While Doing some background research I came across an interesting example of just how small the world is. So here's to sharing (with whimsy) and to the good people of Ohio.
The Pretenders My City Was Gone
I went back to Ohio
But my city was gone
There was no train station
There was no downtown
Southtown it had disappeared
All my favorite places
My city had been pulled down
Reduced to parking spaces
Ay! Oh! Where did you go, Ohio?
Tonights salad.
Our first URL is a 7:14 you-tube video (posted previously) from a local FOX news station in Ohio before the convictions of the two election officials in Ohio.
Forget how Fox framed the piece.. It's significance is the cameo appearances by Michael VU, former Cuyahoga County Director Elections, "Steel eyed" Special Prosecutor Kevin Baxter and Cuyahoga County Board of Elections chair... (appointed by Blackwell in 2006) and Chairman of the Ohio Republican Party Robert Bennett who's Bio is included below.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x13376BIO Robert T. Bennett
Robert T. Bennett is currently serving his eighth term as full-time chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, a position he has held since 1988 when he also became a committeeman and voting member of the Republican National Committee (RNC). Upon his election in 1988, Ohio Republicans held no statewide executive offices, no Congressional or state legislative majorities, and only slim majorities in the Ohio Senate and on the Ohio Supreme Court. Working with Ohio's business community and political leadership, Chairman Bennett set out to develop and implement a long-term plan to rebuild the Ohio Republican Party from the grassroots up.
As a result of effective re-apportionment and grassroots planning, the 1992 elections were highly successful for Ohio Republicans. More Republicans were elected to the Ohio House of Representatives than in the previous two decades combined, and Republicans retained their majorities on the Ohio Supreme Court and in the Ohio Senate.
In 1994, under Mr. Bennett's leadership, and with Governor George Voinovich leading the ticket, Ohio Republicans surpassed their goals. In addition to retaining the governor, the secretary of state and a majority in the Ohio Senate, Ohio Republicans won every statewide constitutional office and a new majority in the Ohio House of Representatives for the first time in 22 years. The party also won a U.S. Senate seat for the first time in 24 years and elected four new Republican Congressmen, giving Republicans a 13-6 majority in the state's Congressional delegation.
In 1996, Ohio Republicans were again successful at the state and local levels. Republicans overwhelmingly retained two seats on the Ohio Supreme Court, increased their Ohio House majority by four seats, gained a seat in the Ohio Senate and increased Republican majorities at the local level by winning an additional 24 county wide offices.
In the 1998 elections, Chairman Bennett led the Ohio Republican Party in a successful effort to retain GOP control of all constitutional statewide offices, including the election of Gov. Bob Taft. Ohioans also elected a second Republican U.S. Senator (George Voinovich), re-elected an incumbent to the Ohio Supreme Court and retained majorities in both the Ohio Senate and the Ohio House.
In 2000, Bob Bennett again proved the power of a successful grassroots political machine. Ohio became the largest state in the nation without a Bush as governor to give its electoral votes to George W. Bush. Chairman Bennett organized one of the most effective voter registration and turnout drives in party history and applied those programs to both the presidential campaign and to the successful re-election effort of Republican U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine.
By 2002, U.S. Census reports forced another change in Ohio’s legislative boundaries, and Ohio lost one Congressional seat due to redistricting. However, the party again controlled the apportionment process, which enabled a three-seat gain in the Ohio House (matching the record set in 1966) and a one-seat gain in the Ohio Senate for a 22-seat advantage (the largest margin since 1967). Ohio Republicans also added one seat to their Congressional delegation. Chairman Bennett led the party in successful efforts to retain every statewide constitutional office, including the re-election of Governor Bob Taft (which extended GOP control of the executive office to 16 years, the longest single-party control since 1822). Ohio Republicans elected Jennette Bradley as Ohio’s first African-American lieutenant governor and gave the Ohio Supreme Court its first female majority in state history. On the local level, Republicans gained seven countywide offices, bringing the GOP total to nearly 65 percent (up from 52 percent when Chairman Bennett took office).
Under Chairman Bennett’s tenure, the Ohio Republican Party has consistently used the latest technology to build a formidable political operation. The Ohio Republican Party was the first state party in the nation to develop an Internet website, the first to broadcast a political speech online, and the first state party to air a satellite television broadcast from a national convention back to its home state. In addition, the party’s state headquarters houses a production studio, a state of the art telecommunications center, political offices for Republican legislative caucuses and statewide elected officials, and a mass-mail center for use by Republican candidates throughout the state.
In 1995, Mr. Bennett was appointed by Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour as one of nine members of the Presidential Primary Task Force. The goal of this group was to study the effects that the compression of the 1996 presidential primary schedule had on the selection of the Republican Presidential nominee and delegates to the 1996 Republican National Convention. The Task Force made recommendations to the Republican National Convention Rules Committee, which adopted a proposal that would help spread out the presidential primary election process.
Bob Bennett's political career spans over three decades. . He served as the Executive Vice-Chairman of the Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) Republican Party from 1974 until February 1988. Mr. Bennett is a member of numerous civic and community boards, including University Hospitals and Southwest General Health Center of Cleveland, the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, the Federal Home Loan Bank of Cincinnati (where he serves as vice chairman) and The Howland Group of Philadelphia.
I went back to Ohio
But my family was gone
I stood on the back porch
There was nobody home
I was stunned and amazed
My childhood memories
Saw this world past
Like the wind through the trees
Ay! Oh! Where did you go, Ohio?
First Side Dish
Our next article is a fine compendium from Wired News ''"Ohio Election Portends Trouble"
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71999-0.html?tw=... a couple of tidbits below from the CERP report, (Cuyahoga Election Review Panel), the first pdf in the Wired article Final Report July 20, 2006
Due to poor chain of custody for supplies and equipment, 812 voter-access cards (which voters place in touch-screen machines to cast their ballot) were lost, along with 215 card encoders, which program the voter-access cards. Three hundred thirteen keys to the voting machines' memory-card compartments, where votes are stored, also went missing.
Officials set up two user accounts on the computer running vote-tabulation software, then assigned one password to both accounts and allowed multiple people to use them, thwarting any effort to identify individuals who might access and alter the system.
Sixty Board of Election employees took touch-screen machines home a weekend before the election to test a procedure for transmitting data on election night.
The election board hired 69 taxis to transport observers to precincts to collect memory cards and paper rolls on election night. But many cab drivers ended up gathering the materials themselves, and about half the cabs returned to the warehouse with election data, but no observer.
In at least 79 precincts the number of voters who signed the poll books didn't match the number of ballots cast. At least eight precincts had more ballots cast than registered voters. Because some polling places served several precincts, some of the discrepancies are explained by voters being directed to the wrong machines, an error that did not result in uncounted votes. But even when investigators tallied ballots and signatures for all precincts in a polling place, 15 locations still had mismatches. In one case investigators found 342 more voters than ballots.
I went back to Ohio
But my pretty countryside
Had been paved down the middle
By a government that had no pride
The farms of Ohio
had been replaced by shopping malls
And Muzak filled the air
From Seneca to Cuyahoga Falls
Said Ay! Oh! Where did you go, Ohio?
The were printing problems in the primary, you'll recognize a player or two here.... and one significant point... The company that won the bid underbid its competition by about 30%, $90,000 to $145,000 to it's closest competitor a good deal for the county, yes? However the printer ends up potentially (and I believe does) getting a no other bidder contract for the Absentee ballots for over 700,000 dollars.
Second side dish ...also from the CERP Report
In Cuyahoga, the state’s largest county with about 1 million registered voters, the board of elections approved a ballot layout that was unreadable by the scanners, according to SysTest Labs, a Denver-based company hired by the county to pin down the problem’s cause. SysTest also reported Monday that North Canton-based Diebold did not warn its customers that placing thick black lines on ballots could create problems.
The Cuyahoga County Elections Board did not earn high marks from SysTest, which said in its report that “training inadequacies are evident throughout the organization from ballot design to training of booth officials and election day technicians.”
County elections board Chairman Robert Bennett said the findings could help with the work of an oversight panel the board appointed following the election. The panel’s report is expected Thursday.
Diebold spokesman Mark Radke said it would be premature to comment until the final report is released.
SysTest found that the ballots used in Cuyahoga County were similar to the format recommended by the staff of the Ohio secretary of state, but black lines separating various parts were thicker than on ballots used elsewhere in Ohio where scanners read ballots without problem. Also, ovals where voters mark their selections were slightly closer to the black lines than on other ballots in the state.
The board also gave a conditional award of $721,149 for the printing of the absentee ballots to MCR Inc., which printed the ballots for the May election. In May, optical scan machines could not read the absentee ballots, causing the election results to be delayed by about five days. A later investigation found that board employees laid out the ballots with too thick a black line between contests that caused the machines to misread the votes.
MCR owner Frank Piunno told the board he would be able to fix the problems by Friday. MCR was the only bidder for the job, but the board left open the option of rebidding the contract.
Tonight's Entree
Cuyahoga county was the only county to have a unique printer (by printer, like a Kinkos) for it's 2006 primary ballots. All the other counties combined on a bid for printing, no big deal given it's size. A quick google on the Printer's owner Frank Piunno is where things take a turn to the WOAH
...Whatever
http://stephie1989.imeem.com/music/RIhmQDeR/my_united_states_of_whatever/The following is sourced from
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/09/20040904-2.htmlSeptember 4, 2004
THE PRESIDENT: We've got a small business owner, Frank Piunno, with us today. There he is. Get up here, Frank. (Applause.) Frank is a -- he's an entrepreneur. That means he's a dreamer, that he creates jobs because he has got a start -- he started his own business, or owns his own business. By the way, there's nothing better than a society in which more and more people are saying, I own my own business. That's why we believe in an ownership society in America. (Applause.)
Frank, tell us what you do.
MR. PIUNNO: My company is marketing communication research, and we do confidential data printing and mailing. We do things like your patient -- hospital patient bills. We print and mail those. We personalize printing for universities. We do work in the manufacturing sector. We do price books and catalogs, mostly confidential information, printing it.
THE PRESIDENT: Good. How many employees you got?
MR. PIUNNO: We have 20 employees, two of which are my sons.
THE PRESIDENT: Really? Good. Well, he probably wants to make sure the death tax is gone forever. (Applause.) So did you add any employees this year?
MR. PIUNNO: Yes, we've added three employees this year.
THE PRESIDENT: Why -- why have you added three employees?
MR. PIUNNO: Well, we've been able to take advantage of the tax credits to invest in equipment. But we've also been able to keep equity in the business, which has allowed to add people.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Interesting, isn't it -- one of the things that sometimes these numbers really don't reflect is the fact that the small business sector is adding people. See, he's added three this year. And that happens all over the country. One of the things you like to hear, if you're a fellow like me, is that the small business sector is thriving because most new jobs in America are created by small businesses. And when you hear Frank say, well, he's added three, that's good because there's a lot of Franks around adding three here, 10 there, 15 there. (Applause.) One of the other things -- Frank is called an S corp. Right?
MR. PIUNNO: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: That's a legal term. I'm not a lawyer either. (Laughter and applause.)
MR. PIUNNO: Neither am I.
THE PRESIDENT: That's why I said, either. See, here's something interesting about the tax relief we've provided that nobody -- or very few people focus on, except for Frank -- if you're an S corp, or a sole proprietorship -- these are legal terms for small businesses -- you pay tax at the individual income tax rate. Most small businesses are S corps, like Frank's, and sole proprietorships. So when you heard us say we're going to reduce taxes on everybody who pays taxes, reduce the individual income tax rates, nearly a million small businesses benefited because they got more -- they've got more money in their coffers. The tax relief helped him. It gave him a different frame of mind -- putting words in his mouth. I'm not even a lawyer. (Laughter and applause.)
So one of the things, when they say they're going to tax the rich, think about small businesses. That's what they're talking about. When they run up the top rate, they're affecting S corps and sole proprietorships. It would be bad for our economy to take money out of this guy's small business. He's growing. Just when he's beginning to add people, why would you want to tax him? It makes no economic sense to tax people like Frank. (Applause.)
What did you invest in?
MR. PIUNNO: We -- where? We invested in equipment, digital printing equipment -- equipment and full-color equipment.
THE PRESIDENT: See, he got extra tax benefits. We provided incentives for small businesses to invest. Why? Because most small businesses -- most new jobs are created by small businesses. Secondly, when a company is investing, it means somebody has got to make the product that they're purchasing. Somebody has got to make this machine he bought. When we increase demand for goods and services through tax relief, the economy grows. Somebody has got to be working on the machine that he wants to purchase. More importantly, his workers become more productive, so they're more likely to keep a job.
Accurate?
MR. PIUNNO: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Good. (Applause.) If this county is declared an opportunity zone, here's how Frank's business will benefit. First, because he's a small business, he'll receive additional tax savings. In other words, they'll say, here's more incentive to expand. Secondly, because he's a small business, he will receive more expensing allowance when it comes to purchasing equipment. Right now, the limit's at $100,000. We'll double the amount he can expense when he buys equipment. That will be helpful for this part of the world. Thirdly, the -- he will get wage credit for hiring people who live in the opportunity zone. In other words, the opportunity zone says to a small business, stay here and expand and there will be economic benefits if you do so. I'm pretty confident he would like this to be an opportunity zone here.
MR. PIUNNO: Yes, I would.
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. Well, it's got a very good chance of being one, because this part of the world is changing. That's what we're talking about. And so the question is, what do you do about it? And what we do about it is we create opportunities, new opportunities, by streamlining regulations and focusing tax relief to expand the job base in the community in which has been affected. And a good way of doing that is to help the small business owners around this part of the world. And that's what we're going to do.
Thanks, Frank. Good job.
MR. PIUNNO: Thank you.
Holy Toledo Batman!!!
Alison Krauss---Down To The River To Pray From Brother Where Art Thou.
As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good old way
And who shall wear the starry crown
Good Lord, show me the way !
O sisters let's go down,
Let's go down, come on down,
O sisters let's go down,
Down in the river to pray.
As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good old way
And who shall wear the robe and crown
Good Lord, show me the way !
O brothers let's go down,
Let's go down, come on down,
Come on brothers let's go down,
Down in the river to pray.
As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good old way
And who shall wear the starry crown
Good Lord, show me the way !
O fathers let's go down,
Let's go down, come on down,
O fathers let's go down,
Down in the river to pray.
As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good old way
And who shall wear the robe and crown
Good Lord, show me the way !
O mothers let's go down,
Let's go down, don't you want to go down,
Come on mothers let's go down,
Down in the river to pray.
As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good old way
And who shall wear the starry crown
Good Lord, show me the way !
O sinners let's go down,
Let's go down, come on down,
O sinners let's go down,
Down in the river to pray.
As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good old way
And who shall wear the robe and crown
Good Lord, show me the way !
A little Desert
The New Yorker "HOLY TOLEDO" by FRANCES FITZGERALD
Ohio’s gubernatorial race tests the power of the Christian right. (with a good history on Ken Blackwell)
Posted 2006-07-24
Pastor Rod Parsley stood on a flag-bedecked dais on the steps of Ohio’s Statehouse last October and, amid cheers from the crowd below proclaimed the launch of “the largest evangelical campaign ever attempted in any state in America.” A nationally known televangelist and th leader of a twelve-thousand-member church on the outskirts of Columbus, Parsley had gathered a thousand people for the event, and attract bystanders with a multimedia performance involving a video on a Jumbotron and music by Christian singers and rappers broadcast so loud that i reverberated off the tall buildings south of the Statehouse. TV crews from Parsley’s ministry taped the event. “Sound an alarm!” he boomed. “ Holy Ghost invasion is taking place. Man your battle stations, ready your weapons, lock and load!” In the course of the performance, Parsle promised that during the next four years his campaign, Reformation Ohio, would bring a hundred thousand Ohioans to Christ, register four hundred thousand new voters, serve the disadvantaged, and guide the state through “a culture-shaking revolutionary revival.
Among those who spoke at the rally were Senator Sam Brownback, of Kansas, and Representative Walter B. Jones, of North Carolina, both Christian conservatives, and J. Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio’s secretary of state, who is now the Republican nominee for governor. All talked about the need to bring God and morality back into government. “We refuse to give up or back up or shut up until we’ve made a better world for all,” Blackwell said.
...much more.
Encore:
Everett: "I don't want FOP, god dammit, I'm a Dapper Dan Man!"
The Soggy Bottom Boys---In The Jailhouse Now lyrics From Brother Where Art Thou.
I had a friend named Ramblin' Bob
Who used to steal gamble and rob
He thought he was the smartest guy around.
But I found out last Monday...
That Bob got locked up Sunday...
They've got him in the jailhouse way down town.
He's in the jailhouse now...
He's in the jailhouse now...
I told him once or twice
Stop playin' cards and shootin' dice
He's in the jailhouse now.
Yodel...
Bob liked to play his poker...
Pinoccle with Dan Yoker...
But shooting dice was his favorite game.
He got throwed in jail...
With nobody to pay his bail...
The judge done said that he refused a fine.
He's in the jailhouse now.
He's in the jailhouse now.
I told him once or twice...
Quit playin' cards and shootin' dice.
He's in the jailhouse now.
I went out last Tuesday...
Met a gal named Susie...
I said I was the swellest guy around.
We started to spend my money...
Then she started to call me honey...
We took in every cabaret in town.
We're in the jailhouse now...
We're in the jailhouse now...
I told the judge right to his face...
We didn't like to see this place...
We're in the jailhouse now.
Yodel...
Secial Thanks to AUTORANK for help with the Subject line and Moral support
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