Is there a Taft Curse?

Damn, can anyone around Bob Taft get a break? I mean, can't a man and his stripper companions be left alone?

Pardon Me

When there was the smallest hint of scandal, Bill Clinton was leveled for who he pardon. Today Peter Bronson mentions in passing without much more than a quip. I guess when you pardon 9 members of your staff, you are just about "changing the culture." I guess Peter wants a fundamentalist culture that not only is milquetoast, bland, and dull, he wants people who pardon people when they are accused of a crime. That is I guess the kind of culture where it is ok to break the law, well I guess the minor ones. If I use the conservative logic now, every kid in Kentucky will now be seeking pardons every time they either stay out past curfew or I don't know, speed.


"Everyone does it Dad, don't you want me to be like everyone else?"
"Yes son, I do, You are hereby pardoned."

Pepper Calls

News reports indicate that "someone" is faking campaign calls from David Pepper that make him sound racist.

What is unclear is this, from Korte eariler today:

CAMPAIGN CALLS: The Pepper campaign is disavowing a recorded phone call that asks registered voters to support Pepper as "the only white candidate in the Cincinnati mayor's race."

At a debate Tuesday night, Pepper said the calls were "dirty tricks politics" and promised to investigate who was behind them.

"This campaign is getting ugly quick, and this campaign is one of the ugliest things I've ever heard of," he said.

All three of his major rivals disclaimed responsibility and denounced the phone calls Tuesday.

Winburn denounced the tactic as "bigotry"; Mallory said the phone calls were illegal; and Reece said all the candidates shared a desire to debate the issues without "dirty tricks."

Michael Earl Patton, a Republican from Oakley, filed a complaint against Pepper with the Ohio Elections Commission on Tuesday, accusing Pepper of being behind the phone calls. He did not return a phone call seeking comment.

Nate has more and damns Pepper fairly quickly.

Shall we assume a "he who smelt it, dealt it" stance? If a Republican is pushing the complaint, then is it a reach to say that someone who would have known about the calls tipped him off or made sure he got one of the calls? Could he have sent them to himself? It smells like GOP dirty tricks to me. It could though be another Democrat doing it, but the only candidate who stands to gain significantly by hurting Pepper is Winburn. Reece and Mallory are going to win with those who will not vote for Pepper anyway.

I don't get how this call would have worked anyway for anyone. People who think Pepper is a racist already think he is one. It seems like it is just out there to occupy Pepper's time, and keep him on the defensive, which is what he has been on for a while now. He is not good on the defensive, and it shows on stage.

Jeffre Dragging Feet?

His is likely the weathiest person running for mayor which means he shouldn't be the last person to file his income with the State. He can hire more accountants then the rest combined, so I don't think he can claim delays with much credibility. It is reasonable for a candidate to not want to appear rich, but you look worse when you get caught trying to deflect attention from that fact.

Also in this story we learn that Sandra Queen Noble may be suffering from a "mental injury." The WCET debate left no doubt in my mind.

Natives

Quinn Brady is saying what many have been saying and feeling for a long time. Those many are immigrants to the City, like myself. I went to Miami University. If you care that I graduated from Jamestown High School, that's fine, but guess what, I am not from here. That does not mean your parents or childhood friends will hate me. They may hate me for other reasons. If they don't want you to have anything to do with people who are not Native, then you might want to think about finding a new family and set of friends. The family part is rather difficult, but you should dump your friends if they really are still living in high school.

Once you hit 30, I think this wears off. Either that or I really don't hang out with many locals. Come to think of it, that may be true. Locals are more likely to be fearful of downtown, in my opinion. So, I would guess they don't hang out where I do, at least not as often.

An interesting question: those here in Cincinnati who care where you went to high school, are they more likely to be conservative or liberal? I would guess conservative, but I would ask for opinions on that.

Nightmare

Let's hope few will doubt the hell that was life in the Superdome last week. These lifesavers should be proud of their service and everyone should thank them for being there for people in desperate need.

Local Rule?

If Peter Bronson hates the NCAA's attempts to change college mascots, and thinks of it as a local issue, then I wonder how he feels about a minister and his local church agreeing to have gay weddings and then the national organization of that local church voting to kick that minister out of the church for doing that. How is that different than the NCAA action? Are both wrong or not? Or does it just matter what the big organization is doing? Local control or no local control? This is not a government issue, but the organizations are the
"governing bodies," so the parallels exist. I guess I don't get why Peter Bronson was not outraged when a local Minister was kicked out of his pulpit for doing what the locals wanted.

MidPoint Music Festival Schedule

If you have not seen it yet, the MPMF schedule is up. The line up is great. Jake Speed made it to Arnold's 1 AM on Friday night.

Mike Brown Must Go

No, Not the owner of the Bengals. Mike Brown, the head of FEMA, should be immediately fired and replaced with someone who understands how to deal with a disaster. If the Bush Administration thinks FEMA's focus should be responding to terrorism, then how do they plan on evacuating a major city after a series of Dirty Nukes are set off? The failure to evacute New Orleans indicates that in real terrorist attack situation the aftermath would be the real killer, not the actual attack. The answer to Mike for this type of situation seems to be to pretend that nothing is going wrong, as illustrated by this CNN report. If nothing else, the man is over concerned with the PR spin of his teams efforts. If you are going to be a good department/agency head, you need to let the White House worry about the spin, and you just do your job, especially for an agency whose sole purpose is to deal with emergencies.

I personally would lay this at the foot of the President, but the more important thing is to fire the incompetent man, not the guy who hired him. I would love to fire Bush, but alas we are stuck with more of his bad choices until 2009. We also are stuck with the bad choice of Mike Brown and his Bengals, and can't change that unless he wants to sell. Let's just hope this year they break the curse and make the playoffs.

SCOTUS Change

With the Death of Rehnquist and this morning's announcement of Roberts for Chief Justice, the Supreme Court will now become a battle ground with heavy change in the balance. It is going to get ugly and get ugly quick.

This was a wise political move for Bush, and reduces the number of battles he has to fight. I don't know if it was a good move for the SCOTUS or not. The role of Chief is not one to directly influence case law, in that respect the Chief has no more power than the other 8 justices. Who gets that position is not that big of a deal. The battle starts again as to whom will replace O'Connor. The gloves will be coming off, and the knuckles are going to get bloody.

If True, Damn!

Kevin Drum is doing his usually wonderful job blogging and reports on Bush's alleged staged Photo-Ops on his visits to the Gulf Coast Area. How can anyone like a man who allows his handlers to create any kind of stage and to create what appears to have been fake food distribution areas just for a photo opportunity. I will admit that even I am not willing to accept these allegations as valid on face value, but the glove fits. Erecting a stage for Bush is not only likely, I would bet on it. The food distribution point, which are the more egregious charge, is what I am more skeptical on. If that is true, then the Man and his handlers are heartless scum. If others can find more information on this, I will update the post, even if you can find credible reports discounting or disproving the allegations.

We Are Asking For Aid From Europe

I am glad we are doing it, but I don't know why the USA need to ask Europe for emergency assistance, including blankets, first aid kits, water trucks and food. Why do we need to go outside the USA for this? I am sure we could use money to buy more of these things, but I don't think we need to ship a bunch of blankets across the Atlantic.

Labor Day Lull

Ok, I really have little that I want to post on or am prepared to post on, so if you are Jonesing for a thread, have at it.

Quick Money Rules

When you need cash, I guess civil justice doesn't matter. It is amazing that this company actually was ready to do settle this fast, but what is more amazing is that they set up shop on city property, making I think some of the victims think the city approved of this or it was something the city was offering. Luken did the right thing kicking them off city property.

Refugee

Nearly every news outlet and politician is using the wordrefugee to describe those who have fled New Orleans. The use of the word is totally valid. There are refugees every day from fires and floods. What hits me like a ton of bricks is that there are hundreds of thousands of refugees out of Southeast Louisiana. That is something like out of WWII or out of a famine in Africa. This is not supposed to be happening here in the land of the free and home of the brave. Why is this happening? Why does it seem like the media is able to get around more than the police or National Guard?

Pepper Ad Misleading

David Pepper's TV ad was determined to be misleading by the Ohio Elections Commission, but they refused to do anything about it.

This was political and it really looks like the GOP wasting time when you read about the person who filed the lawsuit:

"As a lawyer, David Pepper should follow the law," said Brad Greenberg, Tye's attorney and executive director of the Hamilton County Republican Party. "We feel it is a misleading commercial. He is not the incumbent."

Tye is Donald Tye Jr. who filed the lawsuit and is a Winburn supporter, and in case you missed it, his lawyer is executive director of the Hamilton County Republican Party. Yea, it was a party action to help hurt Pepper and help Winburn, but crap like this never does anything. It looks petty and pointless. I am wondering if the GOP will go in the gutter any further to try and pull down Pepper, Reece or Mallory. Winburn needs two of the three to be tarnished to have any chance to make it beyond September 13th's Primary.

Horror on the Bayou

How did New Orleans get to this state? Why can’t more be done by the Federal Government? I am not going to blame anyone person or leader for this, no one person can move mountains, but if the USA can drop food over remote Afghanistan villages, why can't they do something similar in New Orleans?

The political fallout on this is starting to grow. I really don't want it to become a political issue. I would want political leaders with the power to move men and machine to get them in the air. Are their any National Guard Airborne troops out there? This near anarchy makes people America look like we don't know what we are doing. We don't, but we usually can make it work. The hell that is the Big Easy is a condemnation on our humanity. I say that with full knowledge that I am sitting on my ass typing, not really doing much. Those with the power should be doing, and it appears they can't do much.

Why can't they do much? Could it, and I am asking honestly, be the result of the over use of the National Guard in Iraq?

98 Degrees Reunion

OK, I know Justin Jeffre was in a boy band, but are we required to suffer through a reuion of the group? Can they just get together and hang out and not perform?

Gas Prices

In case you missed it, gas jumped about $0.45 in a day or two because of the Gulf Coast Hurricane. Now, it is true that the oil and gas industry was damaged, and on a long term basis I would expect prices to rise. Why did they jump that much in a couple of days? Answer? I don't know, but why doesn’t an enterprising young journalist seek out the pricing methods of the gas companies? Why not publish the formula they use to judge how much to charge for gas. People can bitch and moan about taxes and the EPA all they want, but there is no fair reason for gas to have jumped up that much, that quickly. It is about profit, not about passing on cost. If gas companies are going to market prices, then they should use a fairy tale market where they set the price they want and instead stick to real market pricing, not just what they think they can get away with.

Alas, we are stuck. Even after 100 years, gas companies are an oligopoly, and can do damn near what they want to the consumer. Having energy competition would be the best way to push our economy forward. If we had options outside of gas to power transportation on a wide scale, we would be able to move around everything with far greater ease. Why is the government not making that priority one in economic development?

Evacuation Lifted

The roads are open and people can finally go home to the East End and Columbia Tusclum. Lets hope traffic gets back to normal as well. Yesterday and this morning is was horrible all over the East Side of the Metro Area.

Campaign Websites

Brian from The Brian and Joe Radio Show has a great summary of the campaign websites for Cincinnati Council Candidates and Cincinnati Mayor Candidates.

Very Big Day for Federated

The Big Merger is complete.

Mayoral Forum

A fairly relaxed event. None of the candidates scored big, but one played it way to safe. Korte has his summary and the results of the WCPO poll giving Pepper a very slight edge over Reece, followed by Mallory then Winburn.

Reece, Mallory, and Winburn all did fairly well, but did not jump out with anything to grab the masses. Pepper lost the expectations game. He was on the defensive or just stayed to positive to make a big impression on anyone. As the assumed frontrunner, he under performed in comparison.

Jeffre gave a good effort, but was too rehearsed. He would win the most improved campaigner, but he sounded like he was relying on his political consultant's coaching, instead of being himself. It came across as artificial. Grisco and Noble were comic relief. Noble, who bills herself as "Queen," actual used the word "penis" in a debate. The crowd, including myself, could barely hold back the laughter. Even the camera man was cracking up. She used the word in a semi-reasonable manner, but it is not the thing people want to hear their mayor say, especially when you are wearing "Chuck Taylor Hightops."

Winburn turned me off early. He stayed on his message, but that was the problem. He was all FOP all the time. He referenced the FOP constantly and he repeated a random statistic of "467 murders on the streets of Cincinnati," but I never heard him place a time frame for that. Is that in the last 5 years, 10 years? I think he is pushing that number higher, to make crime look worse than it is. That is misleading and playing the fears of the white voters he is out to get. He lost 95% of the black vote when he stood there next to Keith Fangman and praised the police. If he wants to praise the police, he should have had the Sentinels there too.

Overall it was a very good event. WCET puts on a first rate show and Give Back Cincinnati and Legacy did a great job organizing it. The crowd was not full, but there at least 150 to a max of 200 people there. I think the studio was set up for 250. The questions were pointed toward YP's, which I think was a bit of a shame. I would have like to hear much more variety of questions. Many of them covered the same issues and got repeated answers. No one asked anything controversial.

My order on who "won" the debate is only for fun and are based only on my impressions:

Mallory
Reece
Winburn
Pepper
Jeffre
Grisco
Noble

This forum gave some good exposure for all candidates, but did not shake up the race much. Pepper still would assumed to be a lock to make the finals, but anyone of the other top 3 could make it with him. Reece shows no signs of her residency scandal. Time will tell.

Why Wait? Stop Crime Now!

If CPD Sgt. Harry Roberts knows a secret to reducing violent crime in Cincinnati, why is he waiting until Charlie Winburn is mayor to tell us?

Cincinnati Police Sgt. Harry Roberts made Cincinnati voters a personal guarantee Monday: Elect Charlie Winburn mayor, and violent crime will go down almost immediately.

It will be a cold day in 'Hell' before Winburn is elected mayor, so why not just start reducing crime now? Harry, if you have the answers to solving crime, lets hear them.

His answer I am sure was meant to be that if only the mayor to be would support the police contract, then violent crime would go down. Now, why does that sound like extortion to me? How supporting a contract reduces crime is beyond me. I mean, proactive policing is the thing that might work and oh maybe STOPPING THE SLOWDOWN just might helps things along.

So, Cincinnati voters, I guess we have a police gun to our heads. If you want violent crime to go down, only a vote for Winburn will get it for you, so sayeth the FOP.

I really would like to know why Winburn supports this union over other unions. How many other unions play with the lives of the citizens of the city, just so a couple of people, and I do mean just a few, can get senior management jobs in the CPD? The police union just continues to look like the sleaziest bunch of thugs, playing the protection racket to line their own pockets with a few measly promotions.

I also was laughing when the FOP talk about Winburn being the "only candidate" for this and for that. Well, he is the only Republican endorsed candidate in the race, so guess what, that was a big reason for their actions. The local FOP is an arm of the group.

Last night I got the robocall from Roberts. I hung up before it finished spewing propaganda. I really hate being a registered independent. The damn GOP thinks my vote is up for grabs.

Tanker Leak Media Coverage

I give the local media an A-. The Enquirer reviews the TV news.

Ernie "I am the Law" Fletcher

I guess the rule of law is a negative when it comes to Kentucky Republicans. Who wants investigations when you hold the governorship? If you want an abuse of power, well you have it. This will not turn off many Republicans either, which is so sad. The state of politics today is so low that as long as their side "wins," few care what is done to get them there. You can be sure that if Fletcher was a Democrat, FOX News and talk radio would be calling for impeachment at best and coup de tat at a worse.

East Side Evacuation

For information on the Evacuation, check WCPO and the Enquirer. WCPO is reporting that a curfew may be established for tonight. I hope just in the evacuation area.

I myself live to the East of the area, within a couple miles. I know several people who live in the affected area and hope they are coping with the hassle. I for one hope the parties responsible for leaving this stuff around for 9 months get punished. I have been walking on the Lunken Bike Trail near this tanker for months and did not know it.

Tanker Leak

I live fairly close to this tanker leak, so I was a bit concerned when I heard about it last night, after I had driven by the general area. This morning Columbia Parkway is closed off in the area, so I am concerned about anyone living in the area. If the road is still closed today, it must have been a bigger leak than they thought, or someone is being really cautious.

Hackett Riding Wave

After his narrow loss for the 2nd district Paul Hackett is still garnering plenty of attention from local and national politicos.

Will Hackett seek another office? Will he run again in 2006 against Schmidt?

Bronson Blames Clinton for 9/11

I will never cease to be amazed at the level of out right ignorance and spiteful hate Peter Bronson has for former President Bill Clinton. Ok, the guy got a bj in the oval office. We get it. He was not the first and will not be the last man (or President) to cheat on his wife. How Peter can twist his puritan sexual loathing of Clinton into a mind numbing attack where he blames Bill Clinton for 9/11, is simplly lost on me:

Not even the Pentagon budget can buy a force field to protect President Bush from the press-corps lasers. But former President Clinton is still bulletproof.

During his administration in 2000, a top-secret Pentagon project called Able Danger tracked al-Qaida terrorists, and uncovered a cell including Mohamed Atta, leader of the 9/11 hijackers, according to officers who worked on the project.

But the Clinton administration had put up a wall of rules to keep the FBI from talking to the CIA. Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., said attempts to alert the FBI were blocked by Clinton lawyers. "They said, 'He's here legally. He's either got a green card or he's got a visa. So you can't even touch him - it doesn't matter what information you have.'''

That might be a big story - "White House kept FBI from stopping 9/11 terrorists" - but it can't get past the invulnerable Clinton force-field.

Here we have Peter living in a FOX News world, sucking on his FOX News Pacifier. He writes for a large newspaper, yet seems to believe the fantasy that somehow his heroes don't get a pass. I would just like to ask him how big a price George Bush has paid for either being a complete idiot or for lying to the public. Bush either was a fool and trusted invalid information, or he knowingly presented bad information to the American puclic. Ether way he gave bad information to the public and sent us into a war we were told was needed because Iraq was a threat to us. Once again, to educate those few remaining diehard war supporters, Iraq was not a threat to the USA and had no connection to 9/11. I say this with fact on my side. If you, like Bronson, somehow think the truth is not getting out about the threat of Iraq on the USA or of it's alleged connection to 9/11, then I guess you should be more pissed at FOX News for not reporting the truth you want to hear.

Fantasy man, Peter Bronson, seems to not get out much beyond his cul-de sac and the way he writes his tripe column this week, you would think he is only reading FreeRepublic.com and listening to Sean Hannity. I mean, your average mainstream Republican does not hold these types of views. So either Peter is playing the antagonist to my protagonist or he is really just off on some lunatic extreme right wing snakebite induced bender. Either way, I hope people don't buy into his mythical propaganda, but I am sure some suckers will. Someone will like the views they hear, want to believe them, find them a boost to their political identity, and buy into it.

Reece Ruled a Resident

The Vice Mayor 'officially' lives lives in Cincinnati, at least as the Board of Elections is concerned. With the evidence she had on her side it would have been very difficult to prove otherwise. You don't have to sleep in a residence every night to 'live' there. Utility bills cover it.

What is still on the table, but doesn't seem to be going anywhere, are the signatures that may have been gather by her family, who have given up their registration status.

What Kimball Perry's article illustrates best are the severe issues Nate Livingston has:

After board chairman Tim Burke told Livingston they were only interested in allegations from the last six years, Livingston became angry.

He yelled at Burke, repeatedly screaming at him to "be quiet" and "shut up." When Livingston continued to yell but also stood up to confront Burke, a Hamilton County sheriff's deputy at the meeting for security purposes yelled at Livingston several times to sit down.

"Don't give me no more lectures," Livingston screamed at Burke.

After that, Livingston told the board he didn't think they were taking his complaint seriously and asked them to dismiss it so he could present it instead to law-enforcement authorities.

The word "unhinged" comes to mind. It will come to no shock that I will be attacked by him for highlighting his childish temper tantrum, but what I say is nothing compared to the shame having this in the Enquirer brings. For once Nate actually had a valid issue to go after, and then he lets the chip on his shoulder ruin it.

31 Council Candidates?

Damn, that is just way to big a number.

At this point I don't know how many will get on the ballot. The obscure candidates tend to have problems getting enough valid signatures.

Props to Bronson

I have to give Peter Bronson some occasional credit, but I am doing it a day late so not to make it flowing with praise, and confuse my readers too much.

A pretty good column from Bronson on Huggy Bear. He walked the line on being too harsh on Zimpher. Pete has to please the meat eating UC fans out there, but did not really have that big a problem with this her views, more her timing and style.

He had a good line too, actually very timely: "But if Huggins is the Venezuelan dictator of coaches, Zimpher sounds like the Pat "Hit Man" Robertson of college presidents."

I actually chuckled.

Thanks Maggie!

Maggie Downs is Leaving Cincinnati. It is very sad to see her go. I have enjoyed her writing and am happy to be able to call her a friend. The Enquirer will have a hole in it and so will the many friends she has made here in town.

I personally wish her well in her journey out West, and hope she can find life as good there as I think she found it here.

Maggie, please don't be a stranger to Cincinnati. We would love to have to back. Take Care and Be Well!

CEA's Tomorrow

Hey, don't forget the CEA Theater Awards take place tomorrow night. Tickets are 20 bucks at the door. 8PM at CCM's Corbett Auditorium.

Roller Boogie Reece

CityBeat has a profile of the mayoral candidate.

CityBeat also covers the remaining candidates for mayor in one article and do a send up of Justin Jeffre's attempts to get a front page article, like the above one for Reece.

Counterpoint on Huggins' dismissal

I am once again put in the unenviable position of having to defend Bob Huggins, who I despise, but…

If you want to make the case that he should be fired because of the off-the-court behavior of his players, fair enough, though I would argue that incidents have decreased over the past several years. If it’s because of the DUI, they should have done it last year when it happened. If it’s because of the grad rates, it should have happened five years ago, instead of now when 11 players have received degrees in the past four years. If it’s because of low player GPA, then I suggest that the school hire an attorney that can spell the word ‘team’, or at least use a spell checker. And if they just wanted him gone, then Zimpher should have had the guts to do it in March, instead of wait until after all the UCATS donation came in to pull this (and if she has any integrity she’ll give a full refund to any donor that wants their money back).

Those who say that firing Huggins will improve the academic image of the university are fooling themselves. Show me one graduate of UC that didn’t get a job because Bob Huggins tarnished the reputation of their education. I don’t know where anyone got this idea that UC is a borderline Ivy league school; it’s average at best. Maybe the reason for its low academic reputation is that it just isn’t that good. Why have Michigan, who has been racked with probation issues, and Tulane, who went through point shaving scandals, not had issues with their reputations? Because they’re great academic schools.

And don’t think that UC is going to get anything better than a third-tier coach that will be nothing more than a puppet for Zimpher. Last year’s recruiting class stunk because Huggins was a lame duck coach; this year’s will be worse, because Andy Kennedy (or whomever is the interim coach) knows they’ll be gone in a year. No established coach, or even a decent up-and-comer for that matter, would take this job with two lost classes; if you think one would, I challenge you to give me names and I’ll tell you why they won’t come here. Also, if I’m the incoming coach, I want specific guidelines on what the academic expectations are. If graduating 11 players in four years isn’t good enough, then what are the parameters?

In the end, it’s Nancy’s school, and if she wants to fire him, she’s got every right to. But I think she’s isolated herself so much from any dissenting opinions that she doesn’t fully grasp what she’s gotten herself into here. And when the donations stop flowing in (and they’ve already lost a $4 million one) and she has to start raising tuition significantly, she’s going to have to explain why this was a good idea.

Adam

Reality Bytes

Part of the Problem with College Sports

The letters to the editor today illustrate what is wrong with college sports. The vast majority of the letters are upset. They want Huggins to stay. Why? They want the team to win. Well, that is something they should expect from the Bengals and the Reds, two professional sports teams whose only purpose is to entertain them with wins. College athletes are there to get an education. I know that is not how the big time colleges act, but it should be. The players here are not pieces of meat. They should be given a real education. The players that come here should want an education. If they want ONLY to go to the NBA, don't bring them here.

Huggins Gone!!!

I can't help but GLOAT over this one. I didn't like his style and methods. He is part of what is wrong with college sports today. UC has taken a step up in my opinion.

More from War All the Time, QCF's official blog. They are saying Skip Prosser will be back in town as coach. That would be a coup, if true.

Ohio U. is Number Two Party School

Yea, they can party. They can't play football. This actually is a really hated "honor" for school officials. OU is a good school, but suffers from a 'bad' image of slackers, hippies, pot heads, and outcasts. I am sure people are shocked I did not go there.

Robot Republicans

It is sad yet true that so many Republican voters are mindless drones who are driven to vote by code words:

Winburn is using direct mail and recorded phone calls aimed at Republican voters in an effort to remind them that he is the endorsed Republican in the race. As a councilman, Pepper often did better in Republican wards than the endorsed Republican candidates.

Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell and U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Westwood, have been targeting Republican households in recorded messages that campaign operatives call "robocalls."

"Charlie Winburn was a strong conservative voice on City Council for eight years," Chabot says. "As a family man himself, Charlie believes in the family values important to Cincinnati Republicans. Charlie Winburn is the only endorsed Republican candidate for mayor."

I know that Dems can be swayed too, but Winburn is trying to ring a bell in hopes that his base will start salivating. The sad part is, as the last two elections show, it works with mindless drones out there who vote either by party line or the "family values" drivel.

New WVXU Website

91.7 WVXU's website has a new url (www.wvxu.org) and a really new look. The site is much better than the old site. The X-Star website was not very good and was in a really old format, never getting much of an update.

This site is dynamic and offers quite a bit. It could use more first hand local news, instead of WCPO syndication. They are set up for it, but have not produced much yet.

An Enqurier guest column remembers the old WVXU.

CEA's This Friday

Make sure you buy your tickets now for the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards for Theater this Friday. Come out and support Local theater!

DeWine in Trouble?

Interesting speculation on next year's Race for the U.S. Senate. Mike DeWine should be worried both about Taft bringing down the GOP in Ohio as much as he should worry about the old conservative guard not forgetting his independence streak against killing the filibuster.

This Is How You Shill For Big Oil

I know sometimes that reporters use Press Releases as the basis for their articles, but since when editors allow columnists to just write a story based on a Oil Industry Lobbyists? If this was not so straight forward I would say someone was paid. Instead of it being a columnist, that someone may be Gannett, Inc.

Home Town News for Wes Flinn

Just weeks after he left town, Wes Flinn is already making the newspaper in North Adams, his new home. It is a great article.

More Bad Journalism

In the same article about the Reeces we get this side story:

"Suburbanites for Winburn

Suburban Republican leaders endorsed Charlie Winburn on Thursday for mayor of Cincinnati, calling him the only candidate who can make Cincinnati a safe place to live.

The supporters included Mayors Robert Bemmes of Reading, Rick Bryan of Blue Ash, David Collins of Deer Park, Richard Ellison of Elmwood Place, Jay Gohman of Terrace Park, Brad Greenberg of Loveland, Virgil Lovitt of Sharonville, Dan Policastro of Mariemont, James Rolfes of North Bend and Theodore Shannon of Fairfax.

Others included Township Trustees Cliff Bishop, Sycamore; Tom Bryan and Joseph Honerlaw, Springfield, Keith Corman, Colerain; Russ Jackson and Peggy Reis, Anderson; Jodie Leis, Kathy Wagner and Eric Minamyer, Symmes; and Chuck Mitchell and Tony Upton, Green.

Vice mayors include Joe Schickel, Loveland; Clara Pugh, Forest Park; and Joe Schickel, Loveland.

Clerks: Heather Harlow, Colerain Township, and Tom Straus, Green Township.

Council members include Jim Sumner and Henry Stacey, Blue Ash; Kerry Rabe, Sharonville; Mark Quarry, Silverton; and Mike Mestemaker, Cheviot."

Now, the nice editors created a totally misleading subheading saying "Suburbanites for Winburn" which misleads the reader. It should have read "Suburnban Republican Leaders for Winburn," but that ends up sounding like a "Water is Wet" headline. What also is bad here is that the rest of section just lists the leaders out. This is right from a press release, not original reporting at all. This is not even news. This is a free campaign commercial for Winburn. At least the Pepper section on this article had quotes from the campaign. They could have gotten something from Winburn to use. Hell, there should have been quotes in the press release that they could have used.

This goes to show that the GOP leaders in the rest of the country are either stupid or just loyal partisans. I hope it is the latter, but it could of course be both.

Reece Family Pull Registrations

Every member of Reece family, except the Vice Mayor, pulled their voter registrations after being questioned on their residency. They were all obviously playing some type of game with voting and got caught. It has been rather obvious, but for some reason now, action was taken.

This will hurt Reece, but odds I think were already against her making the top two anyway.

Thank You!

I wish to put out a big thank you to Adam and Josh for filling in for me while I was on vacation. I think they did a great job, and carried forth the blog with gusto! Things may or may not get back to normal now; I am still recovering a bit.

Religious Freedom, Only for the Monotheistic

Family Order To Keep Boy From Wicca Thrown Out