Fox News host reduces religious bloodshed to zero - except Jihadists

Although NBC's Brian Williams has topped the hit list of revisionist memories, there has been little challenge to Fox News host Eric Bolling's extraordinary history lesson rebuking President Obama for calling attention to human terror and bloodshed in the name of religion.

Opined Bolling:  "Reports say radical Muslim jihadists killed thousands of people in the past few months alone.  And yet when you take Christianity, Judaism,  Hinduism,    Buddhism, whatever,  their combined killings in the name of religion - well , that number would be zero."

It's an empty non-thought that perfectly zeroes out Bolling as a credible witness.   But his pulpit is Fox News, so what are you gonna do?

GOP judicial employment office working overtime

If you've been trying to figure out the comings and goings of Republican judges in Summit County,  you may need more experience in following  the bouncing balls. I'll warily try to explain.  Get out your pencil and paper for these curious twists and turns.

Our journey began with Gov. Kasich's appointment of State Rep. Todd McKenney to the coveted Probate Court bench in November, 2011.

Within  weeks, he announced that he wouldn't seek a full term because he didn't want a political campaign to distract his work in his new job.. The buzz at the time was that he had  made a couple of appointments that distracted Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff,  who would withhold campaign cash from him in a Probate primary race against Common Pleas Judge Allison McCarty.

McCarty lost anyway to  Common Pleas Judge Elinore Marsh Stormer, a Democrat.

After a stint in private practice, McKenney seems to have gotten back into Arshinkoff's good graces and was appointed to the  Barberton Municipal Court  bench by Kasich on April 11.

(Still with me?)  Then Common Pleas Judge Jane Davis , who had held her appointed  seat for no more than a year,  announced earlier this month  that she would not  seek election in November. Hmmm...

Sooooo...the Summit County Republican Executive Committee, chaired by Arshinkoff ally Bryan Williams, nominated McKenney to seek election to the seat against Probate Court Magistrate, Jon Oldham, a Democrat..

It's a given  that Arshinkoff's hand has been in the middle of all of this judicial mobility.    And although we've been asked to solve the riddle of why Davis withdrew, she didn't return my phone call and Republicans aren't talking -  or aren't in Alex's  loop.  Whew!

Major disclosure: I will be a Republican!

OK! That's it!  I'm heading down to the Summit Count Board of Elections to register as  a Republican.  (Which will finally satisfy my late father and let him rest in peace.)

I've been tinkering with the idea ever since they started paying GOP chairman Alex Arshinkoff $10,000 a month to be a University of Akron lobbyist.  And after Bryan Williams (Alex's heir-apparent as chairman?)  landed on the county Board of Elections  following his resignation as a board member  of the State Department of Education under fire for a conflict of interest.   After all, I have to eat, too.

But the decisive point in driving me into the land of the enemy  was the announcement  that Don Robart,  the recently defeated ex-mayor of Cuyahoga Falls, has been hired as the "eyes and ears"  of Secretary of State  Jon Husted to keep book on several Northern Ohio counties for an annual fee of $40,000. As you can see, conservative distaste for public spending doesn't include the immediate family.

Well, folks.  As one who has not had a regular  pay check since I left the sagging newspaper world in the late 1990s, you should not ask why  I am so sour about certain people returning to the inglorious public trough for jobs that don't require much heavy lifting.

Robart told the Beacon Journal that he hasn't ruled out running for elective office again.  If so,  I would be interested in the eyes-and-ears job.  After all, as they say, the legs go first.

When a Christian school dips into a lot of public money

 If  scowling at religious retailing gives you a sense of anxiety, you can stop reading this post right now.  You won't find anything in it to comfort you.

Having given you fair warning, I want to review the solid reporting of Carol Biliczky  in the Beacon Journal that led the reader to a small religion-based private  school in Circleville that is doing quite well, thank you, as the state fills the school's  collection plates  with public dollars.   Its formal name, Ohio Christian University, befits its enterprising spirit in selling its sectarian product to students in public high schools with considerable help from the state treasury.

Not only that, the school's president, Mark Smith,   has what is essentially a room with a view as a member of the Ohio Department of Education  board, where he is joined by C. Todd Jones, a lobbyist for OCU as well as some 50 private Ohio colleges.  Smith, Biliczky wrote, is no stranger to politics.  He runs Ohio Faith & Freedom, which strongly supported Mitt Romney in 2012. (Freedom to do what?)

Remember folks:  We're talking about a state board that presumably oversees public education policy while Smith and Jones look after their own interests back at the private schools. (There used to be a third one:  Bryan Williams, who, alas,  resigned recently after his efforts  as a lobbyist for a non-union contractor group that also owned a charter school.)

OCU's  links to the public money are  really quite  simple.  Public school students can  enroll in OCU's classes, either on line or by other means and receive high school or  college credit.  As Biliczky wrote:

"The 30 general education courses in Ohio Christian University's Trailblazers Academy have many strong Christian themes, according to course descriptions on the university's website.  

 ""General Psychology', for example,  "will reflect a holistic Christ-centered biblically integrated education in the Wesleyan tradition.  'Western Civilization II'  will help students develop a Christian worldview of history."

As with many of the charter schools that are siphoning  money from public education, OCU profits leaped to $27.8 million in 2012  from $10.7 million three years earlier. What's more, Biliczky wrote, its enrollment  jumped from 380 students  seven years ago to 3,800 today.

As Plunderbund reported, in the 2012-13 school year, charter schools received more than $829 million in taxpayer  money to educate about 116,000 children, or $7,144.86 per child.  At the same time, local public school districts received $5.5 billion to educate the remaining 1.7 million children., or only $3,125.30 per student.

The private religious (read: conservative)  thrust into public education in Ohio has Governor Kasich's fingerprints all over it. He has packed the state board of education with appointments of charter-friendly operatives.  That helps explain the fierce boldness of such special - and costly - ventures  in the state today in supping at the public education table.

But even though state law forbids such use of public funds, it seems the governor believes it's the Christian  thing to do.

With Bryan Williams, you can go home again

Should anybody be surprised that Bryan Williams has found his way back to the Summit County Board of Elections? All that remains for him to add $18,000 per annum to his lifestyle is the pro forma appointment to the board by Secretary of State Jon Husted.    Nice work if you can get it.  And Williams usually does.  He owes Republican county chairman Alex Arshinkoff, the bell cow of the county party for decades, big time.

You may recall that Williams resigned from the State Board of Education in December after the media started printing the nasty word that he was multitasking as a lobbyist for the non-union Associated Builders and Contractors of Ohio.  That group has a private charter school and there was more than a little notice that he was  aggressively  trying to persuade the board to support the school with your tax money and mine. That, after all, is what lobbyists  do.

There was some heartfelt disappointment about  Williams' departure from the state board.  
The panel's president.  Debe Terhar, a certified Tea Party member, sent her regrets and told him she would keep in touch.

His return to  the Summit board on March 1 will be a reunion  with his old stable where he once served as the board's director via the  good graces of Arshinkoff . Williams also  ran against Mayor Plusquellic  in 2003, losing mightily.  He highlighted his campaign by accusing the Democratic mayor of  corruption (another Arshinkoff theme).  He hissed   declaring that his opponent had generously given a tax break to a friendly company  that filed for  bankrupcy.

There was a problem.  The charge was not only untrue, the company, Qualilty Mold,  was quite healthy and doing business.  Under fire for an egregious error,   Williams ultimately withdrew the charge from his website and apologized.

Now Williams and Arshinkoff will be united again, working in tandem on the board in the interest of the people, or at least some them.   That will more than please the chairman who returned to the board himself under Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted after the previous secretary, Democrat  Jennifer Brunner,   ousted him for being so damn disruptive.

He's back?  $18,000 per annum?    No, we're not surprised.

For Summit GOP, three is worse than a crowd

Anyone who doubts that bad news occurs in threes might take a look at the fate of the Summit County Republican Party in recent weeks as 2013 limped through its final  days.

In quick succession, three of Chairman Alex Arshinkoff's few remaining groomed stalwarts plunged  from the party's honor role in unexpected defeat, resignation or a severe spanking by the Sixth Circuit  Court of Appeals.

Shall we begin on election day in November when Cuyahoga Falls Mayor Don
Robart, in his 28th year at City Hall and virtually having his own way in his Cuyahoga Falls fortress for nearly three decades, was defeated by City Council President Don Walters, a Democrat,  denying Robart  an  eighth term?

Four years earlier, Robart was unopposed by Democrats, which doubtless led to complacency  this time in which he was said by startled  allies to have all but abandoned campaigning, content with the endorsements of the Beacon Journal and the Cuyahoga Falls News-Press  and his own notion of invincibility.

But  in a working class suburb that leans Democratic  and has twice opted for President Obama at the polls, he hadn't left well enough alone.  He charged out of the gate in a state of the city address by describing the anti-union SB 5 on the ballot "unbelievably good".  There was some disagreement by the voters who defeated it  by more than 60 pct. of the vote.  The mayor slid farther to right by welcoming the Tea Party  rally in his town with  overwhelming praise, telling the Teepers that they were the "social, fiscal and moral conscious of America."

Finally, he became the center of attraction in opposing a family rate at the Natatorium for a wounded Iraqi veteran , a spouse in a same sex- marriage, arguing that it would be too costly. Huh?

All of these missteps  finally caught up with him to send him into overdue retirement.

Next is the saga of Arshinkoff favorite Bryan Williams, a member of  the State Education Board, who was outed as a determined  lobbyist for an anti-union construction group running a private charter school. Soon thereafter, including a call from Grumpy Abe that he resign, Williams resigned.

Finally,  there's the most recent  lashing of Federal Judge John Adams , another Arshinkoff career enabler, by a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit  Court of Appeals for his presiding role in a case involving a public defender. (Adams also was  engaged in a long delay of a Akron 's sewer plan, costing the city a fortune.).

Had any of these fellows been Democrats, we feel sure that the voluble chairman would have labeled them "scandals of Biblical proportion".  But. alas,  they are Republicans, which is the party's problems, not of anybody on the other side.






e

The week's wash , with a surprise or two

Imagine my mild surprise when I read in my hometown paper this morning that a fellow who is the executive vice president of FreedomWorks, a national Tea Party enterprise, was the campaign manager of Bryan Willams' futile effort  to unseat Mayor Don Plusquellic in 2003. The name Adam Brandon was a faint memory, although I did recall that Plusquellic swamped Williams with 71 pct. of the vote.

Brandon, bred in the Akron area and now living in Washington, was  slated to speak at the Portage County Tea Party dinner on Thursday and told the Beacon Journal that the national group's priority was to take over the Republican Party!   That's hardly a stretch because the Teeps have already lassoed  much of the GOP today, scaring the hell out of people like John Boehner that if he's naughty and not nice, they will challenge him and other similarly situated Republicans in next year's primaries.

Williams has already made a name for himself, if not as a wannabe mayor, then as a Ohio Education Board member  influencing public education policy while lobbying for a non-union construction group operating a private charter school.

But in  promising a takeover by the Tea Party, Brandon is a tad late in Summit County, where all signs of the GOP under Chairfman Alex Arshinkoff have been shifting rightward beyond the margins of the page. If you need  confirmation, check the list of the Summit "Republican" party's dinner speakers...Well???

* * * * *

Now this one is sort of a surprise:  E. Gordon Gee heading to the Mountaineer state to serve as interim president of West Virginia University. Frankly, with his golden parachute upon leaving Ohio State University, he can afford to buy the entire state.  The real challenge for him is whether he can convert his new campus into the bow tie capital of America!    From the experience of growing up in a coal town just north of the WVA line, I don't remember the area  as being that fashion conscious.

* * * * *

There's not much more I dare add to the soaring global tributes to Nelson Mandela other than to yearn for somebody in the upper class of the Republican Party on Capital Hill to be as thoughtful in healing the problems of the less privileged in America.  The contrast, say, to John Boehner,  who defines leadership as being an obstructionist, is vividly merciless.

In Santorum visit, the thrill is gone

The old house across Market Street from the Tangier Restaurant was still sprouting one of  those 1950s rooftop TV antennas.  A few paces away a low-slung building was separated from the world by closed venetian blinds.  Its lettered message above the door  told of the availability of pinballs, pool tables, juke boxes and other once-wildly-popular diversions, although it wasn't immediately clear that the place was still open for business.  To one side facing the street rose a large sign promoting the 65th annual Italian-American Festival, July 13-July 15,  This was Aug. 15.

The Tangier marquee bore a welcome by "Romney-Ryan, Oh., for Senator R. Santorum.'"  But like the scene across the street,  there was an equally strong sense of yesterday  as the small crowd awaited the arrival of their honored guest in a room just off the lobby.    It was on Feb. 19 that Santorum, the darling of the Buckeye Tea Party, drew 1,350 well-wishers to the Summit County  Republican Party Lincoln Day Dinner.  His supporters shunned Mitt Romney by anticipating a big Santorum sweep in Ohio.  As Bryan C. Williams, a veteran factotum in the local GOP and Tea Party admirer, put it, the event would "kind of cement his front-runner status in Ohio."  Besides, Ohio Atty. Gen. Mike DeWine had astonished many of his party's brethren by abandoning Romney's ship to endorse the former Pennsylvania senator.

But as anyone who has aspired to political greatness knows, you must first win the front-runner election, which didn't come close to happening, even as Santorum barked that Mitt was the "worst Republican" his party could nominate.

He didn't repeat that harsh assessment at the Tangier muted pep session.  He was even less demonstrative as he peered out at a standing audience of no more than 75 (!) listeners that included at  least a dozen dutiful local candidates who are never more than a phone call away from one of these events, reporters and Obama's own monitors.   Explaining that county GOP chairman Alex Arshinkoff would not be available (he was ailing), Williams worked to keep the program moving by introducing each local  with the party's trademark musical bump by a small  outfit that managed Stars and Stripes Forever with a guitar, electronic piano and drums, if you can imagine that.

Santorum revived his speeches from the primary season to a courteous group,  many wearing
Romney lapel stickers.   But he was less than connective as he assailed Obama as a lawbreaker, a warrior on religion  (got that, Catholics?) , and a divisive character who was in the game simply to collect votes.  "You have a right," he said, in his insistence on pulpiteering, "to live your faith out."  But his biggest applause line was his promise that the  Romney-Ryan campaign would go after the media. It's a standby promise, but it usually works with the right crowd.
''
On the whole he did seem less energized than the time he stood up  before the Lincoln Day dinner crowd.   But he had so many more listeners in February and considered himself the frontrunner.  Today he will merely be the supernumerary on the Romney-Ryan Comeback America Team.

Losers tend to draw much smaller crowds. And, likewise,  that Italian-American festival is history.




r

Kasich: The FBI comes calling

THE KASICH-LED intra-party hit job that drove State Republican Chairman Kevin DeWine from office is still haunting the perps.  There are continuing reports that the FBI is looking into possible bribes by the governor's lower-level apparatchiks - otherwise known as the Kasich Goon Brigade (KGB)- to complete the deal.  The palace intrigue is now a topic for national blogs like Daily Kos.  Not a good image to project, Republicans.

You may recall that the leak in the Kasich back-channel bubble arrived via ex-Portage County GOP chairman Andrew Manning, who accused two of the governor's agents - Summit County Republican chairman Alex Arshinkoff and party activist Bryan Williams - of  promising  Manning a more honored  place in the Kasich Order if Manning, who supported DeWine,  withdrew from the state central committee.  ( It was as though the party had regressed to the medieval days when Kings and Popes fought over who was actually in charge of the domain.)

Manning signed an affidavit that he was offered a quid pro quo at a sit-down at Portage Country Club on Feb. 4.    Arshinkoff/Williams denied that they had  any such thing in mind.

But now come reports of other complaints about the governor's tactics.  Helen Hurst, chairman of the Lorain County Repubican Party, called for a response from Kasich on the allegations.  There were still others who entered the fray:  Maggie Cook, of Warren County, told the Plain Dealer that her job with Associated Builders and Contractors, was threatened if she didn't withdraw from the central committee race in which the governor put up his own slate. She refused to resign from the committee.  She was later fired.

Pause to catch your breath while I report that Bryan Williams, former director of the Summit County Board of Elections,  is a lobbyist for said Associated Builders and Contractors and a likely suspect in trying to influence Cook.

Finally, the spreading wildfire claimed another victim who supported DeWine.  The Columbus political blog Plunderbund reported that Jean Raga resigned from the Central Committee, when the Kasich forces allegedly threatened to take it out on Dayton Power and  Light.  Her husband Tom happens to be a  DPL  lobbyist.  The plot thickens.

Hard to know how far the FBI will take this probe under the  federal law that says, you can't "corruptly" give, offer or promise anything of value with "intent to influence any official act. ...'" (It's all in detail on the Internet.)

On with the show!  But first a question: Do you ever wonder whether this bunch of cold warriors ever has a little fun?

From heart-felt Americans on the right

The weekly leftovers:

When Mitt Romney   was asked about Rush Limbaugh's reference to Sandra Fluke as a slut, he cagily  responded that it wasn't "the language I would have used"  without telling us what language he would have used. Little did it prepare us for later mystical utterances that mark the candidate . When reporters asked him about the cabal being cooked up in Chicago  by the billionaire owner of the Chicago Cubs that would revive the Rev. Jeremiah Wright issue in the 2008 campaign,  he topped the earlier Limbaugh dust-up. Asked about a comment he made on the Hannity show that the president wanted America to be a "less Christian nation", Romney was prepared for it:

"I'm not familiar, precisely , with exactly what I said, but I stand by what I said, whatever it was."

Pinned on the shelf of my office is one of the classic political responses that I've encountered over the years. It was spoken by George W. Bush, and could be of more use to Romney.  Said Dubya to a nosy reporter:

"I would have to ask the questions...I haven't had a chance to ask the questioners the question they've been questioning." 

But with nearly six months to go, there's still time for Mitt  to build on that.

* * * * *

I'm beginning to see attack ads on the Internet against Sen.  Sherrod Brown by Dick Armey's FreedomWorks.  No mention of Brown's Republican opponent Josh Mandel in the ads.  But adding the right-wing FreedomWorks to the American Petroleum Institute and U.S.Chamber of Commerce tells me  why Mandel was repeatedly absent from his Ohio duties tending to his fund-raising needs.  His campaign has already spent millions on TV advertising.  For Mandel, right-wing money never sleeps.

* * * * *


Want a quote that pretty well sums up the dark side of  what is happening in the presidential campaign?  Try this one from Colorado U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, a Republican:

'I don't know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America.  I don't know that.  But I do know this, that in his heart, he's not an American.  He's just not an American."

An odd presumption for a guy who isn't even a cardiologist!

* * * * *

When e.e. cummings poetically mused about the "sound of one hand clapping," he could very well have envisioned the GOP class when it was announced George W. Bush, the economic wizard who financed the budget-busting Iraq invasion on the cuff,  has written a book on how to build a stronger economy. It won't have the slightest potential to be made into a movie.

* * * *  *

Joe Hallett of the Columbus Dispatch reports that Portage County Republican Chairman Andrew Manning has been interviewed by the FBI regarding Manning's charges that he was asked by Gov. Kasich's headhunters to withdraw from the the GOP  State Central Committee.

Manning accused Summit County Chairman Alex Arshinkoff and his sidekick Bryan Williams  of urging  him to resign in return for having a a stronger calling card in the Kasich Administration.  Manning at the time supported State Chairmaan Kevin DeWine to retain the chair in the bitter ongoing clash with Kasich, who wanted to oust DeWine - which he did.

Hallett says Arshinkoff and Williams have denied offering Manning a deal in a meeting  at Portage Country Club.  Where else?  

Arshinkoff outreach includes Portage County

WE SHOULD NOT be surprised when anyone brings up official Republican mischief in Summit County. The trail usually leads to GOP county chairman Alex Arshinkoff. The only change is that Bryan Williams, the successor-apparent and gate-keeper to Arshinkoff someday, also is appearing in the picture these days.

The Columbus Dispatch reports that Portage County Republican Chairman Andrew Manning has filed an affidavit with federal investigators accusing Arshinkoff and Williams of offering him a deal to withdraw as one of the 66 candidates from the state GOP Central Committee ballot in Tuesday's yet unsettled intraparty showdown between Gov. Kasich and Ohio Republican Chairman Kevin DeWine. Manning is a DeWine supporter; Arshinkoff and Williams are dedicated Kasich apostles. Manning said he was promised that if he abandoned his vote in the Central Committee, he would win style points with the governor.

Don't look for a heckuva lot to come out of this symbol of turmoil within the Republican Party . But it is one more peek at how the Summit GOP locals dutifully work at their day-and-night political jobs for Kasich. Notice that I dropped the word "allegedly".

Moon landings, trees, and Santorum's multiple choices

AS YOU MIGHT KNOW by now, my eyes wonder off the page in my dedicated efforts to comprehend the remarks of the current Republican herd of presidential McElephants. It happened when Newt Gingrich predicted he would stage a moon landing - in his second term! Cognizance was further abused when Mitt Romney told a Chamber of Commerce group in Michigan that one of the big reasons he loved his native state was that its trees were the "right height". (As one who lives among trees, I can tell you that I instantly checked ours for arborial equality and conceded there must be another way to express your love of your community.

Now comes Rick Santorum to the Summit County Lincoln Day Dinner to bestir the usual suspects - the party's enduring glitterati at these annual affairs. If I read the Beacon Journal account correctly - and possibly I didn't - he gave us a multiple choice of the same theme in the first five or six paragraphs.

No. 1. "America doesn't need a president it can believe in."

No.2. "We've always succeeded when we have a president who believe in them." (Them?)

No. 3. "That is what this election is all about. Who do you believe in?" (Them? Us? Me?)

In fairness, I should add the hometown Republican crowd reportedly gave him a standing ovation, although I'm not sure whether it was for No. 1, 2 or 3.The guests also gave him a 74 pct. triumph in a predictable straw poll.

Meanwhile, oddly enough, the county's party chairman, Alex Arshinkoff, who was seated next to Santorum, never appeared in the BJ account - another first for such festive political occasions. The thrill of announcing a meaningless straw poll was left to Bryan Williams, former county Elections Board director and now a Santorum booster.

Arshinkoff did tell me that as a matter of traditional party policy neither he nor the party would endorse anybody until the nominee is chosen at the convention. Politically speaking, that much caution I could understand. It's still February, folks.

Here we go again, from abortion to RTW

AS THE SULLEN SUPPORTERS of the anti-union Senate Bill 5 continue to reach for noble platitudes to launder their loss in the spin cycle, we learn that 2012 will bring us further mischief from the political and religious Right. Oh, my.

Shall we begin with a fellow named Patrick Johnston, a Tea Partying Ohio doctor with strong pulpiteering tendencies? He's leading a movement to put his version of the anti-abortion Personhood amendment on the Ohio ballot next year. He says he's not concerned in the least that Mississippi voters convincingly rejected it in Tuesday's election. Undismayed - zealots always are - Johnston says: "We have science and divine law on our side. With God's help we will win through."

(Historical note: the early Romans also believed that "no enterprise could be undertaken without divine sanction", and look what's happening to Italy today. )

Let's move on. There's the right-to-work thing. It is called the "Workplace Freedom Amendment" that would be added to the Ohio Constitution if approved by the voters next year. You wouldn't be shocked to learn that it is operating as the Liberty Council (!), a Tea Party Affiliate. One of the movement's organizers is Bryan Williams, one of Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff's favorites from the party's practice squad who was vanquished by Mayor Plusquellic several elections ago. Williams, a lobbyist for builders and contractors, was quoted in the Beacon Journal as saying the RTW amendment would "unleash an economic engine".

Or, on the other hand, the same union juggernaut that crushed Senate Bill 5 as it did RTW in 1958. Not only RTW but, as the late Ray Bliss had warned his party at the time, the statewide Republican ticket. I wonder if Arshinkoff, Bliss's alleged apostle, has reminded Williams of the scary odds against the GOP in 2012 with the avatar of RTW hanging around. No one , however, would appreciate another arousal of the Democratic/Labor folks more than President Obama.

I was working for the old Columbus Citizen when the right-to-workers went to the ballot in 1958 and were thrashed. The Scripps-Howard newspapers had strongly endorsed it. You should have seen the editors' faces the morning after. The first order of damage control from the editor: Start looking for positive feature stories about the city's labor leaders.

Jeez. The more I see of the GOP's political tactics, the less I understand, and it looks like we're going to have another awful year to figure them out.

Meet John Kasich: 4 hours a month OSU lecturer

THERE WAS A letter to the editor in Sunday's Beacon Journal in which Bryan C. Williams, the executive vice chairman of the Summit County Republican Party executive committee, questioned whether Gov. Strickland, a Democrat, was fit to serve in the office. Among other things, he accused the guv of being a "hypocrite" and insisted that John Kasich would "do much better" if elected in November.

Well, I normally would ignore such official inbred partisanship from either side except this was a special case.

If Williams had fast forwarded to the BJ's Community Page, he might have had second thoughts - no, he probably wouldn't have! - when he played the hypocrite card.

There, plain enough, was a long piece recovered from the Dayton Daily News , that told of Kasich's particular ATM-style income that cost Ohio State University thousands and thousands of dollars with very little effort on his part other than to maybe buy a bigger wallet.

You need only to read the first two paragraphs by the paper's bureau chief, Laura A Bischoff , to find the real hypocrite in the room:

"As a candidate for governor, Republican John Kasich has called on colleges and universities to cut costs and force professors to teach more courses.

"Yet for seven years, Kasich served as a "presidential fellow" at his alma mater, Ohio State University, in a role that paid him the equivalent of $4,000 per campus visit." (OSU also paid Kasich's political friend $2,000 a visit as the candidate's aide.}

So for seven years, from the winter of 2002 to May 2,009, he picked up an easy $50,000 a year in hard-earned taxpayer money (a favorite term of the the tax cutters like Kasich) while his buddy got $20,000 - no questions asked by the university about what it was that Kaisch might be doing on its campus. Clue: He was a guest lecturer on several topics including finance and psychology while "serving as a panelist at banquets and forums." The Dayton News also noted that he once gave an ethics lecture to dental students.

Even Kasich admitted that he only worked on the campus four hours a month which, for all we know, might have included an appearance as Alfred Einstein.

But hold it right there. Richard Stoddard, President Gordon Gee's special assistant, defended the payments to Kasich, saying "we have a lot of positive feedback." Pro forma.

I should say. Kasich is a wonder. Always has been - even in the days when he chaired the House Budget Committee on Capitol Hill and quietly worked up a plan that would hit the poor the hardest. David Hess, the Knight-Ridder reporter on the Hill at the time, managed to get a copy of it before it had become public knowledge and wrote a national story revealing its contents that appeared in many papers, including the Beacon Journal. Hess recalls that Kasich never talked to him after that.

But such additions to the Kasich profile - from Congress to Lehman Brothers to an honored spot on Fox News to OSU - begin to create a candidate who never knows that what goes around can come around. It would help if he would stop insisting on cutting back the cost of education as one who contributed to the red ink. You can fool some of the people some of the time........

.

.

A spiritual voice in recall campaign?

WARNER MENDENHALL'S spring offensive is prompting speculation around town that the Summit County Republican Party is playing some role in the recall campaign against Mayor Don Plusquellic.  The fuse was lit by the appearance of Bryan C. Williams, the Summit County Board of Elections deputy director and a former GOP candidate against the Democratic Akron mayor, at Mendenhall's recent public meeting  to launch his campaign.  To put it politely, Williams has nothing but scorn for Plusquellic to this day. However, he rejects  the notion that he might be a back-channel operative for Mendenhall. 

  "I went to the meeting to give my spiritual support (to a recall election) but I' not actually giving my active support," Williams says.  "But I wish Mendenhall all of the success in the world." So mark that down in the category of  political spirituality.  Sort of Platonic.    

Likewise, GOP County Chairman Alex Arshinkoff sharply responds to talk that he might be aiding and abetting the current effort to overthrow the mayor.  "I'm not in it!  I kind of look at it with amusement.  We're thrilled that two Democratic factions (Mendenhall is a Democrat) are tearing each other apart."  Alex did confirm that the Mendenhall forces asked the GOP  to contribute campaign cash. But he said he denied their request.  

All of this will go on for awhile. Let's hope there will be some time left for other pressing matters in the city working through a serious recession.  Maybe a word or two about jobs, foreclosures,  and the growing pressure on the Akron food bank.  I doubt that you will hear a word about any of this from the recall forces until the issue is finally settled.