We Got a Budget, Baby
Ohio State to investigate donations from Jeff Epstein and Les Wexner, Worthington troll hit with settlement, and more.
Notice: Your electric bill could soon go up 85 cents for a bailout of two “failing” nuclear plants.
Oh, yeah, we no longer believe in renewable energies, either:
At least we finally have a budget, which is a thing normal brained people care about and love to read about in the mornings.
TWO LARRYS AND A MIKE FINALLY AGREE TO A BUNCH OF NUMBERS
Gotta hand it to the Republican leaders of Ohio. These bums managed to do enough work between fishing excursions and high-dollar fundraisers to pass an Excel spreadsheet a day before their self-imposed deadline after blowing through the Constitution’s.
From Randy Ludlow of dispatch.com:
Ohio’s $1.2 billion annual tax break for many businesses will remain largely intact despite a House attempt to cut it almost in half.
The final version of the budget as agreed to by House and Senate negotiators will remove lawyers and lobbyists from receiving the tax cut, paid by businesses such as limited liability corporations that pass through their income to personal rather than corporate tax filings.
The new budget also contains a 4%, across-the-board state income tax cut. And the bottom two brackets would be eliminated in a move designed to help the working poor, said Senate President Larry Obhof.
The compromise measure funds both a Senate plan to give money to fast-growing public schools and private schools through vouches, and a House plan to pay for additional services in poorer school districts.
“I feel pretty good overall about this budget,” said Obhof, a Republican from Medina. “We’re all proud of the results ... this is perhaps the most kid-friendly budget in state history.”
Congratulations to Ohio for taking 216 years to pass a kid-friendly budget. Unfortunately that’s like being the smartest 38-year-old in a kindergarten class.
MEANWHILE…
Let’s see how the state has traditionally taken care of the adults charged with the custody of some of our most vulnerable children.
From April Laissel of wosu.org:
Montgomery County Children’s Services workers will strike this week, unless a deal is reached before then. The dispute between the 270 member union and the county centers on wages.
“So, for example we have travel authorization permissions ready for vacations coming up,” says Tedford. “We have our summer school plan already in place.”
She says other foster families have been doing the same. County officials say they have a backup plan in case of a strike, but Tedford is still worried some things may fall through the cracks. Caseworkers, she says, play a critical role for foster children in court.
My opinion is the state should pay social workers more money. Unfortunately we worship at the holy altar of the business tax cut.
OHIO STATE: WE SHOULD PROBABLY INVESTIGATE PEDOPHILE BLOOD MONEY
Ohio State can be hilariously bad at handling crisis management, so it’s no surprise it took two weeks for the institution to declare an investigation into donations tainted by imprisoned pedophile Jeffrey Goldstein.
More problematic for Ohio State, that means scrutiny on sugar daddy Les Wexner’s finances, too.
From Nick Evans and Gabe Rosenberg of wosu.org:
The Ohio State University announced Tuesday that it launched a review of millions of dollars worth of donations from billionaire Jeff Epstein and his associated organizations.
Epstein, 66, was arrested July 6 on charges that he trafficked and abused dozens of underage girls in Florida and New York in the early 2000s. He has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he faces a sentence of up to 45 years in prison.
Ohio State says Epstein donated $1,000 to the Wexner Center for the Arts Membership Fund in 1990, and his COUQ Foundation anonymously donated $2.5 milllion to the university in May 2007, at which time L Brands founder Les Wexner was on the Ohio State Board of Trustees.
Combined with the Epstein donation, a $2.5 million gift from the Leslie H. Wexner Charitable Fund in 2007 contributed to the naming of the Les Wexner Football Complex, according to the university. Epstein then served as a trustee of the Wexner Foundation.
Maybe history will vindicate Wexner in picking a creepy college dropout high school teacher to manage his financial empire and gifting him the $56 million New York City mansion that federal agents raided. Maybe!
FRANK ROSE CALLS RACIST’S TWEETS RACIST, IMMEDIATELY QUALIFIES STATEMENT
Give Secretary of State Frank LaRose this: He’s a Republican willing to state a simple truth that the president’s recent racist tweet storm was racist. (A sentence that would have befuddled me as recently as a decade ago).
Which is why he had to immediately qualify the statement, as if he’s not smart enough to know a statement like that can only come from a man who is racist in his heart.
From Jessie Balmert of cincinnati.com:
“The president says things that I would never condone, that I believe are false," LaRose, a Republican elected in 2018, told The Enquirer's editorial board Tuesday. "The most recent tweet is racist – whether it was intended that way or not, I’m not in the man’s mind and heart. I don’t know, but that’s how it sounds to me.”
Trump tweeted early Sunday that progressive members of Congress should "go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came."
…
In denouncing the tweets, LaRose went further than some fellow Republicans, who stopped short of calling the comments racist.
Sen. Rob Portman labeled them "divisive, unnecessary and wrong." Rep. Steve Chabot called diversity a strength of the nation, adding "we can disagree without being disagreeable.”
LaRose looks like Martin Luther King to Rob Portman and Steve Chabot.
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS NOXIOUS INTERNET TROLL?
The man above, Andrew Anglin, is from Worthington, Ohio and enriched himself running an infamous neo-Nazi message board. He just took the second multimillion dollar settlement against him in as many weeks.
From Seaborn Larson of missoulian.com:
A federal judge on Monday decided more than $14 million should be awarded to a Whitefish woman who suffered a "troll storm" unleashed by a neo-Nazi website publisher in late 2016.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeremiah Lynch issued his decision on Monday, finding Andrew Anglin owes Tanya Gersh $10 million in punitive damages along with $4,042,438 in compensatory damages.
The ruling comes after a daylong hearing Thursday in which Gersh, her husband, and her therapist testified to the emotional damage caused after Anglin called on his followers on the Daily Stormer to "storm" Gersh's family.
Anglin accused Gersh of trying to force the mother of white nationalist Richard Spencer to sell her building in Whitefish and posted personal information on Gersh, her husband, and their son online. A barrage of threats and anti-Semitic messages followed.
Here’s the thing: Nobody seems to know where this creep slinked off to. Sadly, we can assume the Justice Department under President Business Deals isn’t putting the full weight of the federal government behind finding him.
COLUMBUS COOLER WITH DEVIL’S LETTUCE (MAYBE)
Columbus, Ohio, is a “progressive city” but not the kind that decriminalizes magic mushrooms like Denver.
But we could soon make possession of up to 200 grams a fine of $25, or less than an expired meter.
From Bill Bush of dispatch.com:
The Columbus City Council on Monday unveiled marijuana reform legislation that would make the fine for being caught in the city with up to 200 grams — about 7 ounces — less than the cost of letting your parking meter expire.
Being caught with up to 100 grams would be a $10 fine; between 100 and 200 grams would cost $25. And unlike state law, up to 200 grams would not come with possible jail time, under the first reading of the ordinance. Over 200 grams would still constitute a felony.
Being caught with marijuana paraphernalia would also be a $10 fine, the ordinance says.
As any parent can attest, baby steps > no steps.
THOSE WMDs. Scar: Good villain, terrible statesman… How Kim Jong-Un gets his luxury cars… New research reveals why police fail to catch sexual predators… Homesteaders: The last frontier in America… Is it OK to laugh at Florida Man?