Chalk up another one for Rudy's great response after 9/11.
Beck said he saw sanitation workers removing small pieces of debris containing possible bone fragments and loading them "onto tractors, and using it to pave roads and fill in potholes, dips and ruts."
Source: 9/11 remains possibly used on roads: court papers | Reuters (h/t to soon to be Ohio blogger Cliff Schecter)
Blackwell has joined the fray with this little quote (with more at the Politics Extra blog)
"but I want to talk about the principle of abandoning the (state-funded) abstinence programs. In effect what you're doing is abandoning our young people. . .He's not just abandoning programs. He's abandoning our youth."
Really? If abstinence only programs are working now imagine how great they'd be if we added things like safe sex and contraceptives.
Matt Naugle (Yes, that Matt Naugle) also felt compelled to join the fray in his typical wing nut, sore loser style.
I believe Ted Strickland's office is hinting at some sort of a "safe sex" curriculum- So watch out parents! Ted Strickland is coming to your childrens' high school (middle school?) with a basket of condoms and a smile on his face
As well as a photoshopped picture to accompany the description. Really Matt, there's no one night stands in your past? I actually respect that in a person. How many of your friends can honestly say the same about themselves?
Fair warning: I'm about to get pissed. It doesn't happen often so bear with me.
I'm sick to death of all these far right religious zealots that think that if they tell kids not to have sex over and over again that they won't. Guess what? You're wrong. I live in small town America where everybody knows everybody and all that means is that the kids know the parents of the person their sleeping with.
With these so called "Abstinence Only" programs schools lose their whole sex education funding if the attempt to reach the 8 or 9 out of 10 people in the class that aren't paying attention. If we attempt to drop these idiotic programs, like Ted Strickland is doing now, the entire right wing starts crying thinks like "Oh my God, he wants our kids to have sex" or some other BS. I'm sick of it, your kids are probably still going to go out and have sex. Would you rather they not know about condoms or birth control?
Oh and just for the record I actually do practice abstinence, I just know there's a lot of people out there that don't.
Read More:
And just to further irritate the religious right you can get a free Trojan condom here.
Sorry, I just needed to rant. I'm better now.
I can't find a story to link to on this but I just saw it on MSNBC. Madonna has said she would vote for Al Gore if he ran for president.
I got this email today from the Dennis Kucinich camp about their recent changes to their website. I've highlighted the part in the middle that just struck me as being off topic.
Notice To Current www.kucinich.us Visitors
Dear Friends,
In the upcoming days, you'll notice some changes in our website. As part of this new look, we have moved the user log-in box to the Forum area of the website. You can find it easily by using the pull-down menu for Forum-Chat Room Users at the top of the page.
Those who told lies to take us into war should be held accountable under the U.S. Constitution and at the International Criminal Court.
We hope that you will be as pleased as we are with the new design. It is our goal to always improve your experience.
Thank you,
The Kucinich Web Team
This is why Kucinich doesn't have a chance.
I'm tired so my comments can wait until tomorrow.
Don't bother waiting for my comments, Eric over at Plunderbund has it covered better than I could.
De Vellis, 33, stirred controversy last year when he was in charge of Internet strategy for the successful Senate campaign of Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown. After anonymously posted criticism of Brown's Democratic primary opponent began appearing on local Web sites, an Ohio blogger reported that the writer's Internet address matched that of de Vellis. The Brown campaign acknowledged its involvement, but de Vellis denied posting the comments.
Source: A Brave New World of Political Skulduggery? - washingtonpost.com
I just noticed that http://governor.ohio.gov/ has gotten a major overhaul in the looks department like I'd predicted it would. Go check it out, it's nice.
Read More: Governor of Ohio Ted Strickland - Home
The second and final Democrat on the Cuyahoga County elections board has resigned. That just leaves the two Republicans that are threatening to fight Brunner in court, even though it's pretty much a wasted effort on their part.
Read More: OPENERS: Second elections official resigns
Despite the recent turn of events Elizabeth Edwards is still planning to attend a previously scheduled speaking event in Cleveland Monday.
Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of 2008 Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, will give a personal account of battling breast cancer in Cleveland on Monday.
Scheduled months ago to speak here, her story took a dramatic turn today with the announcement that her breast cancer has recurred and spread to the bone.
Edwards has been scheduled to talk at the City Club as part of the Women in the Game series, which is co-sponsored by the YWCA Greater Cleveland.
Despite the news, an Edwards representative called the City Club this afternoon to confirm her appearance, said City Club spokeswoman Missy Toms.
Tickets are still available (though they aren't free) for all of you Northeasterners.
Source: OPENERS: Elizabeth Edwards to speak Monday in Cleveland
For the first time in a long time an Ohio blog is one of the top stories on Memeorandum and it's all over the post I recommended at 4 o'clock this morning. I even saw it mentioned on Politico. It really is an extremely well written post and it's presented a side of the story that hadn't yet been touched by the MSM. There's also a BSB follow up post here.
I'd also recommend checking out Bill Sloat's piece about just how unoriginal this ad was.
Read More: memeorandum: Calling BS on De Vellis - It Wasn't Him (Jerid/Buckeye State Blog)
But hoping for the best.
The John Edwards press conference was supposed to start about 10 minutes ago (they must be running late) and it's expected to be bad news. I'll be live blogging the press conference here.
Mentions that they had their wedding reception there. Elizabeth had pain in her left side. Has possible fracture on right side and something suspicious on right side. Had further test of right rib, biopsy showed return of cancer. Largely confined in bone, says that's a good thing. Say's they are "very optimistic", though bone cancer in no longer curable it is treatable.
Elizabeth speaks. Wanted to tell family first. Children "fairly disappointed" that she won't lose her hair in the next round of medicine. I guess that was a joke. Plans on not changing her life, I assume that means that Edwards is still running. If she hadn't cracked left rib she wouldn't have gotten chest X-ray that found cancer. Edwards: "Campaign goes on, campaign goes on strongly". Have no intention of "cowering in the corner". Talks about trip to California in a few days and says hat they will be traveling together.
Broke her rib trying to move a chest of drawers in their new house, says everyone's probably heard that they moved. John says that if Elizabeth needs him he'll be there no matter what's going on with the campaign.
So there you have it. The cancer is back and the campaign goes on. I don't really know what else to say. I've always like both of the Edwards and I've always viewed Elizabeth Edwards as a strong, compassionate woman. It goes without saying that I'm hoping for the best.
I wasn't around the Ohio 'sphere back during the whole Hackett debacle and in fact I had never heard of Buckeye Senate Blog or Buckeye Politics until today. I started blogging about political issues only last summer an actually only learned of the many other Ohio blogs after that. I finally managed to get the story from an excellent post at Buckeye State Blog.
I have to say that I have a lot less respect for Sherrod Brown now (he's still better than DeWine).
Read More: Calling BS on De Vellis - It Wasn't Him | Buckeye State Blog
While reading an ABC News story I noticed that they had broke out the red breaking news banner with the text
JOHN EDWARDS AND HIS WIFE, ELIZABETH, TO HOLD PRESS CONFERENCE THURSDAY AT NOON ET -- DEVELOPING
They don't have a story up yet but I know his wife had a doctors appointment recently about her breast cancer. They said everything was good though so hopefully it's something else.
I headed over to johnedwards.com to see if I could find anything but I wasn't even able to find an announcement of the press conference. Though while browsing around I found a few unrelated things of interest. The first was a sign-up form for "citizen journalists" with the following description.
Through blogging, video blogging, and podcasting, citizen journalists provide information and insights from many sources in addition to traditional media sources. John Edwards for President supports citizen journalism, and we encourage you to become a citizen journalist if you are not one already. By signing up, you will get advance notice of news and events from the campaign and may have your content featured on this site.
The other was a rather comprehensive list of the social networks that John Edwards has a presence on. Of particular interest to me was the goal based site 43 Things where users can create and share lists of 43 goals and track their progress to achieving them. What goals did Edwards have? Mostly predictable things like "be elected President of the United States" and "donate blood". He also had the goal "Move Cleveland forward with progressive thinking", the only goal tied to a location in his list.
Read More: Move Cleveland forward with progressive thinking on 43 Things
Update: Unfortunately I was right, the conference is about his wife's health. Let's just hope the news is of the good variety.
The mystery behind who created Hillary 1984 YouTube ad has been solved. Who is the creator? Former Sherrod Brown campaign Internet communications director and current (see below) Blue State Digital employee Philip de Vellis.
For the last two weeks, the Internet has been buzzing about the hottest online mystery since lonelygirl15: who was behind the "Hillary 1984" video mashup?
Some suspected right wing SwiftBoaters. Some speculated it was the work of disaffected Democratic consultants. One blogger even pointed the finger at me.
As the intrigue deepened, the mainstream media joined the fray, with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both being asked about the viral smash -- and much talk about the impact user-generated political videos will have on the 2008 race.
Well, today I can end the guessing. Last night, we sent out a challenge to the HuffPost team asking them to hit the phones and contact all their sources. As a result, we have learned the video was the work of Philip de Vellis, who was the Internet communications director for Sherrod Brown's 2006 Senate campaign, and who now works at Blue State Digital, a company created by members of Howard Dean's Internet Team.
Source: The Blog | Arianna Huffington: Who Created "Hillary 1984"? Mystery Solved! | The Huffington Post
Update: According to a press release from Blue State Digital Vellis has been fired.
Update #2: Phil has his side of the story up on Huffington Post.
In House Appropriations Committee yesterday Republicans voted unanimously against an amendment to an appropriations bill for the Iraq war that would require our soldiers to be properly equipped and trained as well as being both mentally and physically healthy before they could be deployed to Iraq.
Anyone remember the days before the election when "defeat-o-crat" and "cut and run" were Republican's two favorite terms? Back then I remember a lot of them also saying that by opposing the war the Democrats were hurting the moral of our troops. With their votes today the Republican party has shown that those words were just a political ploy.
Read More: Regula, Hobson: I'd Support The Troops, But the GOP Said "NO" | Buckeye State Blog
Get out your pitchforks and your torches people, Karl Rove is coming to Ohio.
Karl Rove, a senior presidential adviser and Republican strategist widely credited with President Bush’s tight victories in 2000 and 2004, will make an appearance in New Philadelphia on April 18.
He is scheduled to speak at the Tuscarawas County Republican Party’s annual Lincoln Day Dinner at the McDonald/Marlite Conference Center.
Doug Wills, county GOP chairman, referred to Rove as a “political mastermind” who “does not back down on any issues.”
As always when I talk about Karl I have to mention this story. From Wikipedia:
In the fall of 1970, Rove used a false identity to enter the campaign office of Democrat Alan J. Dixon, who was running for Illinois State Treasurer, and stole 1000 sheets of paper with campaign letterhead. Rove then printed fake campaign rally fliers promising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing", and distributed them at rock concerts and homeless shelters, with the effect of disrupting Dixon's rally (Dixon eventually won the election). Rove's role would not become publicly known until August 1973. Rove told the Dallas Morning News in 1999, "It was a youthful prank at the age of 19 and I regret it."[3]
And like always I'll make the usual joke about wether I'm more ticked that he did it or that I didn't think of it.
Source: The Times-Reporter
This could get ugly. Sec. of State Jennifer Brunner has called for the resignation of the entire Cuyahoga County Board of Elections after 2 former members were found guilty of rigging a recount in the 2004 election. One member, Republican Bob Bennet, is already promising to take the matter to court.
Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner asked for the resignation of all four Cuyahoga County elections board members Sunday evening. She will move to fire them if they don't agree to leave by the close of business on Wednesday.
Brunner said the two Democrats, Edward Coaxum and Loree Soggs, originally agreed to resign if asked but now appear unwilling to do so. Republicans Sally Florkiewicz and board Chairman Bob Bennett plan to fight the order. Bennett is holding a news conference in Columbus today, where he says he will take the secretary of state to court.
She said she decided ask the board to resign after a Cuyahoga County judge sentenced two board of elections workers to 18 months in prison for rigging a recount of the 2004 presidential election. A year and a half behind bars is the maximum punishment allowed by law.
Brunner said she doesn't hold the board members directly responsible for actions of the two workers but believes they bear some responsibility.
I think she has a right to do this. There are just as many Democrats on that board as there are Republicans and to have the recount you run be rigged is pretty serious stuff.
While browsing the Buckeye Institute's "Eye on the Statehouse" blog I noticed that they had two recent articles against the Ohio Historical Society. Is the OHS really such a waste that it warrants two mentions when Ken Blackwell's $80,000 bonuses got by without comment?
The earliest post talks about how the OHS isn't a government agency and therefore shouldn't be entitled to state money and pointed out how only about 3% of the OHS's budget came from donations. Just nine short days later they called for the historical society to be the ones to foot the bill for renovations to historical exhibits in the Statehouse using money it receives from donations? Uh, excuse me? A non-government agency that's not entitled to state money should have to pay to renovate the very center of that government using it's donation money?
Back to the original question, What does the Buckeye Institute have against history? The 1851 Constitution that they get so excited about (they call people who donate $5,000+ the "1851 Society") is kept by the society as is mandated in the Ohio Revised Code (O.R.C. § 111.08).
The Ohio historical society shall have charge of and safely keep the following original documents: Ohio Constitution of 1802; Ohio Constitution of 1851; proposed Ohio Constitution of 1875; design and the letters of patent and assignment of patent for the state flag
They of course don't mention that part. They also don't mention all the cutbacks that the OHS has had to make in recent years due to major cuts in state funding.
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