Old Man Travels to Columbus, Feeds Pigs Lies

Working on groundbreaking research that indicates exercising is good for your overall mental wellbeing. I’ve been eating plants and doing push-ups for three days. I’m going to counterbalance the 15 pounds I need to lose by solving cancer this afternoon.

HE’S GETTING WORSE

The most disturbing part about the Trump presidency is that this obese criminal grandpa who admitted to sexual assault on tape also somehow has the power to walk outside and declare the sky green and 35% of the country would agree with him.

President Business Deals came to Toledo last night and spewed a word salad of dementia but because of how our media works the mentally ill grandpa had his diatribe parsed into articles that make what happened last night seem normal.

From Greg Re of foxnews.com:

President Trump was headlining his first campaign rally of the election year Thursday in Ohio flush with cash, chafing at a potential Senate impeachment trial and aiming to capitalize on his order to take out Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani after the military leader was said to have orchestrated an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq.

Almost immediately, Trump slammed House Democrats' nonbinding War Powers Resolution, which they passed earlier in the day in a rebuke to the Soleimani strike. Trump went on to suggest that Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and California Rep. Adam Schiff, would have tipped off the media about the operation if they had known about it.

"They're saying, 'You should get permission from Congress, you should come in and tell us what you want to do -- you should come in and tell us, so that we can call up the fake news that's back there, and we can leak it,'" Trump said. "Lot of corruption back there."

Separately, Trump said he hoped Joe Biden would become the Democrats' presidential nominee, and pledged that he would highlight what he called the Bidens' corruption all throughout the campaign.

Trump extorted Ukraine after some polls that had Joe Biden whipping his ass. But in this article it’s passed along as fact that Trump hopes Biden would become the presidential nominee.

One thing he’s not lying about though is Joe Biden’s corruption. Was he corrupt like Trump? No. Was his son unqualified for making $600K on a Ukrainian energy company board? Those are just the facts.

MORE PARTISAN RACES BECAUSE OHIO REPUBLICANS ACCIDENTALLY ELECTED TWO LIBERALS TO THE STATE SUPREME COURT IN 2018

The dead enslavers that founded this country warned us about the perils of political parties and partisanship. Did we listen? Absolutely not.

One blessed section on the ballot is local elections that don’t declare a candidate’s party affiliation.

From Laura Hancock of cleveland.com:

Generally, when people vote for a city council member, they’re looking for someone who will make sure snow is plowed, trash is picked up and police patrol the streets. These are pragmatic issues that don’t necessarily require a partisan label, said Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, a good government group.

“On the whole, when you think about what it is that a community wants, adding party labels and throwing parties into the process doesn’t make sense,” she said.

Turcer said it’s important for members of the public to study school board candidates’ positions and views on education. A party label can’t summarize whether a Republican will always support charter schools and vouchers, for instance.

“You can be a Democrat who is friendly to charter schools and see that as an option,” she said. “Or you can be a Republican and say it’s been fairly corrupt, money was just wasted, that we need to get back to just public schools. The philosophy of the candidate is more important than that public label.”

Voters need to take some initiative -- pick up a voter guide or visit a candidate or their website, said Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio.

“Ultimately it’s important to ask every candidate where they stand on issues that are most important to the office,” she said. “Just because a candidate has a party label doesn’t mean they are hook, line and sinker with the party on every issue.”

Personally I think — and this has nothing to do with living as a Democrat in Ohio — that party declarations should be stripped from every race. I’m tired of the millions of Americans that think they’re fulfilling their patriotic duty by walking into a booth and punching their ticket for everyone with a (D) or (R) next to their name.

AUDITOR: OHIO CAN SAVE MONEY BY NOT OUTSOURCING ROAD REPAIRS

Keith Faber was one of the architects of the largest charter school scam in state history. A voting majority of Ohioans then promoted him to oversee the state’s finances.

Now apparently this guy has an idea to save the state anywhere between $10 million and $21 million.

From Andrew J. Tobias of cleveland.com:

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The state agency that maintains Ohio’s highways could save millions by doing more of its construction inspection work in-house, according to a new state audit.

A report released Thursday by Ohio Auditor Keith Faber says the Ohio Department of Transportation could save $10 million to $21 million a year by reducing its use of contractors to inspect road and bridge construction projects.

Currently, the agency uses a mix of employees and independent contractors to complete those inspections. The state does this since road constructional work is seasonal, and paying by the hour gives them more staffing flexibility.

But hiring contractors is three times more expensive, the audit states.

In a written response to the audit, ODOT officials acknowledged “room for improvement” when it comes to their use of consultants. But they also said challenges with using internal staff for inspections include travel time for inspectors and difficulties retaining seasonal workers.

Matt Bruning, an ODOT spokesman, said in a statement the agency has saved taxpayers in recent years by reducing staff through attrition and by leveraging technology.

“We appreciate the efforts of Auditor Keith Faber and his team. We’re always looking for ways to be more efficient with the resources entrusted to us by those who use and benefit from our transportation system," he said. “We’re always looking for ways to be more efficient with the resources entrusted to us by those who use and benefit from our transportation system.”

I’m sorry. The rumors are true. I’m cynical and partisan. Keith Faber was one of the most transactional members of the State Senate. So any report I’m reading where he’s claiming taxpayers will save $10 to $21 million… I’m thinking at least six figured went into Faber’s pockets.

I have no proof to support this accusation other than it being 100% true. Do with this information what you will.

SMALL CITIES IN OHIO: NOT HELL ON EARTH AFTERALL

Good news to everyone trying to survive in post-industrial Ohio towns like Marion… the worse is over! But also maybe it does get worse.

From Mark Ferenchik of dispatch.com:

Ohio’s small and mid-sized cities are losing population at a slower rate, seeing declines in unemployment and poverty and upticks in per-capita income.
But these cities — Marion, Springfield, Zanesville and Mansfield, for example — still are dealing with many challenges that have hounded them for decades.

“They’re not in the tailspin they were in, but they’re not out of the woods yet,” said Alison Goebel, executive director of the Columbus-based Greater Ohio Policy Center, which studied recent census data to update a report on those cities.

The nonprofit group looked at demographic and economic data from what it considers Ohio’s 22 “legacy” cities — cities that aren’t suburbs — that are as large as Cleveland (population 387,398) to the smallest, Portsmouth (20,366). Columbus, an outlier because it is growing and doing well in a number of ways, is not included.

Long story short…. there are three places to live in Ohio: Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati. Choose wisely.

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