Will DNA Replace Fingerprinting?

Law makers in Ohio are pushing to sample the DNA of people convicted of a felony or sex-crime misdemeanor. How long before a DNA sample replaces or is added to being fingerprinted at each arrest, as opposed to each conviction?

Sweeps Breeds Fear

Here we have local TV news in the middle of sweep raising panic on the suburban viewer once again. No context is provided on the increase. Numbers need to be compared. Cherry picking a 10% rise in Downtown just to make the point that people have a misplaced fear of Downtown does nothing but increase the fear of ignorant suburbanites who like to live in a jail. Here WKRC is playing the part of stooge for those in the burbs who want Downtown to fail, and every business to leave. Those people are out there and every local government offering tax breaks to lure company's to Mason, NKY, and West Chester are among them.

Mayoral Update

The Cincinnati Post has another update on who is and is not or might be running for Mayor. A recap of press accounts:

Running
Mark Mallory
David Pepper

Maybe
Alicia Reece
Jim Tarbell
Chris Smitherman
Mark Painter
Charlie Winburn

Not Running
Charlie Luken
John Cranley
Donald Duck

Nick Spencer on the Move

Nick Spencer has moved his blog to his campaign website. Update your favorites.

He Hate Me? (No)

I guess some people believe I am polarizing or that is what I take away from a post from Michael at Cincinnati Group. I really don't see myself as polarized. I have opinions and people agree or disagree with them, but I don't think I am extreme on any big issue. I don't think being confrontational on issues or even heavy handed is polarizing. I also don't think when I state what I believe are facts, but do so in a manner people find harsh or shrill, that I am polarizing. I take sides on issues. I am not stuck on every element of most issues. There are a few I will not budge on, but that makes me stubborn, not out on a polar extreme. Additionally, I don't think people really hate me. They may think I suck and am a waste of time, but don't hate me. So I guess I would have said "love him or think he sucks" instead of "love him or hate him." It is a matter of semantics.

The post ended up having little to do with me, except that I guess I got lucky in naming my blog what it is. I guess no one would be reading me if Cincinnati was not in the name of my blog, not that many read me now as it is. I think my parents are just hitting refresh 50 times a day. I got indirectly slammed (or directly), but CiN took the brunt of it.

I do really disagree a lot about Michael's comment that I don't that much to do with Cincinnati. I have a lot to do with Cincinnati, but I am not niche blog about Cincinnati. I comment on local media, local news, local politics, and local cultural events mostly. During the Presidential race I did talk about national issue a lot, but I still hit the issues affecting people in the city.

I am not from Cincinnati, that is clear. I happily am from Western New York State. I think I bring a perspective on the city that is different and not filled with either assumed knowledge or historical bias. I have bias; just not one where I assume things here in Cincinnati will never change. It just may take years.

Someone Gets Leis

In a letter to the Enquirer we read:

Sheriff's response to chase heartless

In regard to 'Sheriff: Chase was right call' (Nov. 13): So Sheriff Simon Leis sees nothing wrong with chasing after a kid stealing gas that results in a woman's death. 'There could have been a body in the trunk' is his response. Sure, and there might have been a car bomb in the trunk, too, but highly doubtful. Wearing a 'tin star' doesn't condone such egregious overreaction that ends in an innocent bystander's death. The sheriff's self-serving, heartless and totally out-of-touch response condoning the officer's movie car-chase mentality strongly indicates why he has outlived his usefulness to Hamilton County.

John Gunselman
Anderson Township

Indeed!

I hope John is a Republican. Only Republicans can get J. Edgar HooverSimon Leis to quit.

Provisional Ballots

The real question that should be asked while the provisional ballots are counted is why do we have so many? An investigation should be made to determine why so many provisional ballots had to be cast. What I would guess is clerical errors brought on by the increased registration this year taxing an understaffed Board of Elections. We still do not properly fund the elections process in this state. As long as we have one party rule, will never will.

Both Allen and Collins Want Tax Money

Rebecca Collins has now joined Mike Allen in asking Hamilton County Taxpayers to cough up cash to defend her. Mike Allen did this earlier this fall.

Mayoral Race Still a Mess

Korte's latest column reports that John Cranley is not running for mayor, Alicia Reece is on the fence, and Jim Tarbell is considering it.

Jeff Berding is also likely running for council as a Dem. I have never heard of Jeff by name, but come February we may hear more. He works for the Bengals which may or may not be a liability, depending on how many games they end up winning this year.

Tall Stacks Back

In 2006 Tall Stacks will return a year earlier than thought. I welcome this event to the area. I went last year and really enjoyed the night I spent there. I was not able to go on a cruise, but from what I heard last year the riverboat cruises were mostly worth it. The price may have been too high for some, but the experience was to have been worth the lines.

I am sure some will harp on this event for not making money. This is the kind of event that the city and county should chip-in with, where millions of revenue can be generated.

Corporate Wellfare

Luken has sunk to a new low. He now wants to subsidize P&G's corporate jets. What office is Charlie running for now that he has to suck up to P&G's money? What benefit will this bring to anyone other than a few P&G executives? I think the golf course can wait for an upgrade. I think that we need to fund economic development for downtown and reinstate the social service programs Luken wants to cut. If we can expedite some regulation to help P&G get its new hanger built, then great, but they should pay all of the costs, including any modifications needed to the golf course if they want a new hanger for the their pampered executives who don't live in the damn city anyway.

Is David Pepper in favor of this? Does his father still get use of a company jet?

So Much For a Settlement

Mike Allen has counter sued Rebecca Collins. He has come out and is laying on the sleaze. This may help Mike's chances of winning the lawsuit or of getting a better settlement deal, but it solidifies that he had a long term affair and is one big ass liar who really had no commitment to his wife.

Allen does make Collins look really bad. He is using the slut defense and it likely will work to a large degree.

What is laughable is Mike playing the victim. His wife is a victim. He is a man who cheated on his wife. That is a low position in society and his claims that he was ruined by Collins are all bullshit. He is responsible for his downfall. He may have a case that her legal claims have no merit, but his have even less validity than hers.

The legal brief reminds me of the Star report with details of Collins’ alleged sexual escapades. There are even emailed pictures too. It just has a cheap feel to it, and frankly both Allen and Collins come across like cheap tramps.

More Coverage: Post, WCPO, WLWT, AP, and WKRC.

Circus

The "battle" for the city council seat being vacated by Pat DeWine has started a wave of discussion and trepidation over who will take over that seat. Logic dictates that the Republican who got the next highest number of votes in the last election would become the obvious choice. That would be Leslie Ghiz. Some are doing everything to try and stop that from happening.

Peter Witte wants the seat, and every time the crime is mentioned in the media he likely is jumping with joy.

Phil Burrass wants the seat so every time abortion or homosexuals are mentioned he is gets exited, but then remembers he has to get someone to pick Barb Trauth, his surrogate.

Nate Livingston wants the seat too, but I think he understands that the GOP wouldn't pick him in a million years. Neither would any other political party for obvious reasons, but that part has not sunk in and stopped him from a diatribe against Leslie Ghiz.

Nick Spencer has the most honest commentary on what is going on in the battle for DeWine's seat: it is the bigoted wing of the GOP pushing its campaign of fear. Bigot is of course my word of choice, not Nick's. I said honest here because Nick comes from the GOP and knows what he is talking about.

We also get a hint of who is or might be running for Council: Nick, Leslie and Brian Gerry are in. Brinkman may also be in? Zeus help us! Fanon Rucker and Greg Harris would both get on council in a heart beat and are being courted heavily. Any other names of those who are possible council candidates?

Little Tent

Oh, I seem to remember lots of Republicans all happy and gloating that pro-choice Republicans were allowed to speak the GOP Convention, but now we see that words and deeds are indeed two different words in the Republican party. Senator Frist now is applying a litmus test to chairman of the Judiciary committee. They must support the President's choices. I guess advise and consent are just words.

Don't Dis Kos

Does Carl Weiser even read DailyKos

Through Web sites like www.democraticunderground.org, www.blackboxvoting.org, www.dailykos.com, www.indyvoter.org, www.freepress.org and even one called www.recountohio.org, anti-Bush forces are pushing for investigations, recounts and even a retraction of Kerry's concession.

Lumping in DailyKos with these others is like lumping in the OpinionJournal.com with the FreeRepublic.com.

The Rest of the Story Bronson's Not Telling You

After a reader checked up on the Bronson post below I found I did not link to the right story and got the wrong location of where the GOP Challenger became the poll worker. Here is the except from the election day story Howard Wilkinson (a real political reporter) posted online:

As of mid-day, there was only one report of trouble.

At the Holy Name Church Parish House in Mount Auburn, where two overwhelmingly Democratic and African-American precincts vote, a person who was to have been a GOP vote challenger was named at the last minute to fill a vacant position as one of the regular Republican precinct judges who are always on hand to monitor voting.

Voters and vote monitors complained that the GOP precinct judge was questioning every voter about his or her address and "being a jerk about it," Burke said.

Burke and Tony Reisig, a Republican administrator at the board of elections, were dispatched to the Mount Auburn polling place to talk to the poll worker.

"We made it clear that if he did not stop, he would be pulled out," Burke said.

This reads as the same location from Bronson's column:

The fender-bender was at Precinct 8A, the Holy Name Church in Mount Auburn. There were complaints of intimidation - but not by voters in the mostly black, Democratic precinct. The protests came from two white Republican poll workers.

Ah, WRONG PETER! There were complaints from that polling location and the question that I will safely speculate on is that one of the two people you got your story from was the person in question who became a poll worker at the last minute and was the source of the complaints referenced in the Wilkinson article. So when I say Bronson is a GOP Shill, I think people can see where I am coming from. Will we see a revision on this story? Don’t bet on it. Will we see another story about, like a follow-up from Wilkinson, I doubt it. Will anyone from the editorial staff of the Enquirer even notice it and chew out Bronson? I know, I know, I am laughing at the thought it myself.

Now, even if by some odd chance there was yet another GOP person at the that location that the people from Bronson's article forgot to mention, that takes nothing away from a polling location where someone took their vote challenger status and poll worker status to be one in the same. I guess that is somehow worse than people getting help on how to vote. We all are expect to read an all, now aren't we? [Insert Jim Crow reference here in case you missed it]

Bronson Has Selective Hearing, Or Just Likes To Exaggerate

In today's episode of Peter Bronson: GOP Shill we read about the spoon-fed story a couple of GOP hacks gave to Peter. Two white people from the burbs where sent into a mostly black neighborhood. This sounds like a retread reversed episode of Different Strokes. What I would like to know and Peter of course does not say is whether or not these two Republicans were in fact GOP Challengers who at the last minute became actual poll workers. This was the case in Ward 26 where a GOP hack tried to do both jobs of being a poll worker and prevent Democrats from voting. That episode seemed to just pass Peter by, even though it was reported online by his newspaper. I guess voter intimidation is not something he cares about, just white "poll workers" being intimidated by what he claimed were Democrats, drunks, and mentally challenged people. All three titles in Peter's mind I am sure are interchangeable, at least as much Republican, racist, and theocrat are interchangeable.

Why didn't Bronson mention the paranoid poll workers on the east side who thought they were being stalked and called the cops, only to find that the Kerry campaign people where following the ballot boxes to make sure they got to the BOE? This actually, after fact, was a funny story, not in the least because I know several of the campaign people who were there when the cops were called. Stephanie Dunlop's article gives a good account of the misplaced fear people had on election night.

What Bronson missed most was what most suburban whites miss, the realization that if a Democratic black person from Walnut Hills was assigned as a poll worker to work in West Chester or Mason, then they would likely have had far worse stories of intimidation from white voters or other poll workers that from their perspective would be just as negative, but maybe also overstated as Bronson’s tale of woe appears to be to me.

UPDATE: The story involving Ward 26 was incorrect. The story I remember is here and it is about the same precinct Bronson is referring to. I shall post a new post to except the story and show how Bronson should not just accept a Republican's word for it.

Breakin' the Law

Help me out here folks. Isn't "knowingly allowing false testimony": by a lawyer either a violation of the law or at least something you get disbarred for doing?

This happened 11 years ago, so statutes of limitations may apply on the criminal issues
(can a lawyer chime in?), but it wouldn’t have been nice if this little bit of information was known before November 2nd when people were deciding if Joe Deters should be in the same job where according to a judge he "knowingly allowing false testimony," which no matter how you slice it is bad.

I am sure the get a conviction no matter what crowd out there will in so many words claim the ends justify the means, but when they are on the Deter's chopping block, I wonder if they would change their tune.

Based on the article it does indeed look like Deters will have a scandal to deal with:

When Horn testified at Wogenstahl's trial, he said he "never" sold drugs -- something Harrison police later insisted under oath that Deters and assistant prosecutors Mark Piepmeier and Rick Gibson knew was false.

"(I)n August 1992, before the trial, Horn has been arrested and (convicted as a juvenile) for trafficking in marijuana. Wogenstahl claims that the prosecutors knew this but still allowed Horn to testify falsely," Painter wrote.

Harrison police officers swore in depositions after Wogenstahl's trial that that was exactly what happened.

"If proved, the prosecutors' conduct violated the law and ethical rules. And it is something that disciplinary counsel for the Ohio Supreme Court should examine," Painter wrote.

Judge Mark Painter was the judge in this case and is a well respected Republican, so anyone claiming politics is behind this is full of it. What prosecutor will honestly say a police officer is lying? That applies double here in Cincinnati where the police can do no wrong.

New Local Blog

Please welcome Brendan Cronin over at Spacetropic to the Cincy Blogosphere. He leans moderate and so far is focusing on national issues. He has a bio. Give him a read.

IHOP

Can anything bad happen when you go to an IHOP, outside of health problems from long term reliance oo pancakes as a source of food?