With Kasich, tax cuts, real or imagined, never end

Re-posted from Plunderbund




When somebody mentions that John Kasich wants to cut the income tax rate, let's try to remember  that a more forthright governor, Democrat Jack Gilligan, daringly laid a new income tax at the wallet of every  Ohio voter.

"If you don't want an income tax," Gilligan warned during his  1970 campaign, "vote for the other guy."  He won anyway, defeating Roger Cloud,  and forcefully promoted the 1971 measure that earned him the title of "Father of the Ohio Income Tax".  The voters upheld the tax in a 1972 referendum, proving there are things that concern them  more than Republican guff about the evil of taxes. (Even when Republicans  get their way, it has been repeatedly shown that the benefits of such cuts generously trickle up and not down  to the so-called "hard-working" breadwinners.

Gilligan was a man of cool college-classroom-honed intelligence, refreshing honesty, Irish wit  and commitment to civilized governance for the people and probably overqualified to be the head of state.

Indeed his  disregard for political caution led to his defeat by No-Tax Jim Rhodes by 11,000 votes in 1974 while some of his advisors were busily  trying to offer him for a Democratic presidential nomination in 1976! (A few days before his loss in Ohio, his chief of staff sat in a hotel booth in Cleveland and showed me a carefully guarded roadmap to storm the 1974 Democratic mini-convention.)

It became an oft-repeated gag among statehouse reporters that although Rhodes had exploited his anti-tax scheme, he went to bed each night thanking Gilligan for the revenue and did nothing as governor to eliminate the tax.   No dummy,  Rhodes knew well enough that he needed the revenue to run his own shop.

For Kasich, his anti-tax charms, carefully framed for the election season, will be a subject of news stories and speculation on whether an income tax cut would be just what the doctor ordered as Ohio limps  its way behind many other  states from the dreadful GOP recession years.

It's the usual GOP fantasy that will pass after election day when lame-duck Kasich's thoughts will turn to a spot on the national ticket as a spectacular fund-raiser that his wealthy friends have anted up to $15 million.

On that score, I can only wonder - but not for long - how that much money arrived in his pot for a campaign that has seen his opponent declassified.   What could they possibly want in return from Kasich that cost them so much?

The Shadow knows.  And so does everyone else paying the slightest attention.

Anything for a laugh? Kasich loves labor unions

Need a laugh?  Try this gag from the governor:

• When John Kasich accepted the endorsement of a Cleveland operating Engineers Local amid heavy construction equipment,  he wanted everybody to know that he was quite appreciative of its support.  Meeting  with the union leaders , the Blue Collar Kid from Western Pennsylvania  sustained that image with casual open collar and both hands in pockets as he humbly said that labor unions are deeply implanted in his DNA. Since his childhood, he said.  Coming from a guy who supported the failed union restrictive  Senate Bill 5, his memory is growing shorter each day.   He said he wasn't surprised by the endorsement because results are more important than labels. Are you laughing yet?  

Re DeWine: Shall we not pass the collection plate?

Re-posted from Plunderbund


When I am trying to absorb a monotonal speech by Ohio Atty. Gen.  Mike DeWine why do I feel I should  be sitting in a pew?  As I've noted in the past, DeWine comes across as bottled goodness. He's the people's lawyer, the righteous guy to defend the law, the go-to family man to protect all that is wholesome in American life.  Still,  Biblical scholars will tell you that there is nothing specific in the Book about modern pay-to-play.

There is nothing in his words to lead you to believe that this 67-year-old  social conservative is  the same wheeler-dealer who handed out a lucrative contract for debt collection to a close friend and contributor of   the Summit County Republican Party chairman who once worked for him. The contrast in his public profile is stunning.

So there he was at  the podium as a Akron Press Club/Bliss speaker explaining why he is sworn to uphold the sanctity of traditional marriage, his refusal to debate his opponent,  Democrat David Pepper,  and his objection to Federal court rulings that declared Ohio's newly minted voter restrictions  unconstitutional.

About the debt collection contract:  He's asking prospective clients to sign a written form. Problem solved.

About the voting system  placed in abeyance by the U.S. Supreme Court:  He doesn't think the law is unconstitutional.  Problem solved.

About same-sex marriage: Ohio law bans it, regardless of the court decisions, and he dutifuilly must support it.  That says nothng about the taxpayers' money his office has spent skipping around the country filing amicus  briefs to uphold of such bans in their states.  Look, his opposition to gay marriage is in his genes, not the law.

About his refusal to debate:  "My  opponent is not qualified to be attorney general."  The cheapest of shots.    Pepper is a Yale law school graduate with a string of student honors - Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude, managing editor of Yale Daily News, etc. etc. etc. (Should I also mention that when DeWine was in the Senate he could not practice law for 10 year because his license was inactive?)

More on the non-debates:  DeWine argued that he's already crossed paths in an unofficial "debate" with Pepper in a room interacting with Gannett Ohio editors.  In contrast, Sen. Sherrod Brown, then a congressman, debated then Sen.DeWine four times and creamed him by winning a 56 pct. majority vote as a liberal Democrat.

As a personal note, if I may:  I once interviewed DeWine for a half-hour TV program.    It was painful.  People who watched it said he froze on me.   And I didn't even  try to debate him!

Look closely, all of you individual freedom lovers

This photo from the Idaho Statesman should be posted  on the door of every office housing a politician actively opposed to same sex marriage (Gov. Kasich, Atty. Gen.  DeWine, for starters.) This gay woman  has been devastated by an irrational  rejection of the request  for a marriage license, the victim of one group's religion over another - or none - in the land of the free.  Not a poster for the freedoms that social conservatives say they want to preserve.

The blame bag: is it shrinking for the GOP?

With only two years remaining for the Obama presidency,  I wonder whether there's some truth to the rumors that  the Republicans now fear they will soon run out of things to blame him for.

True,  they have yet to play their California drought card or assail him for the disappearance of passenger pigeons.

Even the report that the economy is improving drew anti-Obama scowls from GOP National Committee chairman Reince Priebus and House Speaker John Boehner.  Insisting the Republicans "can do better,"  Priebus asserted that "we can't lose sight of the fact that we should have been at this point years ago."  Like 2008, at the height of the Bush recession?

Meantime, scowler-in-chief Boehner accused Obama and his fellow Democrats of presiding "over a new  normal of  flat wages, higher prices, and too many part-time jobs."  (The speaker obviously is influenced by his nightly dinners at McDonald's!)

Speaking of scowlers:  Might as well add Sens. John McCain and his alter ego,   Lindsey Graham,  to the list, although  the latter is more of a whiner than a scowler, don't you think? On foreign policy, McCain hissed  words like "feckless" and "intellectually dishonest"- but it's possible that he could
 have been absently  describing Bush and Iraq.

In fairness, McCain has yet to shake off his nightmare of having lost to Obama.  Nor can I shake off the nightmare of his choice of Sarah Palin as a heartbeat from the presidency.

Have I missed anything, Josh?

Re-posted from Plunderbund;


 When the Beacon Journal endorsed Democrat Connie Pillich for Ohio treasurer over incumbent Republican Josh Mandel on Sunday , it told us  that even a centrist newspaper might only accept so much mischief from Josh.  Referring to Pillich, the BJ said "she has proved an effective legislator, engaged, knowledgable  and capable of reaching across the aisle".

As for Josh, his exposed back-channel fund-filled moments comporting with Canton businessman Ben Suarez and other big donors were simply too much to earn him a reprieve  from the paper.

After  Mandel burst onto the state political scene he created his own parallel universe of Mitty-like references to himself as super patriot, soldier, family man (with online emails of new-born and TV ads with pregnant wife) and,  above all,  lord protector of the American dream.   And therein lay the curdling problem.  Small wonder that ever  since, he has been the victim of self-inflicted thorns in his side.

Ohio media's split decision on Supremes' early voting ruling

The October full-court press is steaming into endorsements for the November election,  but last week's output was particularly interesting for the fractured response to the Republican-dominated U.S.Supreme Court's ruling to delay the new early-voting plan in Ohio.

Of four urban dailies, the Plain Dealer and Toledo Blade  both disputed the Supremes' action; the Beacon Journal, a reverential supporter of Secretary of State Jon Husted, joined the right-wing Columbus Dispatch in praising  the ruling.  Brief  excerpts:

Toledo Blade:   "The 11th-hour Supreme Court ruling has created  confusion and hardship among some Ohio voters.  The fact that the order was the initial decision of the   high court's new term offers little reason for optimism about what will follow."

Beacon Journal: (Praising the Supremes)   "It has been dismaying to watch federal  judge Peter Economus, who was upheld  by a panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals take a misguided path in his insistence on no cutbacks to early voting."


Plain Dealer:  "Highly disappointing, even grotesque...The  high court has done both the law and the voters of Ohio a grave disservice with its stay."

Columbus Dispatch: "Monday's decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to allow Ohio to follow its own election laws in the Nov. 4 election is a victory for common sense in a legal battle that has seen lower federal courts turn common sense inside out."

Grumpy Abe:  Can't resist casting my lot with the Plain Dealer and Blade to tip the  balance of this group in favor of the lower courts.  Question: After dispelling the original claims that a new system would protect us from voter fraud which doesn't exist, why did the Husted Hustle continue to boast of increasing voter ease as Republicans took up their cause during the Obama era.   Must we remind ourselves that published reports from some Republican officials conceded that they  had wanted to help Mitt Romney win?

To McConnell, the Woeful Walrus Award

To memorialize   the  35,000 walrus who moved to the Alaskan shore for safe ground from their melting off-shore ice base, we are urging friends of these forlorn creatures to join us in awarding Senate minority  leader and climate change denier Mitch McConnell the first Grumpy Abe WOEFUL WALRUS award.

McConnell conceded that "I'm not a scientist", which is the preamble to many deniers' responses to questions about global warming before they damn the idea altogether. The senator needs an asterisk in history, and this would be a good start.  As Lewis Carroll once quoted the Walrus:

"The time has come to talk of many things: Of shoes -  and ships - and sealing-wax - of cabbages and kings - and why the sea is boiling hot - And whether pigs have wings."

Nonsensical, of course.  But a perfect fit for Mitch, (although the sea is not yet boiling hot) who says a lot of nonsensical things.   Bottom photo is the one with the senator.     

35,000 walrus need no 'proven proof'

It may offer small consolation but  I did want this entry to let you know that  humans are not the only stressed-out creatures on the planet today. Thanks to this remarkable AP photo that arrived via ThinkProgress, we learned that some 35,000  walrus sought solid ground  on a beach in northwest Alaska, driven landward as rising temperatures melted their ice base offshore. (Note the inland bulge from the sea)

Probably won't convince Alaska's Sarah Palin, the state's leading climate change denier that worrisome things are happening that are easily viewed from her front porch. After all, as she has reminded us, it snowed in Alaska last year, so where's the proof of global warming?

There was some of that gibberish in a debate involving the Republican Senate candidate in Iowa, Joni Ernst.  She did fuzz up her thoughts by saying she believed climate was changing but added that she was at a  loss to know what caused it, or whether human beings had anything to do with it.

As she noted earlier,  "I have not seen proven proof".

Good grief.  What is "proven  proof"?  Is it the same as "true facts"?  

As I have written before, when this generation of pols passes on, it  will leave no intellectual history behind for all of those who come later.

Debates: Mike DeWine,the people's lawyer who isn't there

Re-posted from Plunderbund 

Ever since Atty. Gen. Mike DeWine put on his reelection campaign game face, he's been drifting across the masses like a UFO with the best wishes of a forgiving  press  and a looming Republican year at  the polls.

Now you see him, now you don't.  He prefers to cast his attention to his other interests that gives him a Deep South spiritual coating as a social conservative - nay, as a blessed Medievalist opposed to abortion, same-sex marriage, raising the minimum wage, defending  Hobby Lobby, opposing gun control  and above all, the Affordable Care Act.  On that point, he has long made his rounds outside the state to wherever he could pitch in to help defeat ObamaCare.

Of late, he has taken up the cause of restricting Ohio's new voter system, the one that a right-wing Supreme Court just delayed after two lower federal courts had ruled it unconstitutional. The Supremes would have overruled tfhe lower courts 5-4 anyway  if DeWine had gone fishing.  Or spent a little more time facing his opponent, David Pepper, a Cincinnati Democrat, in at least a debate or two.

Pepper put the debate issue in the right context when he spoke  at the Akron Press Club this week.    As a lawyer himself, Pepper gamely questioned DeWine's  rejection of any debate, including the invitation  from the Cleveland City Club. Some newspapers gently  questioned the UFO's decision, too, but for too many voters,  debates are best left to molecular physicists.

Pepper,  however,  squarely defined DeWine's posture as unbecoming of a guy who must serve  as the people's lawyer and be  never fearful of airing differences with opponents in courts or anywhere else.      "If you're afraid to debate as the attorney general,"  Pepper declared, "something must be  wrong."

Indeed,  it is.  And that should include the many reports of how DeWine has converted his office into a pay-to-play cash cow, hauling in campaign cash from those who stand to sweeten their own pots in return.   In one recent exposed case, DeWine replaced a company that had ably served several  different governors in debt collections, giving the lucrative contract to a pal of Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff, despite the recipient's admission that he had little experience in that line of work. (Over the years, Alex has smelled money like a shark  attracted to blood. He was once on DeWine's payroll as the AG's liaison in northern Ohio. )

Still there is strong feeling that Mike DeWine towers so high in ballot strength that he is unbeatable.  That hasn't always been true.  Sen. Sherrod Brown, a liberal Democrat,  no less,  thumped DeWine out of the. U.S. Senate in 2006 with room to spare. (56 pct. landslide.)   On that occasion DeWine had no more than an approval rating in the 30s, putting him just above Rick Santorum as the most unpopular  senator on Capitol Hill.

But DeWine has the ability to hover in politics.  In 2012 he was a Santorum supporter in the presidential.  He then startled the experts with a  mid-campaign switch to Mitt Romney when  it became increasingly clear that Ol' Rick wouldn't win the Ohio Republican  primary. Call his retreat from Santorum as a "course correction".

Four more years for this mercurial UFO?    You decide.

P.S. Pepper did speak to the Cleveland City Club luncheon this week, sans DeWine.