybody really care?

The remaining field of potential Republican candidates challenging Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, is now down to two: The newly elected state treasurer, Josh Mandel, who had assured the voters that he would serve a full four-year term in Columbus, and former State Sen. Kevin Coughlin, of Cuyahoga Falls, who reportedly (Plain Dealer) has been seeking Tea Party support.

This is supposed to get interesting. But so far it isn't.

No homer for Cantor, who takes a walk

NOT SINCE Bill Mazeroski's historic walk-off home run to defeat the Yankees in 1960 has such an abrupt ending invited more attention than Rep. Eric Cantor's walk-off tantrum in his budget talks with Vice President Joe Biden. But there the comparison ends. Mazeroski's World Series clincher led him into Baseball's Hall of Fame for a job well done. Cantor's hissy fit merely confirmed that he is not always in touch with the realities of his job. No matter his erratic behavior as a Republican Tea Party fan and the House majority leader from Virginia, he doesn't impress me as a fellow looking at a Hall of Fame down the road. Frankly, he's nothing more than an grandstanding nuisance, not only to President Obama, but to House Speaker John Boehner.

Indeed, the Washington Post's Ezra Klein wrote:

"Cantor has the credibility with the Tea Party that Boehner lacks. But that's why Cantor won't cut the deal. The Tea Party-types support him because he's the guy who won't cut the deal. He can't sign off on tax increases without losing his power base. But if he's able to throw it back to Boehner and Boehner cuts the deal, that's all good for Cantor."

It's an awful pas de deux of the two top Republicans in the House of Representatives while a governmental shutdown hangs in the balance. There are days when the public interest loses all meaning. In fact, too many days.

Come rain or snow in Ohio - or photo IDs.

ONCE UPON A TIME, it was common for Republican politicians to root for bad weather on election day because as one GOP official then confided to me, more of "the coloreds" would stay home. Times have changed, if not the bottom line. Today, thanks to the nasties in the Ohio legislature, the weather is not as crucial to trimming the voter turnout. The perps down there in Columbus - the epicenter of a lot of terrible ideas these days - have turned to less iffy ways to assure their success: under the phony rubric of voter fraud, they want all voters to arrive with photo IDs to prove that they are who they say they are, current felony laws notwithstanding.

As Sen. Keith Faber, the Celina Republican,'' put it in the Columbus Dispatch, the legislative measure is absolutely necessary because it is "relevant, topical and timely"'. And if that isn't persuasive enough to alert us to the evil of massive voter fraud, word was being passed around in the Statehouse that a guy was found to have voted twice in Cincinnati.

We are living in an age of the worst political sorcery in which a party of fake do-gooders has abandoned integrity for a reign of terror on the underclass. So would it be equally ruthless to mention that the Republicans have had their share of election fraud?

For example, Charles P.White, no less than Indiana's Republican secretary of state, has been indicted on seven felony charges involving voting.

And wasn't James Tobin, then President George W. Bush's New England campaign manager, convicted of taking part in a plot to jam Democrats' phones?

Against those exemplary events, maybe I should be a bit troubled to learn that the Cincinnati hoodwinker actually was an out-of-stater who cast a ballot in that city. And there's more: an inmate voted twice from jail. It was hardly reassuring to be told by Hamilton County elections officials that these were the only two mischievous cases out of 400,000 votes cast in the county.

By now, you can see where I am going with this report: There is no evidence of massive voter fraud in the state. The only fraud is the sustained effort to deny voting rights in order to help a political party that is too intellectually corrupt to honestly represent everyone who shows up at the polls. And too dishonest to admit the basis for their shabby schemes.

Herman Cain's race card against Jon Stewart

ASIDE TO HERMAN CAIN:

I see that you have accused comedian Jon Sewart of attacking you because you are, eh...black. If I may interrupt your transparent presidential campaign to sell your pizza and underwrite other projects by sucking up to the energy industry, consider this: It doesn't matter whether you are black, yellow, red as pizza sauce, designer tan or decorator off-white - nor does it matter to Stewart, a liberal comedy host who may have a bigger audience than you ever will once you leave the smog of Fox News. You have no chance to win the presidency, no matter what Stewart says. No chance. None at all. So I am forced to drag out my Grumpy Abe Linguistic Lunacy (GALL) award for your clumsy reach for the race card. Meantime, Herm, go easy on the pepperoni, please .

In politics, a belly ablaze replaces gravitas

AS WE STUMBLE to another presidential election in the hazy distance, this will be the moment when new criteria are accorded wannabe candidates. Unlike the sensible days when we judged the aspirants on whether they had "gravitas" or whether he or she was an alpha person, today's standard is whether any of them has "fire in the belly." Haley Barbour, you may recall, retired to the bleachers with the explanation that his settled tummy told him that he needn't bother. On the other hand, Sarah Palin took umbrage to reports that she had suspended her ballyhooed tour because she no long saw the oval office in her future. (Nor did the media that grew tired of her stunt and stopped covering it!) She reminded anyone who still cared that she was not a quitter and still had a blazing belly.

I spent my childhood around immigrants who kept Alka-Seltzer at their fingertips after a hell fire dinner that could have been serviceable to clean battery terminals. Their agony was never very easy to witness. On this topic, trust me. I know what I'm talking about.

I think we ought to find other ways for candidates to judge their personal ambitions. The level of gray matter in their skulls would be a valid indicator of whether to be or not to be. A maximum of three dumb statements would disqualify one faster than a fiery dyspeptic belly, don't you think? That would eliminate most of the Republican field, including the alphas. And one of the things I learned when candidates were being judged by the gravitas quotient was that most voters had no idea what the pundits meant. (I do recall being told by one astute observer that he was certain gravitas was a major league shortstop.)

Well, I'm digressing, I know. But it comes from paying too much attention to the oddest things that will determine the next GOP presidential nominee - if, as we are repeatedly being warned, the world doesn't end sooner.