Jun

27

Burger King Ad May Promote Oral Sex

Posted on June 27, 2009 at 12:13 am by Madrigal Maniac Under Miscellaneous | Print This Post | Email This Post | Leave a Comment 


Thanks to Mother Jones for this, but I think it originates from this site The Modern Voice. Some may find this funny. But suggesting that young women ought to believe that oral sex is like eating a hamburger demeans all of us. I think it represents the thinking of a 16 year old boy. Sorry Burger King, I grew up.



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Jun

25

Video | Rally at the Statehouse Oposing Cuts for Mental Health and Addiction Treatment

Posted on June 25, 2009 at 9:11 pm by Madrigal Maniac Under State | Print This Post | Email This Post | Leave a Comment 


Some video of a rally at the statehouse yesterday objecting to cuts in treatment for mental and alcohol and drug addiction.

Source: The Columbus Dispatch

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Jun

23

Former Republican Mayor Buck Rinehart for the Tax Levy

Posted on June 23, 2009 at 10:43 pm by Madrigal Maniac Under Local | Print This Post | Email This Post | 4 Comments 


Past Columbus Republican Mayor Buck Rinehart today endorsed the proposed .5 percent increase in the city tax.

Rinehart is the first high-profile Republican to come out in favor of the tax increase.

“I know a lot of my Republican friends will be angry,” Rinehart told The Dispatch this afternoon. “But I asked myself, ‘What is in the best interest of the people of Columbus and the children?”

The Columbus Dispatch

It just keeps getting worse for anti-tax opponents such as Bill Todd.

But all three GOP candidates for City Council oppose the tax increase, and an anti-tax campaign has been organized by the Republicans’ 2007 mayoral candidate, Bill Todd.

Rinehart, who served from 1984 to 1991, said he has confidence in Democratic City Auditor Hugh J. Dorrian’s projections that Columbus faces massive budget deficits in 2010 and beyond unless it begins collecting more revenue.

The Columbus Dispatch

What’s the difference between Bill Todd and the three republican council candidates who oppose the levy and Buck Rinehart, Hugh Dorrian, Michael Coleman, and the city council members who support the levy? The latter group has actually been elected to something.

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Jun

23

City Workers to Lose Five Days of Pay

Posted on June 23, 2009 at 10:22 pm by Madrigal Maniac Under Local | Print This Post | Email This Post | Leave a Comment 


City workers were told that in order to help balance the budget they were to take five days off without pay. I posted about how AFSCME 2191 voted to implement this policy here. In a hastily called initiative and with a badly worded ballot, members voted to take an entire week off. This would have been a hardship for many of the citizen’s this union serves. Thankfully, enough members complained and a new vote was granted. Now the union plans to take the five days off throughout the year. However their plan differs from another union.

Today it was reported.

The Fourth of July, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas will be unpaid holidays this year for members of one city- employees union.

Columbus City Council members approved an agreement last night with the Columbus Municipal Association of Government Employees [CMAGE], whose members overwhelmingly ratified the plan last week.

The Columbus Dispatch

That’s different than AFSCME 2191 whose plan is to take the Thursday before the Fourth, The Friday before Labor Day and Columbus Day, the Friday after Thanksgiving, and the Thursday before Christmas off. This gives members five weekends with four days off. They take the day around the holiday off and still get paid for the holiday. CMAGE will get three days off and work the day around the holiday. What doesn’t make sense about this is CMAGE tends to be made up of supervisors who will be working in a building like Columbus Public Health that has no employees or clients.

Could it be possible the Dispatch reported this wrong. I sent the reporter an email.

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Jun

23

Not All Opposed To New State Taxes

Posted on June 23, 2009 at 9:39 pm by Madrigal Maniac Under State | Print This Post | Email This Post | Leave a Comment 


On several occasions Ohio Gevernor Ted Strickland said he would not raise taxes. It appeared democrats and republicans in the General Assembly agreed. But now comes this. Today Grandview Heights Democrat Ted Celeste said…

…23 other states have raised taxes already, and 13 more are considering it.

“A number of states have heard from economists who say that while that you would think that in a nasty recession budget cuts would be better than a tax increase, they would argue the reverse,” he said.

Celeste said he will be joined by other lawmakers at a press conference late this afternoon to discuss their hope that Gov. Ted Strickland and legislative leaders at least consider taxes as an option.

The Columbus Dispatch

Governor Strickland wants to fill the budget gap with revenue from slot machines at race tracks. In some form or another, Ohio residents have voted this idea down four times previously. In fact, Strickland has been against it in the past.

Strickland, who previously had cast doubt on the reliability of revenue projections from gambling and [had] vastly overestimated the state’s take from the Lottery’s new Keno game…

The Columbus Dispatch

Taxes based on gambling are not a reliable revenue stream and neither is an income tax. However, an income tax is a lot easier to project.

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Jun

19

I Thought I Voted for a Democrat

Posted on June 19, 2009 at 3:53 pm by Madrigal Maniac Under State | Print This Post | Email This Post | 5 Comments 


For a few years I lived in southeastern Ohio and I voted several times for current governor Ted Strickland in his races for the U.S. House of Representatives. I did so under the assumption that he was a Democrat and at least shared some of my ideals. I voted for him for governor for the same reason. However, now I’m not so sure. In his first budget Strickland cut funding for the Ohio Department of Mental Health (ODMH) and the Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services (ODADAS).

Now comes the following.

Sources say the areas where Strickland has suggested cutting include: dental, vision and other Medicaid services for low-income adults; the Passport program that enables the elderly to receive care at their home instead of in a nursing home; and services to protect children and adults from abuse.

The administration also proposed eliminating preschool for low-income children, a planned expansion of tax-funded health coverage to uninsured children, and planned increases in payments to nursing homes caring for disabled.

The Columbus Dispatch

It appears Strickland’s approach to balancing the budget is based on some form of social Darwinism. It’s the people who are crazy, high, poor, or old, who should be penalized for this mess. But of course he knows that’s not true. Strickland just doesn’t have the political courage to ask all Ohioans for more sacrifices. Especially those who are wealthy and part of the upper class that helped create this budget crisis in the first place.

Unlike President Obama who has proposed bold initiatives on the federal level and unlike Mayor Coleman who has asked residents of Columbus for a tax levy to help those in need, Strickland asks for nothing. Instead, he cuts services for the people most in need apparently based on the fact that they have no political power. I think it’s possible I may have voted for a closet Republican.

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Jun

18

Chamber of Commerce Supports Tax Levy

Posted on June 18, 2009 at 8:47 pm by Madrigal Maniac Under Local | Print This Post | Email This Post | Leave a Comment 


The Columbus Chamber of Commerce today voted to support the .5 percent increase in the city income tax.

The group’s board of directors voted this morning to endorse the Aug. 4 ballot measure, which would raise the city’s tax rate from 2 percent to 2.5 percent.

The Columbus Dispatch

Another business group has supported it as well.

The Columbus Partnership, a business group that includes some of the region’s biggest employers, voted last week to endorse the tax increase as well.

The Columbus Dispatch

Let’s see who supports the levy. Business leaders, labor unions, and the media. Who doesn’t. Defeated candidate for mayor and well known republican fat cat Bill Todd.

Interestingly, the chamber of commerce added this caveat to their endorsement of the levy.

Chamber leaders said they expect the city to continue setting aside a quarter of its tax revenue for road improvements and other capital projects…

The Columbus Dispatch

But just yesterday Bill Todd said the following on WOSU’s program Open Line.

Todd said the city could avoid a tax increase by repealing the ordinance that requires the 25 percent income-tax set-aside

What’s wrong Bill? These are your people and they not only disagree with your position on the tax levy, they disagree with you on getting rid of the 25 percent set aside for capital projects. You must feel lonely. Maybe you should stop talking.

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Jun

17

Dorrian Clobbers Todd In Tax Levy Debate

Posted on June 17, 2009 at 10:27 pm by Madrigal Maniac Under Local | Print This Post | Email This Post | 1 Comment 


Today on WOSU’s Open Line Columbus Auditor Hugh Dorrian and defeated candidate for mayor Bill Todd debated the proposed .5 percent tax increase. Once again Todd had no specific proposals to solve the budget crisis, he only had criticism for the income tax.

In fact, he kept using examples of the state budget crisis and quoted Strickland at one point. He said Strickland said you do not raise taxes during a recession. Dorrian patiently explained that Strickland has to worry about Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, Dayton and other cities as well. They are not Columbus which continues to grow and has the highest bond rating of any large city in the nation.

Todd suggested more furlough days for city workers and taking away their retirement pension. He also said that we are taxing the poor and giving the money to the “fat cats” downtown.

I do have a vested interest in the passage of the levy. However, I assure you my support of the levy is based on my social work background and my desire for those less fortunate to receive the help they need. This is a progressive tax, if you don’t make much, you don’t pay much. If I thought for one minute this levy would hurt the poor, I would be against it.

Todd say’s let’s make city workers give back additional money by taking more unpaid days off and let’s cut their pension. We all know public sector jobs pay less than the private sector. How are you going to attract bright well educated city workers if you make the work less attractive? If you think we are taxing the poor to help the fat cats. Then let’s just tax the fat cats. Like republican fat cat Bill Todd.

Dorrian has been an auditor for five city mayor’s of both parties and is so respected the republican’s are not running anybody against him this election. Todd is a lawyer who was beaten badly in the mayor’s race and belongs to a party that was in power during the creation of this recession. Who would you take your financial advice from?

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Jun

15

John Freshwater Files Lawsuit

Posted on June 15, 2009 at 9:37 pm by Madrigal Maniac Under Local | Print This Post | Email This Post | 2 Comments 


John Freshwater, the Mt. Vernon teacher accused of burning a cross into a student’s arm has filed a lawsuit. He is currently involved in a public hearing after being dismissed by the school board and is also part of a lawsuit by the parents of the student whose arm was burned. Use the search box and type freshwater to get some background information.

Hat tip to Jolly Roger at Reconstitution for alerting me to this new development.

MOUNT VERNON – Former eighth-grade science teacher John Freshwater has filed a federal lawsuit against the Mount Vernon City School Board, administrators and the investigative firm the board hired to look into allegations against him.

KnoxPages.com

I had wondered why the hearing was taking so long. Here is the reason Freshwater’s lawyer gives.

According to Freshwater’s attorney, R Kelly Hamilton, the preference was to complete the public hearing before filing any action, but the refusal of board members to testify has delayed the hearing and pushed against the statute of limitations requirements.

KnoxPages.com

My favorite part of the article is here.

A press release from Freshwater’s supporters said, “While the board continues to claim that this is ‘not about the Bible on his desk,’ it was Freshwater’s public statements and refusal to remove his Bible from his desk which prompted the board’s actions and caused the chain of events that lead to this lawsuit.”

KnoxPages.com

Yea … I’m sure his dismissal had nothing to do with using a device not intended for use on humans to burn a cross into a students arm in violation of the separation between church and state guaranteed by the constitution. I’m sure that had nothing to do with it.

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Jun

14

Columbus Dispatch Endorses Tax Levy

Posted on June 14, 2009 at 8:00 pm by Madrigal Maniac Under Local | Print This Post | Email This Post | Leave a Comment 


The Columbus Dispatch, a conservative newspaper, has endorsed the .5 percent income tax hike proposed for the August 14th ballot.

To keep Columbus strong and enhance its future, city voters need to support Issue 1 in the special election Aug. 4.

The Dispatch appears to get it.

For several decades, Columbus has been the only major city in Ohio and one of the few in the Midwest to gain population and maintain economic vitality. A fundamental reason for this success is the stable financial base of city government.

Now that base is at serious risk.

“This is the most severe financial dilemma the city has faced in four decades,” said Hugh J. Dorrian, who has been city auditor for that entire span.

Seeking a tax increase is never easy. But sometimes it’s essential. This is such a time.

Kudos for the Dispatch understanding the importance of Issue 1.

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