Diana Frey Accused of Embezzling Over $750K From CODE

The President of the CODE Union, Diana Frey, was indicted on Federal charges that including diverting over $750,000 of Union funds into her personal accounts. The details of the indictment indicate that no one was paying much attention or were just letting Frey do what she wanted unchallenged. That is a bad idea for any organization.

It makes me wonder about the procedure used to issue endorsements for city political offices back in 2009. In case you don't recall, those endorsements were:

CODE is also endorsing Brad Wenstrup for mayor. The incumbents being endorsed by CODE are Chris Bortz, Leslie Ghiz, Jeff Berding, and Chris Monzel. CODE is also endorsing newcomers Amy Murray, Tony Fischer, Anitra Brockman and George Zamary.

The source of the endorsements are from WLWT. This union falls in line with the FOP in supporting mostly Conservative/Republican candidates.  That's another odd stance that will be interesting to see how much the people at the top of the Union controlled those endorsements.

City Union Leader Under Investigation and 'Missing'

The Cincinnati Enquirer is reporting that Diana Frey, president of the Cincinnati Organized and Dedicated Employees (CODE) union is under investigation and has gone missing.

Arnold's To Be Featured on NBC TV Show In The Fall

A Cincinnati institution, Arnold's Bar and Grill, will be featured in NBC TV show Harry's Law starting in the new season this fall. There is no other way to say it: This is really cool. The bar and restaurant will have it's exterior used in the show and the interior is being "re-created" in Hollywood for regular use during the series. The owners of Arnold's have sent t-shirts, menus, and other decor items to add authenticity to the set. I am so very pleased for them. Arnold's is one of my favorite places in Cincinnati and is a wonderful image of our city to be seen nationally.  I hope Hollywood gets the place right, it is a unique Cincinnati treasure.

Other locations around the city will be used to give the TV show a sense of the real Cincinnati.  Last season depiction was not a very good likeness of our town.

A Little Cincinnati Brass to Help You Shake Your Ass on a Monday

Ken Blackwell Has a Bridge He Wants to Sell You

I don't know if Ken or someone at the Enquirer used the word "bold" in former Mayor and Council member Ken Blackwell's guest column: A bold idea: Consolidate Greater Cincinnati across state, county lines, but there is nothing bold about it. It is not a bold idea to say you are going to drive a 1999 Honda Civic to Mars. An idea isn't bold when it is not even possible in the world of science fiction.

Ken Blackwell wants to create some new 'form' of government that currently does not exist. It would take two State governments to change their laws to make it even conceptually possible. What Ken didn't put in his column is how he would solve the problem of taxes and residency. Are the people living in Kentucky now becoming part of Ohio? If not, how the hell would that work? Who would collect the taxes? How do elections work? What laws govern who? How can a single government function when different state laws affect different parts of its citizens?  The questions could go on and on.

Ken is really trying to sell you a bridge you don't need. His plan clearly appears to be a scheme to create large businesses that could serve all of the communities. This sounds like a large scale privatization plan, where all services of the governments would be outsourced to private companies. Why does this sound like that, since he doesn't actually say that? Simple, that is the only way it could conceptually work. Create some shell of a "government" that oversees the bidding process and that's all you need to fufill what Ken wants.  That hollow government wouldn't solve any problems, it would create more and put money in the pockets of the big businesses that happen to win contracts.

So, it's smoke and mirrors and Republcian dogma. Ken does not want a strong metro government that would have the teeth needed to actually govern, he wants an empty shell that big-business can exploit.

State Rep. Robert Mecklenborg To Resign August 2nd

Republican State Representative Robert Mecklenborg to resign August 2nd after being arrested for DUI with a much younger woman, who was not his wife, in the car. I am confused why he is waiting a couple of weeks to resign. I would guess it would be for financial or benefit reasons.

John Boehner Has a Choice: Be a Leader Or Let America Crash Into Ruin

Republican Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, John Boehner has a clear choice. He can be a leader and make a deal with the President or he can follow the insane politics of the backbenchers in his party. These puritanical naive Republican newbies who have created an economic theology worthy of a jihadist supply sider's worst peyote vision quest are knowingly trying to drive the Country off the cliff in hopes of waking us up into their mythical world. This is the world that pretends that the economic system of the pre-industrial south can work without the enslavement of the worker. Feudalism doesn't work without a population of mostly serfs. I don't know why there are so many Repbulcians who don't grasp that reality. They further don't grasp that with Capitalism there will always be poor people. Capitalism is not a positive sum game, where everyone wins. There are winners and there are losers. You could argue that everyone 'could' win, but based on the game, not everyone can.  Therefore as long as we have Capitalism, we will have poor people, the losers of the game. We as a society have to take care of everyone, not just the winners.  The game Republicans are playing is to take care of the winners in hopes of insuring their own status as a winner, while ignoring the majority of America who don't have the means to survive more losses.

Another thing that Cincinnati born John Boehner should do: laugh off Mitch McConnell's punting on 1st down idea.