BuckeyeBlog

The Plain Dealer reports that prominent Democrats are calling for Jimmy Dimora to resign his position as county Democratic chairman in light of an investigation that centers on him and Cuyahoga County Auditor Frank Russo. Although these “prominent Democrats” aren’t named, Governor Ted Strickland isn’t one of them. He says that it wouldn’t be “appropriate” for him to ask Dimora to resign.

Strickland’s reticence on this is amazing. Here he has a powerful Democratic Party county chairman who is also a county commissioner who is under federal investigation for a rash of financial improprieties and other misbehavior. A few months ago we had an Attorney General some of you may remember named Marc Dann. It was alleged Dann did some bad things, too — sexual harassment and an affair with a subordinate. No one investigated Dann for funneling money to his cronies or for getting free work done at his residence or for the systematic abuse of power that seems to be pervasive in Cuyahoga County. But for his relatively minor transgressions Dann faced a united Democratic front — led by Governor Strickland — who called for his resignation.

So why is the case of Dimora and Russo any different? Dann wasn’t under indictment, only under investigation, just like Russo and Dimora. But Dann’s alleged crimes pale in comparison to the alleged crimes of Dimora and Russo. The governor was correct in asking Dann to resign. I’m curious as to why he seems to have lost his zeal for ethical behavior in the Dimora and Russo case.

While the state’s main papers seem oblivious to the scandal unfoding in Cuyahoga County, at least some members of the media are asking why Governor Strickland is treating this differently than the Marc Dann episode. From the Hillsboro Times Gazette:

Shortly after former Attorney General Marc Dann held a news conference in May to answer questions about a sexual harassment scandal involving a top aide, the response from Democrats was quick and forceful: resign or be impeached.

Yet two weeks have passed since the FBI in Cleveland raided the offices and homes of Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy DiMora and Auditor Frank Russo, and the Democratic Party’s response has been muted.

The party issued an initial statement that the two men should be held accountable if there was wrongdoing, but has not supplied the almost daily pressure it did with Dann.

The FBI seized documents related to fundraising, travel and deals with contractors in the searches, which were also conducted at local businesses with county contracts.

What explains the differences in the party’s reactions to the developing scandals? After all, neither Dann, who did eventually resign, nor DiMora or Russo, have been charged with any crimes.

The answer? Politics:

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Raided

Where is the New York Times on the Cuyahoga County corruption story? By my count this morning there were 17,000 hits for “Ted Stevens” in the NY TImes site for the past seven days (yes, 17,000, counting all articles, blogs and comments) and nothing for “Dimora“.

Now I get it that a Senator may be a bigger target than a Midwestern Commish for the national media, and perhaps our expectations for the ethics of the US Senate are greater than those we hold for a county position.

Still, we are talking about a county that is home to one of America’s poorest cities, one plagued by all kinds of evils the lefties ascribed to too little government, such as unemployment and the mortgage meltdown. A county that is the political cornerstone to a Democratic victory in Ohio and thus nationally in the November presidential election. A county that is nearly twice the size of Alaska in terms of population.

17,300 cites to 0 is simply out of whack, but then again, it is the New York Times.

BTW, Cuyahoga County also costs all of the honest, hard-working taxpayers of the rest of Ohio dearly to support. So that’s why it is also disconcerting about the silence of our Governor Ted Strickland on this issue, and our new Attorney General Nancy Rogers. Where’s the outrage over the foul smell of offenses which draw in 200 federal agents from across two states to investigate?

Forget this nonsense put up by Strickland about leaving this all to the FBI and the feds. Think of all of the times you’ve read of state and local authorities, smelling blood in the water, jump into cases looking for their own chance at a pound of flesh, like Michael Vick facing VA charges after the federal case was prosecuted. Any good prosecuting authority can figure out how to get into a game as good as this one is.

And then there’s Marc Dann, whose impeachment Strickland, et al. were jonesing so hard after. Not because Dann had been found to have done anything “impeachable”, but because, well, Marc had been kind of a slob in running his office.

Where is the alacrity in running Dimora and Russo out of office shown by Strickland in the Dann Affair?

The Cleveland Plain Dealer has done a great job in covering this story and should be commended for pursuing accountability of government to the people so vigorously. Too bad other media outlets in Ohio and nationally aren’t following suit. Yet.

The Center for Freedom and Prosperity has released a video by the Cato Institute’s Dan Mitchell that discusses the economic problems that would follow adoption of Senator Barack Obama’s idea to impose Social Security taxes on incomes over $250,000. There’s a lot of good information in this video about tax rates, economic growth, Social Security, and proper tax policy:

The Dispatch reports:

Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, who had adamantly opposed [offshore] drilling, is among those warming to the idea. He says any exploration would have to be far from the coast and that the oil produced would be used in the United States, not abroad.

So clearly Senator Brown has no idea how the oil market actually works, does he? After all, it’s not as if U.S. oil is only sold in the U.S., Saudi oil is only sold in Saudi Arabia, Mexican oil is only sold in Mexico, etc. Oil is a global commodity. There is a global market for it. Any attempts to horde oil for sale in only one country would either be completely ineffective or provoke a flurry of harmful counter-measures. As a nation which buys a large share of its oil from overseas, do we really want other nations to refuse to sell their oil to us? (more…)

It’s always fun to attend a political convention or a central committee meeting of a party. Most of the time, the believers berate the pragmatists. And why not? Power versus principle, it’s a great debate. Power without principle is contemptible; principle without power is pretty, but pointless, except as art.

Ohio Democrats are probably reasonably happy, if they can avoid thinking about Marc Dann, and they can, can Dann, that is. But if you care about principle, maybe they shouldn’t be.

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The Washington Post reports on the flap over privatizing the Senate’s cafeterias.

Now remember, gasoline is $4.00/gallon, 130,000 troops are afield in Iraq, tens of thousands of young adults will be graduated by public schools unable to read, and the Democrat senate caucus finds time to not only contemplate, but to debate, the issue of privatizing the Senate food service.  Have they ever heard of the phrase “no-brainer”?

Here’s what Ohio’s junior senator had to say about this burning conflict: (more…)

Governor Strickland wants the state to review whether an agreement between DHL and UPS would violate anti-trust laws. It seems that his main issue is not whether the agreement would be good for consumers or whether it would really be anti-competitive, but instead is aimed at pressuring DHL to keep using facilities in the Wilmington area that employ around 6,000 people. And how does Strickland justify this move? “I think DHL has an obligation to the community and to the state, because we have tried to work in such a way as to be good partners,” he says.

He is referring to this:

The Dayton-Montgomery County Port Authority in March 2007 sold $270 million in bonds to support DHL’s expansion and upgrading of the Wilmington hub in recent years. That requires DHL to repay the bonds over 40 years, which would put pressure on the company to find a new use for the one-million-square-foot Wilmington sorting facility and airport if jobs are lost there and it generates less revenue, said Ron Parker, the port authority’s executive director.

So the port authority gave some welfare to DHL and now the Governor is using that to justify pressuring DHL into keeping a (possibly) unaffordable and inefficient cargo operation open? While I deplore the governor’s use of his office’s power to strong-arm DHL or any company, I have a little less sympathy for DHL because of its acceptance of a government handout to fund its expansion. After all, he who pays the piper calls the tune. Companies that seek handouts from the government (financed using your tax dollars) should expect opportunistic government officials to meddle even more in their affairs than is normal.

If you watch any of the cable news shows you may have seen Naomi Klein on them recently, discussing her book The Shock Doctrine. In it she makes the claim that Milton Friedman was essentially an enabler of dictators around the world and that he and his followers fomented crises in order to deregulate markets and thereby plunder the wealth of these nations. Anyone who has read Friedman knows this is ridiculous, but Klein has become a celebrity on the statist circuit for telling those audiences what they want to hear.

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Parents, kids and the principle of freedom won a victory in the Ohio Senate today, although by a narrow margin. The vote on SB 57, the Special Needs Scholarship was 17 to 15 in favor. All Democrats voted against the bill, along with Republican Senators Stivers, Schuring and Grendell. Now SB 57 moves to the Ohio House.

Kudos to Senate Education Chair Joy Padgett, Senate President Bill Harris and SB 57’s sponsor, Sen. Kevin Coughlin for their leadership in shepherding the measure to passage.

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