Ohio 2nd Blog

Democrat Hamilton County Commissioner David Pepper is doing an online fundraising drive to raise $25,000 by Friday. It would be nice to give Todd Portune some backup.

The Fix > 2008: Time Ripe for Third Party Ticket?

The answer to the question is yes, but as I always like to say, it’s never too late to do the right thing. Maybe this will light a fire under people’s asses. This has got to give a lot of beltway types a little shudder. Looks like the indi forces are getting smarter, and the Internet is a great equalizer added to the mix.

Lucky for me I don’t worry about Presidential Races. The House is where the action’s at. (Why 3rd Parties all but ignore them is beyond me.)

It will be interesting to see how this changes the dynamics with the partisan portals. Kos and RedState/Free Republic are all about us vs. them. What happens if you add a plague on both your houses force into the mix? Should be interesting.

BizzyBlog has caught Paul Hackett sightings in two national stories: filing a class action lawsuit over the VA data loss, and being interviewed in relation to the Haditha events.

BTW, check out Paul Rieckhoff reading from his book Chasting Ghosts for some idea of the atmosphere.

Also, Murtha has been on a tear on this issue.

I haven’t done any David Sirota bashing in a long time. I’ve missed it. Good times…

Classic content provided by the Dean.

Looks like he could use the Heimlich Remover.

UDMike has posted some interesting video contrasting Jean Schmidt with the President:

how quick Congress and the White House work out invasion of privacy matters when it’s THEIR privacy at stake. Meanwhile the architect of the NSA’s violation of every American’s rights sails through the Senate. Jack Cafferty nails it.

NYT > Police Investigating ‘Sound of Gunfire’ on Capitol Hill

Appropriately enough Wonkette is providing blanket coverage.

UPDATE: An air hammer?!

No thanks to Congressman Steve Chabot. Here’s a video explaining why this is so important, a link to the guy running against him, and a page where you can give him some money to help kick Chabot to the curb. The Ohio 1st race is considered in play so this would be a good investment.

Let’s make an example out of those in Congress who hate our freedom.

(via Crooks and Liars)

One of my favorite chess players is the 8th world champion Mikhail Tal. From the Wikipedia:

Known as “The Magician from Riga”, Tal can be considered as the archetype of the attacking player, developing an extremely powerful and imaginative play. His approach over the board was very pragmatic - in that respect, he is one of the heirs of the ex-World Champion Emanuel Lasker. He often sacrificed material in search for the initiative in chess, which is defined by the ability to make threats to which the opponent must respond. With such intuitive sacrifices, he created vast complications, and many masters found it impossible to solve all the problems he created over the board, though deeper post-game analysis found flaws in some of his conceptions. Although this playing style was scorned by ex-World Champion Vasily Smyslov as nothing more than “tricks”, Tal convincingly beat every notable grandmaster with his trademark aggression. Viktor Korchnoi and Paul Keres are two of the few with a significant plus record against him.

Today the Chicago Tribune is reporting that House Republicans are going to be holding a free-flowing debate on the war in Iraq. The report labels it a gamble. I agree, and I also call the move brilliant.

With good, solid, aggressive action the Democrats could punish the Republicans for allowing this discussion, using it as a vehicle for clearly demonstrating the years of failure. But we all know that the Democrats are completely incapable of good, solid, aggressive action. They don’t want to look soft, and so will try to out jingo and flag wave the Republicans as our troops sink further and further into the quagmire. If successful, the Republicans will have removed from the table the single most important issue in the 2006 elections.

Given the lay of the board, I think that this is just the sort of play that could help keep the Republicans in control of the House. Let’s hope the DCCC gets a clue and isn’t once again pushed off the board by this risky play from the House leadership.

You see the dilemma don’t you. If you don’t kill me, precogs were wrong and precrime is over. If you do kill me, you go away, but it proves the system works. The precogs were right. So, what are you going to do now? What’s it worth? Just one more murder? You’ll rot in hell with a halo, but people will still believe in precrime. All you have to do is kill me like they said you would. Except you know your own future, which means you can change it if you want to. You still have a choice Lamar. Like I did. - Minority Report