Is John Kasich just a fool or is he stupid, too?

Ohio Gov. Kasich should thank the Lord he uses like a political prop when it suits him, but with whom he has so often differed when it comes to fundamentals of human decency, mercy and care for the least among us, that he's even still governor.

Gov. John Kasich at the Ohio
Statehouse in Columbus

For those unschooled in Ohio government, there is little doubt that the Catholic boy who once wanted to devote his life to his Master, but who found politics more to his liking since it would bring him fame and fortune, would have been recalled early-on had the state constitution contained a provision for recall.

If Ohio's constitution allowed voters to recall statewide leaders, there is little doubt that Kasich, elected in 2010 by just two percent (77,127 votes statewide), would have been subject to recall in 2011 when he threw himself and all his resources into backing Senate Bill 5, the wildly unpopular gutting of public sector unions orchestrated by Republicans.

The bill that riled up so many Ohioans, which got shellacked at the ballot box by a 2-1 margin, sent Kasich a warning to not try such a brazen move again. At the same time, Kasich looked likely in thankfulness that he wasn't his like-minded classmate, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, whose state does have a recall provision and who because of it was hauled before the public for essentially doing the same thing Kasich did. Walker won, but it's hard to think Kasich, who barely squeaked by in 2010, would have been lucky enough to withstand a voter base who saw to what lengths he was willing to go to cement his reputation as a Republican who had it out for the Democratic agenda, in that case, collective bargaining rights.

Ohio's 69 chief executive has brazenly used the high office over the last nearly eight years for his own personal self promotion. Even today when he's still cashing taxpayer checks, he has the unmitigated gall to continue to tap the pocketbooks.

"We’re nearing our February fundraising deadline and could use your help. Our message is making a difference but we need to raise the funds to continue paying for the services that allow us to support Gov. Kasich's mission," a flash solicitation for more dough reads, reciting his stacked-deck performances on various TV shows

Using his office to further his personal ambitions has been a Kasich trademark from his first days in the Ohio Senate to two years ago, when he took a second bite of the presidential apple. His drubbing on the primary trail showed everyone, especially big ticket donors, how unpopular he is with his own Republican Party. The GOP instead nominated an inveterate liar and documented misogynist billion from New York, who pounded Kasich so badly that the boy from McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, where his own hometown voted 5-1 against him, finds himself a governor who's on the outs with Republicans trying to succeed him and wolf in sheep's clothing in Democratic circles.

The best he could do two years ago was win one Electoral College vote. Pathetic and humiliating are apt words for his second White House loss. Because the multi-millionaire was too stupid to quit when losing was a foregone conclusion to all the other 15 GOP candidates when the Trump juggernaut rolled over them, media confuses his stamina of ego with voter support.

Like a pull-toy doll with prerecorded catch phrases, Kasich is adept at lying on a par with Donald Trump. Tripping on ant hills on the way to the pyramids, the Republican Party is my vehicle not my master or I don't know what I'm going to do tomorrow are some of his favorite go-to gibberish comments.

Another more recent but equally false and vacuous statement he uses is that he doesn't know what the Democratic agenda is. Basic Kasich say repeat his blather often, because hosts and journalists don't know enough to challenge him on any one of them. Yet another national Sunday TV show, where he's become the reliable anti-Trump dancing bear, the career politician and moving target did it again as if no one was paying attention. Wrong.

How stupid is that for anyone so dependent on the public eye to claim that Democrats don't have an agenda? Is it also stupid that, of all people, he doesn't know what it is? Being a fool is par for Kasich, but showing his stupidity for all the world to see is a double whammy.

Very, actually, since he's fought tooth and nail against that agenda—union workers' rights, support for public schools and public school teachers, women's rights and their access to abortion, raising the minimum wage, allowing Medicare to bargain for prescription drugs, expanding Medicaid, protecting and boosting Social Security, wealthy individuals and corporations should pay higher taxes, tax cuts don't create jobs, gay rights o name but a few—his entire political life.

Nonetheless, even though it was an old notion from an old but fabulously wealthy hack whose parents were Democrats and government workers refuses to acknowledge how un-liked he is among both members of his own party and others, be they Democrats or independents, who have observed him for decades and concluded he's on the wrong side of most important issues, he trotted it out again. And loyal scribblers from his favorite Ohio newspaper, the Columbus Dispatch, reported on it as if he was breaking new ground.

The Dispatch's Washington-based reporter Jack Torry wrote that the National Chaplain launched "a spirited attack against the Democratic Party ... Ohio Gov. John Kasich charged he has 'no clue' what Democrats stand for and complained they have 'no agenda.'" Speaking on “This Week,” "Kasich offered the strongest signal yet that he may want to run for president in 2020 as an independent, even though throughout the interview he kept insisting he was a Republican."

Nine months away from wandering off the political radar screen, the term-limited, lame-duck governor continues to raise money as if he were still on the campaign trail. His last book that recounts his failed run in 2016, that consists nearly entirely of regurgitating his quixotic life story of abandoning his family Democrats roots in favor of self-fish conservative causes that have endeared him to Republican donors who have funded he and his cadre of political operatives, has enabled him seem relevant even though Republican candidates back in Ohio running to success him, have done their best to not seek his endorsement, or for those who have it, like Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, are trying to put her boss in the rear view mirror.

As one Buckeye involved in political circles told me recently, Kasich is playing both sides of the field. "He is taking the hot topic of the moment, getting booked on national news programs to stay relevant and spouting his latest transformation," my source told me, comparing the great reformer to Buckeye weather. "Kasich is like Ohio weather: Wait 5 minutes and his positions change...Ok ... I'll give Ohio weather maybe 10 minutes."

This point is borne out by sources, including CNN, that report that a portion of Ohio Gov. John Kasich's campaign website dedicated to the Second Amendment was altered this weekend. In the wake of the Florida high school shooting that killed 17 students, "Caches of the former GOP presidential candidate's page show that the page was altered sometime between Saturday, February 17 and Sunday, February 18, the day the Republican governor criticized President Donald Trump and Congress on CNN over their inaction on gun violence."

It takes a lot of brass, and Kasich has plenty of it, to shift with the prevailing winds to say he has no clue what the Democrats' agenda is. The easily angered, petulant leader who has Ohio in his hindsight and talks on foreign policy like he was some roving ambassador, gets to claim the spotlight and headlines from loyal reporters who fawn over his ever word, even though those words are as old, tired and obsolete as he is.

He told ABC's national audience, yet again like a broken record, that "at the end of the day it's in the hands of the Lord as to what to my future is ... I don't know what he wants me to do." Clearly, what the Lord doesn't want John Kasich to do is become President of the United States, that's a message he's sent the grumpy governor twice.

Gov. Kasich's shame on gun and abortion bills

Ohio Gov. John Kasich has signed 20 bills into law over his nearly eight years in office that make it harder and harder for law-abiding women to exercise their constitutional right to an abortion. That's a fact.

John Kasich, Ohio's imperious governor,

asks Congress to "wake up and do something" 

after he spent 18 years there doing  next to 

nothing on gun control.

Another fact is that Kasich has not signed one bill into law, or introduced one himself, that makes it harder in Ohio to buy a gun. But he has signed over a dozen bills sent to him by Ohio's uber-right legislature that expands access to guns, Cincinnati.com reports.

Yet access to guns and abortions are both protected by the U.S. Constitution. For guns, the path to Second Amendment rights is virtually without impediment.

For abortions, the path to Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that offered constitutional protections to women, is littered with one hurdle after another.

Still the darling of east coast elite media that continues to delude itself that the National Chaplain who's still waiting for the Lord to tell him what to do in life will mount a third run for president in 2020, as either "Republican classic" or an independent, Kasich enjoyed yet another cameo appearance Sunday on "State of the Union" on CNN.

In the avalanche of news surrounding the 17 students in Florida who were murdered by a student who bought an AR-15 assault rifle easier than he could a beer, Kasich, who says not a word more than he's "pro-life" when the issue of abortion comes up, said he would support background checks on people trying to buy guns. That's good, since 90 percent of Americans already agree on the need for background checks.

Not having expressed any previous support to ban so-called "bump stocks," a device that converts a semi-automatic weapon into an automatic weapon, as a shooter in Las Vegas did to mow down 58 people at an outdoor concert, Kasich, who loves to talk about his religious values, apparently had a rare come-to-Jesus moment. He revealed he would support a ban on bump stocks. Does he also support bans on giant magazine clips that other shooters have used to cause deadly havoc? Don't know since reporters don't ask him these kind of pointed questions.

For reference on Kasich's close association with the National Rifle Association, whose solution is to give more people more guns, the NRA endorsed him in 2014, when he had to win reelection to make himself a viable GOP candidate for the white House in 2016. Kasich was so unviable that he got blown away by Donald Trump just like he got blown away by George W. Bush in 2000, when he first tried a run for the presidency.

Kasich aides went to great lengths to cover up his past tracks on guns that differed wildly with his new-found, media inspired evolution. One report by Kasich's adjunct PR department, The Columbus Dispatch said this:

"Kasich's aides removed from his campaign website a page that had boasted that as governor, Kasich had "signed every pro-Second Amendment bill that crossed his desk." The reported continued, "Those bills included measures that made it potentially legal to carry concealed weapons in day-care facilities and on college campuses."

A congressman for 18 years, Kasich's record on taking on the gun industry is as thin as water. His only noteworthy effort was his vote in 1994 to ban the production and sale of 19 models of semi-automatic assault weapons. After doing virtually nothing during his days in Washington, he's now calling on Congress to "wake up and do something," Fast talk from a fast talker.

Basic Kasich instruct, don't do anything important when doing nothing wins elections. Say something bombastic when you're out of harm's way, so you can point the finger of blame at someone else.

As a presidential candidate two years ago, and knowing the power the NRA holds for wayward candidates, he said the ban was "superfluous, and we don't need laws that are superfluous. It didn't have any impact," a reporter wrote. Congress failed to renew the ban in 2004.

The National Chaplain and soon to be former governor by the end of this year plays media, local and national, like chumps. He's allowed ten seconds to say his headline-grabbing banter without challenge that would make him look the fool he is. Diligent reporters who know his history and know his penchant for showmanship are few and far between. He riles easily, becoming testy and bristly when questions don't go his way.

Where was Kasich's new-found outrage in calling for background checks after any one of the 18 school shootings just this year? Where was his voice on the Pulse Nightclub massacre in Florida or the Las Vegas shooting? He says without naming any names, that he's formed another committee to propose recommendations on gun safety. Where will he be when those proposals come forward if they ever do? Where he'll be is churning the mill as a lucrative political talking-head on TV, something he did at Fox News before running for governor in 2010.

Ohio media has coddled Kasich his entire political career. As a bob-and-weave master, Mr. Reformer has been a flim-flam man who can be counted on to follow all the worst policy flaws that misguided and misled Republicans do as "fellow travelers" in GOP circles. Whether it's him being enamored of corporations and CEOs versus workers and workers unions, or being anti-women versus pro-life or being pro-NRA and weak on gun control regulations, Kasich has rarely been shamed as the rich fool he is.

He will continue to make headlines because media let him get a way with talking rubbish. Junk yard dog journalists, whose standard should be to hold two-faced politicians accountable for what they say and what they do is, are few in number.

Sen. Sherrod Brown speaks out on Gov. Kasich's plan to require Medicaid recipients to find work

After other states like Kentucky and Iowa and Indiana, each controlled by austerity-minded, tax-averse Republicans that love to talk tough about personal responsibility, it was only a matter of time before Ohio would follow suit and ask the Trump Administration for permission to require Buckeyes needing Medicaid health insurance to find a job.

John Kasich on Election Night 2010

Ohio Gov. John Kasich, now term limited and looking ahead to what his next lucrative job might be, has been a broken record on calling for personal responsibility by individuals. Meanwhile, the CEO-style leader is ideologically averse to ask the same commitment from corporations, who apparently are worthy beneficiaries of state largess that include reduced taxes. fewer regulations and taxpayer-financed loan programs.

Reports out Wednesday say Kasich’s administration is moving forward to ask Washington regulators to approve adding a work requirement for adults who use expanded Medicaid coverage for their health care. By contrast, such a requirement wasn't allowed by the Obama administration.

On his weekly call with Ohio media, I asked Sen. Brown what his thoughts were on requiring people poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, tax-funded insurance for the poor and disabled that dates back to the Johnson Administration in 1965, to find a job?

Keep in mind that Kasich, who promised when he ran for his first term in 2010 to "move the needle" on jobs," has not done well in moving that needle when compared to many other states. In fact, while he claims to have created hundred of thousands of jobs, the reality of that claim is that scores of thousands of jobs he takes ownership for came through efforts by his predecessor, Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland. Strickland weathered the Great Recession, turning the tide around enough in 2009 to deliver both jobs and about $1 billion in revenue to Kasich, who will never acknowledge what he inherited from Strickland.

Another factor that presents a problem is that Gov. Kasich has failed for 61 straight months to meet or exceed the national job creation average. Ohio is ranked 33rd in job creation by the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. It's tough to find a job when those jobs go wanting in so many of Ohio's 88 counties.

Kasich, who ran for president in 2016 and got clobbered in the process, isn't big on transparency, especially when it comes to releasing his tax returns. However, through required filings for his second loss for the White House, the public learned his net worth is gaged between $9 and $22 million, as Forbes Magazine notes. Not bad for a congressman who served 18 years in Washington, who parlayed that time into lucrative gigs on Fox News and at Lehman Brothers, the storied Wall Street investment banking firm whose collapse triggered the meltdown on Wall Street that bloomed into the worse economic recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Brown's response on the question was that those who may be forced to find employment to keep their coverage under Medicaid, will mostly be stay at home parents, the disabled or those working for minimum wage.

Brown said such requirements come from "privileged politicians," adding that they are "mean spirited and wrong." Without naming the governor by name, Sen. Brown said efforts like Kasich is ready to undertake on behalf of Ohio's very right-wing legislature reflect "bigotry" spewed out by politicians "who should be ashamed of themselves."

A blueprint on Kasich's plan says the state "would exempt those who are over age 55, in school or training for a job, in treatment for drug or alcohol addiction and those with intensive health care needs or serious mental illness."

Kaiser Health News reports that 60 percent of Medicaid recipients nationwide already work, with advocating saying that "the ones that don’t usually have a good reason for not having a job, because they’re caregivers, students or in drug recovery."

Seema Verma was appointed by Trump to lead the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services after she ran Indiana's program under former governor-turned Vice President Mike Pence. She helped Indiana become the first state to enact a very conservative approach to Medicaid. Eight other states have submitted requests similar to Ohios. Sen. Brown voted against her nomination.

Brown is running for his third term in the Senate in Washington. His all-but nominated Republican challenger is Congressman Jim Renacci of northeast Ohio, who earned the endorsement of the Ohio Republican Party last week.

Trump budget par for his course: upside down, inside out

"I want to be a strong voice to reform social service programs so that we can encourage and help people get back to work, rather than the system we’re stuck with today, with all the federal rules and regulations, that really just keeps people dependent on government."

Talk like this by Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor in her interview with The Courier newspaper in northwest Ohio sums up for the hard-of-learning why uber-conservative Republicans like her will fall in line, and in love, with the upside down, inside out budget President Donald Trump proposed Tuesday.

Taylor and GOP congressman Jim Renacci, who last week won the Ohio Republican Party's endorsement to take on two-term incumbent U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, set their compass headings for TrumpWorld, where debt and deficits no longer seem to matter. 

Candidate Donald Trump in Columbus

The White House summed up its view of the 2019 budget this way: This document provides for a strong national defense, promoting a healthy American economy and curbing wasteful Washington spending." For Taylor and her term-limited, lame-duck governor boss, John Kasich, weaning citizens off government programs designed to help them bridge the gap when paying the rent, feeding the family and weathering sickness on their own dime falls short, Trump's $4.4 trillion budget reads like Simon Legree, the brutal taskmaster slave owner made infamous by Harriet Beecher Stowe in her Civil War era novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," wrote it.

In Ohio, where midterm elections will determine the fate of Ohio for maybe decades to come, the White House budget would deliver cruel cuts to benefits that so many Buckeyes rely on every day to make ends in their life meet. Among the many cuts in domestic spending, a perennial target Republicans love to shoot, is a $200 billion cut to Medicare. Democrats say Trump's budget cuts are unconscionable, especially in light of a tax cut bill passed in December that lavishes billions on the nation's wealthiest individuals and corporations by expanding the debt by another $1.5 trillion.

The AP reports that "if enacted as proposed ... the plan would establish an era of $1 trillion-plus yearly deficits." For perspective, it says, "Trump’s pattern is in line with past Republican presidents who have overseen spikes in deficits as they simultaneously increased military spending and cut taxes." The proposed budget foresees adding deficits of $7.2 trillion over the coming decade.

“We’re going to have the strongest military we’ve ever had, by far,” Trump said, according to remarks he made in an Oval Office appearance Monday. “In this budget we took care of the military like it’s never been taken care of before.”

On healthcare, Trump expects the GOP-controlled Congress will repeal and replace former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Recent history shows that Republicans come out losers when they try to do that, since they have no alternative that works without leaving millions losing their coverage, as the Congressional Budget Office has determined. Relying on states to devise their own programs is currently a bridge to far to cross.

For lovers of the arts, get ready to cry out loud as the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities, whose combined funding total is about $300 million, are targeted for shutdown. Saving them will rely on Republicans and Democrats who like them to fight for them. The same goes for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, two more federal investments that are on the chopping block.

The Environmental Protection Agency, created by President Richard Nixon in 1970, is also slated for reduction by more than one-third, including ending the Climate Change Research and Partnership Programs. Trump isn't a fan of federal employees, so there's no surprise in budget numbers that show agency staffing could be cut by more than 20 percent from budgeted 2018 levels. There are currently 14,162 employees at the agency, the AP reports, the lowest staffing levels since the mid-1980s.

Also in the crosshairs is Housing and Urban Development, which faces funding cuts for rental assistance programs, the elimination of community block grants. Moreover, anticipated future legislation would apply work requirements for some tenants receiving public assistance.

If you're poor and hungry, get used to it, because Trump’s budget hits at 42 million Americans with food stamps who will have work requirements to fulfill. The 2019 budget reduces SNAP by roughly $213 billion over the next 10 years.

School choice advocates rejoice, the Donald is on your side. Trump is behind putting more decision-making power in the hands of parents and families to choose a school for their children. A $1.5 billion investment that would expand both private and public school choice is in the budget.

In broad strokes, the massive spending bill delivers giant setbacks to domestic programs that the poor and middle class currently enjoy, like food stamps, housing subsidies and student loans. Medicare providers would be hit with approximately $500 billion in cuts, representing a nearly 6 percent reduction, but retirement benefits would escape the ax. Meanwhile, proposed changes would mean some Social Security disability program participants would be required to find a job to maintain eligibility. Similar requirements would apply to housing subsidies, food stamps and Medicaid.

Richard Cordray, a Democratic candidate for governor who resigned last year from leading the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, said in response to the budget release that the Wite House and like-minded Republicans "didn't mind adding more than a trillion dollars to our deficit to help their rich donors and corporate sponsors. But when it comes to programs that help children, the poor, and the disabled, they tell us cuts need to be made. They've mortgaged our fiscal future only to line the pockets of people like the Koch brothers."

Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan labeled Trump's budget proposal in a tweet "a non-starter." "The only function the President's budget proposal serves is to remind us how completely out of whack his priorities are for the American people," Ryan, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, said a statement.

Kasich Lt. Gov. sidekick, Mary Taylor, crucified herself at Ohio GOP endorsement meeting

Little leaguers have a favorite shoutout when they are hammering the opposing team's pitcher: "Stick a fork in him, he's done."

Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor in the ceremonial 

Cabinet Room at the Ohio Statehouse

Based on reports of smack talk Friday by Ohio Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor about why she will not support Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine if the Ohio Republican Party endorses him for governor this year, the same infield chatter could apply to her.

Mary Taylor is a CPA, which based on her time in public office could also stand for "career politician accomplished." By following the pathetic path her cranky outbound boss Gov. John Kasich took on being anti-Donald Trump, Taylor burnt her bridge bigly today when she verbally assaulted Mike DeWine, another "CPA" running for governor after serving as attorney general for the last eight years.

Taylor sealed her fate with fellow state GOPers as a loser by refusing to support the party's pick to run against Democrats this fall, just like her petulant boss Kasich has done with national GOPers by being the reliable dancing bear who berates Trump. Taylor has tried to distance herself from Kasich without success. She has been endorsed by Ken Blackwell, a former Republican secretary of state who got clobbered by nearly 2-1 in 2006 by Democratic governor Ted Strickland.

When she bad-mouthed DeWine in Columbus, by extension, she also trash-talked his running mate, two-term Secretary of State Jon Husted.

"My opponent is a creature of that Establishment," she said. "A shill for the entrenched special interests and lobbyists who stalk the halls of the statehouse looking for a handout. He’s (DeWine) a career politician who has been on the state ballot in each of the last five decades, and has a liberal voting record as long as the line of babies he has kissed and hands he has shook."

As if that wasn't enough gutter talk, the former Ohio House of Representative member who survived the drubbing Republican's took in 2006 when Democrats surfed the "Coingate" scandal to victories for governor and other statewide seats except auditor, the scorned woman didn't hold back.

"After 42 years on the public dole, he is soft on protecting your Second Amendment rights, soft on getting conservative judges appointed, and soft on immigration. His entire campaign has been built on an air of inevitability. A false belief that it is his turn, and his team has worked hard to make you believe the same."

She called the Republican leadership present in Columbus today, "Mike DeWine’s living room."

The kicker that pretty much seals her fate as a soon-to-be disgruntled sore loser, "I’m not asking for your endorsement here today. With all of the good old boy bullying and backroom deals that have been struck to get us here...I’m not sure I even want it."

Insiders who have spoken with me in confidence consider Taylor a lazy officeholder. After her tirade today, she just qualified as a personal non grata.

Ohio's new redistricting plan is fatally flawed by partisanship

When it comes to naming the elephant in the room on big, thorny topics of governance and who doesn't like government as the main player, the answer, generally, is Republicans.

Voting ballot

When it comes to naming the 800-pound gorilla in the room on big, thorny topics of governance and who likes government as the main player, the answer, generally, is Democrats.

When it comes to naming the fatal flaw in all of American politics, as George Washington warned about when he accepted the presidency instead of being named king as some of the founding fathers offered him, political partisanship is the culprit behind our modern-day, broken and gridlocked system of democracy.

SJR5 Fatally Flawed

With the passage by the Ohio General Assembly of a proposed amendment to the state constitution that will go before voters in May, Republicans, Democrats and members of a coalition of good government types seeking a new framework to mapping legislative districts, they agreement on one thing. Senate Joint Resolution 5 would require, for the first time, bipartisan input and approval on Ohio congressional maps.

The nuts and bolts of the measure include the following three points:

• Both major parties must be meaningfully engaged in the process.
• Communities should not be needlessly split.
• Rule to prohibit gerrymandering or drawing a congressional map to favor or disfavor one political party.

It sounds wonderful, this happy talk about Republicans and Democrats being bipartisan when it comes time to map out legislative districts. The fatal flaw that no one wants to talk about, because they're either afraid or oblivious to the elephant or gorilla in the room, is that SJR5, as currently configured, is created with political parties and their candidates at its center.

When partisans are in charge, as SJR5 makes them, partisans want to win. They don't want to compromise with the competitor if at all possible to lose some advantage they had that now makes them losers.

Reading the document bears our the notion that if partisans don't at first agree, then other combinations of partisanship are tried, until in the end, after all earlier attempts have failed because of partisanship, a four-year map would be drawn that would be subject to veto by the governor at the time (a partisan), or be subject to a citizen referendum, something citizens are historically not good at to begin with, even though they hold ultimate power to create a political system that works for them. Then, after four years of a map that fails, the long, laborious process that sounds good on paper but will hit potholes and ditches along the way by accident or design, starts all over.

What SJR5 should have done but didn't do, because partisanship drives all things political in Ohio and the other 49 states, was to do the right and smart thing: eliminate any participation by any political party, not just the big two majors, in the process.

That's hard to imagine today. By putting non-partisans in charge of devising maps, and maybe even voting rules and regulations that sideline partisan interests, voters would be in the position of picking their candidates instead of candidates picking their voters.

Partisan Control

In any other competitive sport where neutrality is expected and demanded, only a madman would think it a good idea to have partisan referees or judges delivering non-partisan decisions. Which Republican or Democrat would think its a good idea for the referees in an Ohio State-Michigan football game to represent the interests of either team? No one. But these same politicians think it's okay to let their political party gum up the works when it comes to delivering democracy, which is already shortchanged by massive amounts, as county boards of elections run on skimpy budgets from county commissioners who would rather spend the same buck on a rural road than give it to the local elections board. Ohio and America runs democracy on the cheap, so to speak.

One day, maybe, political candidates representing all political parties run in districts created by real neutral, non-partisan officials. When and if that day arrives, mandatory voting as an alternative to volunteer voting might also be part of the package. With mandatory voting, like Australia and a handful of other countries do, neutralizing billions spent each election cycle today would be part of the co-production of better voting. Suppressing the vote of many groups, as Republicans strive to do with the help of billionaires who fund their anti-democratic gambit, would level the playing field for all candidates, especially those representing small parties with little to no money to compete in today's rigged and lopsided election system.

Going the full voting Monty, a national or state holiday to vote would also be a valuable part of the new democracy. No more voting on the first Tuesday in November, when demands of showing up for work often win out over the civic pride and duty of voting.

Will SJR5 be an improvement from the mess in place today? Yes, because "It can't get no worse," as John Lennon said in "Getting Better All The Time."

SJR5 is still fraught with partisanship that could bollocks things up for years. But who cares enough about that to write about it?

Follow me on Twitter @OhioNewsBureau

Why Amazon won't pick Columbus for HQ2

When a new American electronic commerce behemoth like Amazon promises to bring 50,000 jobs, each with an average annual compensation of $100,000, to one of 20 finalist communities competing to be the lucky picked for its HQ2, city and state leaders might disown their own if that's what it takes to convince Amazon billionaire founder and CEO Jeff Bezos to pick them.

Downtown Columbus, Ohio, along
the Scioto River

"Amazon would be foolish to dismiss the strengths of Pittsburgh and Columbus, and Amazon is not foolish," a recent Toledo Blade editorial observed about why HQ2 should come to Pittsburgh, PA, or Columbus, Ohio, two cool cities located in two heartland Rust Belt states.

HQ2 Wants More Than Taxes, Universities

Amazon watchers give good odds to cities located in the D.C. region like Washington, Northern Virginia, and Montgomery County, Maryland, citing among other reasons the acquisition of the Washington Post by Bezos in 2013. The fact that Amazon's global guru is finishing renovations on a Washington home he bought for $23 million only adds more fuel to the fire.

Columbus, Ohio's only growing city, is among the twenty cities that include other big hitters like Atlanta, New York, Boston, and Chicago. Based on one key criteria in the selection process—that the winning city has a strong university system—Columbus and Pittsburgh stack up well in that category, with The Ohio State University in Cbus and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, respectively.

As the Blade notes, "Columbus and Pittsburgh can compete with the large metros on quality of life and affordability. Young millennials have flocked to the two cities, creating vibrant social scenes and an enterprising, start-up culture," as well as boasting lots of affordable housing.

Never forget that that Amazon is headquartered where it started, in Seattle in Washington State, a city and a state that pride themselves on being more progressive on social issues than other cities and states. Ohio's population growth has been moribund for decades, as people look for good jobs in other places. When Ohio stagnates, it also loses political power in Washington, as has been happening for decades and decades.

Moribund Ohio

Ohio once boasted 25 Electoral College votes in the 1920s, but 25 has dwindled to 18, and that number will only go lower, as many demographers predict it will, when the 2020 census shows other states are expanding at the expense of Ohio. 

In addition to slow or no growth, a trend that can't be reversed anytime soon regardless of how business-friendly Gov. John Kasich says the state is, what haunts Columbus and will work against it is that the State of Ohio, under leadership by Kasich and a like-minded far-right legislature, have chosen to embrace many policies that show just how mean-spirited social conservatives can be when they have the power to put in place policies and programs designed to hurt the very populations Amazon embraces, including LGBTQ, immigrants and women.

Look to a recent ruly by the Ohio Supreme Court to close Toledo's only abortion clinic to understand why Ohio's socially unfriendly environment won't be an asset when Amazon weights the pros and cons of each contestant.

Whatever financial incentives (aka, legal bribes) Ohio chooses to offer Amazon, any one of the other 19 finalists can meet or beat it if push comes to shove. What Ohio has that many others don't have is an unfriendly social social climate where women's issues, including access to abortion services, as just noted, are among the harshest in the nation.

It's About Diversity, Stupid!

In the economic development site selection dance, quality of life is often more important that tax policy to some  industries. And Amazon is one of them.

Why would a smart, progressive CEO like Bezos, whose home turf social-climate in Seattle would make Kasich and Ohio Republican leaders lie awake at night, want to bring thousands of female employees to a state that has a drum beat of eliminating constitutionally recognized access to abortion services? Why would Amazon's female employees want to subject themselves or their daughters to the kind of thinking that has put the Buckeye State in retrograde motion on so many social issues other than abortion, when other cities and states, by comparison, have embraced laws related to minorities, immigrants and women that Ohio would find incompatible with its current, dominant political ideology?

Why would a progressive company like Amazon want to bring its employees to a state where public schools are bleed dry to pay for for-profit charter schools that do a terrible job of educating children? Why would Amazon, if it has a choice, and it does, want to pick Ohio when the next crop of Republican leaders promise to ditch Medicaid, dance around unsafe roads and bridges because repairing them costs money, and public spending, as they see it, is to be reduced rather than expanded by taxing a billionaire Colossus like Bezos a few dollars more?

For these and other reasons that go to the heart of why policies and laws at the heart of social conservatism are turning Ohio backward instead of forward, don't expect legacy papers like the Blade and the Cleveland Plain Dealer and The Columbus Dispatch to write about at length, because doing so only focuses the spotlight on Ohio's socially inconvenient Achilles Heel. Amazon can see the obvious, and the obvious is that fiscally and socially conservative lawmakers are passing laws that are silly, stupid and outdated for the Millennial generation that gives less and less of a hoot about race, religion, gender or ethnicity.

For these reasons about the state climate—not for reasons about the Columbus climate that include a good university or an abundant, skilled workforce—Amazon won't pick Ohio's capital city for HQ2.