Ohio 2nd Blog

NEWS FLASH

The Enquirer Politics Extra “blog” has finally credited a blog for a story. Of course Sloat being a newspaper man must explain them running the embargo.

I’ve started a new blog that ‘s focused entirely on the more philosophical end of the the work I’m doing involving software engineering, politics and the semantic web.

Where
20th Century Theater in Oakley, 3021 Madison Road, Cincinnati, OH 45209

Map
Google Map

When
Aug 28   starts at 6:30 pm

Learn more:  http://www.noiraqescalation.org/ 

Americans Against Escalation in Iraq is a group of independent entities, including the Service Employees International Union, MoveOn.org Political Action, VoteVets.org, Center for American Progress Action Fund, USAction, Win Without War, Campaign for America’s Future, the United States Student Association, Working Assets,  Americans United for Change, Campus Progress Action and Nation Security Network, that have banded together as a coalition to launch a multi-faceted, multi million dollar effort in fifteen target states to education the American public about the true costs of the war in Iraq, mobilize opposition against President Bush’s Iraq policy, as well as apply on-going pressure on members of Congress to oppose this failed policy.

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I’ll confess that this blog really sucks of late. It’s been really hard to work up the energy to write about Jean Schmidt and friends. It seems like almost every week a story rolls by about our dear Jeanie screwing small farmers or trying to take away health care for little children or sponsoring legislation to outlaw teddy bears, and yet this site remains silent.

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I was driving on 71 northbound right before the King’s Island exit when I saw this bizarre boxshaped truck that appeared to be made out of plywood driving in the slow lane. All over it were anti abortion messages and pictures. Mrs. Editor has sited several of them last week during her lunch hour. One of the pictures she saw was of a little babies hand reaching out of a woman’s bloody cut open stomach. Really gruesome stuff.

Did anyone else catch them? I’d love to get some pictures.

I expect to see more and more bizarre stuff like this with the cascade failure of the right.

UPDATED: Here’s a pic of one of the types of trucks:

Just got an anonymous tip in that Paul Hackett was seen yesterday running a 5 minute mile pushing his boys in a walker while sporting a Hackett for Congress t-shirt. After the race he was asked by WLW’s Billy Cunningham if he was running again. Hackett said he wasn’t ruling anything out but he wasn’t ruling anything in either.

Never a dull moment in the OH02.

Everytime I get out, she pulls me back in…

One of the things that veteran members of Congress recommend to newbies is that they specialize in certain topics close to them instead of trying to do everything. Congresswoman Jean Schmidt seems to have taken this advice to heart by becoming the House of Representative’s leading champion of toxic s**t.

First it was her struggle to have nuclear waste trucked by the tons into her own district. Now, as reported by Bill Sloat at The Daily Bellwether, the Congresswoman has become a cosigner of H.R. 4341, to amend the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act so that manure (aka “digestive emissions, feces, urine and other excrement from livestock”) wouldn’t be considered a “hazardous substance, pollutant or contaminant”.

It seems that agribusiness’ (remember mega-farms?) are worried about getting hit from lawsuits related to the rivers of toxic animal s**t that they spew out. Last year Rolling Stone magazine gave us a glimpse into this wonderful world:

Smithfield estimates that its total sales will reach $11.4 billion this year. So prodigious is its fecal waste, however, that if the company treated its effluvia as big-city governments do — even if it came marginally close to that standard — it would lose money. So many of its contractors allow great volumes of waste to run out of their slope-floored barns and sit blithely in the open, untreated, where the elements break it down and gravity pulls it into groundwater and river systems. Although the company proclaims a culture of environmental responsibility, ostentatious pollution is a linchpin of Smithfield’s business model.

A lot of pig shit is one thing; a lot of highly toxic pig shit is another. The excrement of Smithfield hogs is hardly even pig shit: On a continuum of pollutants, it is probably closer to radioactive waste than to organic manure. The reason it is so toxic is Smithfield’s efficiency. The company produces 6 billion pounds of packaged pork each year. That’s a remarkable achievement, a prolificacy unimagined only two decades ago, and the only way to do it is to raise pigs in astonishing, unprecedented concentrations.

Smithfield’s pigs live by the hundreds or thousands in warehouse-like barns, in rows of wall-to-wall pens. Sows are artificially inseminated and fed and delivered of their piglets in cages so small they cannot turn around. Forty fully grown 250-pound male hogs often occupy a pen the size of a tiny apartment. They trample each other to death. There is no sunlight, straw, fresh air or earth. The floors are slatted to allow excrement to fall into a catchment pit under the pens, but many things besides excrement can wind up in the pits: afterbirths, piglets accidentally crushed by their mothers, old batteries, broken bottles of insecticide, antibiotic syringes, stillborn pigs — anything small enough to fit through the foot-wide pipes that drain the pits. The pipes remain closed until enough sewage accumulates in the pits to create good expulsion pressure; then the pipes are opened and everything bursts out into a large holding pond.

The temperature inside hog houses is often hotter than ninety degrees. The air, saturated almost to the point of precipitation with gases from shit and chemicals, can be lethal to the pigs. Enormous exhaust fans run twenty-four hours a day. The ventilation systems function like the ventilators of terminal patients: If they break down for any length of time, pigs start dying.

Veteran reporter Sloat offers the Congresswoman some excellent advice:

Schmidt, whose 2nd district is populated by mostly by urban and suburban residents, probably should have stayed out of this fight. She will face opposition in the Republican primary next year, and she has opened herself to being portrayed as a politician who thinks poop isn’t a pollutant. That’s a stinky spot to be in. Just imagine the attack ads with people holding their noses.

She really does blog herself.

This year your humble editor has been slacking pretty bad when it comes to updating everyone with the latest news about the district. While much of it can be chalked up to I’ve got my own damned problems, part of it comes from the fact that the district is so hot as a target, and Schmidt so wonderful as a nemesis that it blogs itself. I’ve reached a sort of zen nirvana where by doing nothing everything happens. It is a thing of beauty.

You can tell that we are witnessing the blessed final collapse of the Reagan revolution by how voraciously Republicans are eating themselves alive. What in the 80s was cynical, masterful hypocrisy has two decades later become the moronic rantings of a horribly inbred lineage. Bereft of ideas, goals, or moral compass, those of us who have suffered through decades of being right now get to enjoy as the devil collects his interest on their collective Faustian bargain.

Case in point the perverse orgy of self cannibalism currently going on in Southern Ohio.

Lets start with The Banks project. Congresswoman Schmidt, desperate to be able to take credit for anything besides turning Jack Murtha into a household word, does what any good Representative does by trying to bring some much needed public works projects to her district. But instead of having the measly few billions rubber stamped like everyone else’s, she gets hit by a massive smack down by neighboring Congressman Steve Chabot, Minority Leader Leader John Boehner, and the White House itself in the form of the locally beatified Budget Director Rob Portman.

When an entity stands for nothing but power, it’s easy to interpret its actions. In the case of a loyal right wing trooper like Congresswoman Schmidt becoming the cheese that stands alone, it’s obvious that the action tells us that she is completely on the outs from her own Party. Believe what you will from the mouthpieces, but in 08 Jean Schmidt will be fighting this one without the help from the beltway black hats.

In terms of tactics, it’s pretty understandable. Ask yourself, would you rather dump another million dollars on the political sinkhole that Jean Schmidt has turned the 2nd district into, or instead invest it in knocking out a lightweight like Zack Space and gaining some much needed momentum?

The other example that I’ve been enjoying has been the falling out of Tom Brinkman with his once patron The Whistleblower. Brinkman’s crime? Voting for the Strickland budget. God forbid you try to actually accomplish something.

There has been every indication that Brinkman will take on Schmidt again since he’s being term limited from his gig as State Rep. A bloody, I’m more right wing than you, three way slugfest will be the perfect prelude for liberals looking forward to the general: Jean Schmidt once again the Republican standard bearer holding a cool quarter of a million dollars of additional debt.

Brinkman is one of the tragic figures of the 2nd district. There’s a fine line between being an idealistic maverick and an opportunistic gray hat. Time and time again Brinkman has overplayed his hand placing him squarely in with the gray hats. And any follower of westerns knows what happens to gray hats.

It will be interesting to see what sort of career opportunities an unemployed, ineffective professional homophobe like Tom Brinkman might have in Southern Ohio. I hear they might be hiring in Piketon.

It’s not often that a cynical old coot such as your humble editor is impressed with anything. These days life seems to consist of long streams of boredom punctuated by weekly fits of anger directed at the writers of The Sopranos. (Please, guys… is anything EVER going to happen??? Could you let me in on the secret now… we’re on a budget and I could use the time for more constructive purposes.)

However my friend Jerid, the new zoo keeper over at the mighty Buckeye State Blog, has managed to come up with a real winner. He calls it The New Hampshire Project. The idea is that since the early primary states like New Hampshire have so much control over states like Ohio when it comes to who gets to be President, that he’d spend the summer blogging about the race from an Ohio perspective.

The idea has been such a hit that he’s gotten such local Democratic heavy hitters such as Rich Cordray, Mary Jo Kilroy, John O’Grady, Dan Stewart, Andrew Ginther to host a fundraiser for him 5:30PM Thursday May 10 at the Short North Tavern, 674 North High Street; Columbus, OH 43215.

Suggested contributions are $25, $50, or $100. Hope to see you there.

http://www.buckeyestateblog.com/diabolical_everyman

I’ve been sitting on this essay for a while. Connie Schultz encouraged me to try writing columns so I’ll blame her for this one

One thing I dislike about my blogging style is that in general I’ve intentionally tried to keep my posts ultra short. I just assume that people are like me and get easily distracted. I like trying to slow down the pace and beef up the quality of what I’m trying to write.