Ohio

When an Indian woman was gang raped and murdered last week it drew national attention here in the U.S., as well as much deserved outrage. However when a 16 year old girl was allegedly gang raped by fellow students in an eastern Ohio town last summer, there was no national outrage. National coverage didn't even occur until last month, when the New York Times wrote about it.

First here's a little background on the story. Steubenville, Ohio is located about an hour west of Pittsburgh on the Ohio/West Virginia border. It's a typical town in eastern Ohio that has a rapidly dying economy from the closing of steel mills. Live in the town revolves around Big Red, their high school football team that has won that state title 9 times and even produced some NFL players.

At a big, end of summer party last August many of the residents, including the football team got together. At that party two players from the football team allegedly carried an unconscious 16 year old girl by her ankles and wrists and proceeded to rape her as others watched on. They later dropped the girl off in front of her parents house.

The incident also wasn't kept secret. While the crimes were going on numerous other party goers took to social media, joking about what was happening and posting pictures and videos with captions like "rape".

The two students have been arrested and charged, but controversy is still happening. So far a judge and prosecutor had to recuse themselves from the case. There are also reports of lot of other "connections" that are helping out the perpetrators instead of the victim. The Atlantic has a great rundown of this.

For claiming to be so "patriotic", the Tea Party does a lot to go against the very grains of America:

Yesterday we reported that True the Vote was attempting to place observers at precincts in Central Ohio, focusing on African American districts. We also noted that there might be some problems with the forms they submitted to the Franklin County Board of Elections (FCBOE).

The FCBOE met today and determined that True the Vote had likely falsified the forms submitted for general election observers. The new observer forms, filed over the past few days by True the Vote representative (and Hilliard Tea Party Member) Jan Loar, used candidate signatures copied from a previous set of forms filed in early October

All but one of the six candidates whose names appeared on the original form had withdrawn permission to use their signatures prior to the submission of today’s forms. During the BOE meeting Candidate Terri Jamison spoke up to say her name was “forged” on the latest round of forms.

The form for appointing observers reads ‘election falsification is a 5th degree felony’. Election officials have confirmed that there will be a post-election investigation of True the Vote.

The forms have been rejected unanimously by all members (Rs and Ds) on the board. True the Vote observers will not be allowed in Franklin County polling locations tomorrow. Poll monitoring organizations expect they may still be stationed outside of polling locations.

There is no room in our democracy for people trying to steal it. These people need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. It's time for the United States to have fair elections, and these type of actions take us much further from that goal.

JobsOhio has been governor John Kasich's big plan to bring jobs to Ohio, but it is hitting some major hurdles:

A private economic development agency created by Gov. John Kasich to move "at the speed of business" has been slowed to a near halt in obtaining its start-up money as it awaits the outcome of a lawsuit.

A bond sale that JobsOhio expected to complete in the first quarter has not yet taken place, leaving it without $100 million it would have used to create business incentives.

The delay also has left the state without the first $500 million it would get under a deal requiring it to transfer 25 years of profits from state liquor sales to JobsOhio in exchange for the up-front bond money. The deal could raise as much as $1.4 billion for the state.

The hurdles are the real interesting part:

Attorney General Mike DeWine has thrown a further wrench into things by raising new questions about the public records rules lawmakers are debating for JobsOhio. He says broad wording in a bill that cleared the Ohio House on Wednesday and has headed to the Senate could turn otherwise public records private.

DeWine said he is lobbying Kasich and lawmakers to address a provision that says records created or received by JobsOhio are not public regardless of who has custody. DeWine thinks it could shield documents from public view that state agencies share with Jobs-Ohio.

"Once it was shipped to JobsOhio, it would get immunized from public disclosure," he said.

DeWine, a Republican, is upset over legislation passed by the state's Republican controlled legislator and pushed by the Republican governor. The Columbus Dispatch looks even looks further into the issue:

The United States has been on a constant decline in the world when it comes to internet speeds and availability. Here in Ohio our governor wants to change that:

State officials have not determined how much to charge individual institutions to have full access to Ohio’s soon-to-be improved broadband network.

“We don’t have our cost breakdowns yet,” said John Conley, chief of educational technology for the state Board of Regents.

Most universities and research institutions in the state have access to Internet2, a high speed nationwide network designed for researchers that can move high volumes of data quickly. However, that access is limited because the state’s broadband network speed is limited to 10 gigabits per second.

Gov. John Kasich announced last week the state would invest more than $10 million to boost that speed to 100 gigabits per second. The underground fiber-optic network was designed so that it could be upgraded, Conley said.

It's good to see improvements being made here, but I can't help but see a serious bit of hypocrisy in this. In 2009, when President Obama announced he wanted some of the stimulus to go to improving the country's broadband Republicans instantly went to the "big government" and "socialism" memes. Fast forward three years and now it's a good idea. It just exemplifies the most serious problem we face in our political discourse today; the idea can be great unless the other guy comes up with it. It's a problem that has prevented our recovery from the economic collapse and one that will continue to plague us until our leaders grow up and realize that neither side holds a patent on good ideas.

This is ridiculous:

Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel (man-DEHL') has emerged this year as one of the most ambitious young politicians in a closely divided battleground state.

The Republican has aggressively worked the fundraising and speaking circuit to amass more than $3.8 million this year in his bid to unseat Democratic U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown.

At the same time, his weekly calendars at the treasury are almost devoid of appointments besides meetings with staffers and speaking engagements. He hasn't held any news conferences to discuss the work he's doing for Ohioans.

This is a major problem in politics today and the root cause is money. Politicians win an office and spend their time in that office working to collect money for their next gig. In doing so they neglect the office they were elected too. In cases like this the person should be impeached from office and forced to repay the salary they had collected.

It's time to take the damn money out of politics and get real leaders in there, not these panhandlers!

A new Quinnipiac poll out today shows that repeal of the anti-union SB5 in Ohio has very nice support from the voters:

Ohio voters support 57 - 32 percent the repeal of SB 5, the centerpiece of Gov. John Kasich's legislative program, as the margin against the governor's measure has almost doubled in the last month, from 51 - 38 percent for repeal September 27, a 13-point margin, to a 25-point margin in today's Quinnipiac University poll.

If this repeal passes it could be a big boost for labor in this country. Perhaps people are starting to realize that the anti-union fervor the right has been fueling is nothing more than a strawman to distract from real budgetary problems that plague the states. A perfect example of this lies within Ohio. While Kasich is pointing to the unions as being a big source of budget problems, the people are distracted from other wasteful spending. How about Governor Kasich increasing the salary of the governor’s staff by almost double upon entering office? Sure the 1/4 million that costs Ohio taxpayers per year may not seem like much, but this kind of cronyism is exactly what builds up and leads to budget problems.

Ohio is also feeling the very costly affects of broken campaign promises. Governor Kasich and a Republican lead state legislature came into power in January of this year. Since then they have spent on their time working on extreme ideological legislation, and while Ohio continues to hemorrhage jobs, have done nothing to stimulate the state’s economy. SB5 is a perfect example of this. It does nothing to create jobs or stimulate the economy and serves only as red meat to the most extreme parts of their party.

It looks like the people of Ohio are realizing this. Governor Kasich is one of the most disliked governors in the country and his numbers continue to plummet: