Tag: Ohio

A Bad Night for the GOP – Extremism Loses in Ohio, Mississippi, Kentucky and Arizona

Jon Ponder

Republicans won control of the Virginia Senate — by less than 100 votes, apparently — but in just about every other race, they took a drubbing:

In Ohio, GOP Gov. John Kasich’s union-stripping measure went down, 61 percent to 39 percent. In a statement after the vote was called, Kasich acknowledged the loss, “It’s clear the people have spoken. I heard their voices. I understand their decision. And frankly, I respect what the people have to say in an effort like this. And as a result of that, it requires me to take a deep breath and to spend some time to reflect on what happened here.”

In Mississippi, the “every sperm is sacred” anti-abortion law was defeated, 58 percent to 42 percent — a win for women’s reproductive choice that came as something of a surprise.

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Ohio Republican Governor Rescinded Regulation That Would Have Prevented Slaughter of Dozens of Exotic Animals

Jon Ponder

Gov. John Kasich, R-Ohio
Gov. John Kasich, R-Ohio
Via David Weigel at Slate.com:

Headline of the day:

Order that Kasich rejected would have barred man from having exotic animals

Mukingum County farm owner had animal-cruelty conviction from six years ago

Weigel:

The story is true: [Ohio’s Democratic] Gov. Ted Strickland had signed an executive order restricting animal ownership to people without certain blemishes on their records. Gov. John Kasich, the Republican who beat him, judged this to be an overreach, so he scrapped it. The Columbus Dispatch finds that the issue, once ignored, stayed ignored:

Bill Damschroder, chief legal counsel for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources… said legislation was not in place that empowered the agency to do the things required by Strickland’s order. In addition, it allocated no resources to do the statewide enforcement job.

This is, in microcosm, the reality of the world Republicans yearn for — a world unfettered by government regulation in which, for example, convicted animal abusers are free to keep dozens of wild animals in captivity. After all, what business does the government have telling a felon convicted animal cruelty that he is unfit to keep wild animals?

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Boehner Invites Birther Radio Host to Broadcast from House ‘Speaker’s Office’ on Election Night

Jon Ponder

Willy Cunningham
Willy Cunningham
Ohio-based racist hate-speech provocateur Willie Cunningham first made national news in February 2008 when GOP presidential candidate John McCain threw him under the bus after Cunningham had warmed up the crowd at a McCain campaign event with a long screed insulting then-candidate Barack Obama as “a hack, Chicago-style Daley politician” and saying that “the great prophet from Chicago [will one day take] the stand and the world leaders who want to kill us will simply be singing Kumbaya together around the table with Barack Obama.”

Now Speaker Wannabe John Boehner has invited Cunningham to broadcast his radio smearfest from Boehner’s office on Election Night:

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God Hates Idolatry, Smites Ohio’s 60-Foot ‘Touchdown Jesus’ Statue

Jon Ponder

Left: Touchdown Jesus before; Right: Statue feeling God's wrath
Blowed up real good. Left: Touchdown Jesus in happier times; Right: Experiencing God's wrath
God seems to have expressed his displeasure with idolatry in Ohio:

A six-story statue of Jesus Christ was struck by lightning and burned to the ground, leaving only a blackened steel skeleton and pieces of foam that were scooped up by curious onlookers Tuesday.

The “King of Kings” statue, one of southwest Ohio’s most familiar landmarks, had stood since 2004 at the evangelical Solid Rock Church along Interstate 75 in Monroe, just north of Cincinnati…

The sculpture, about 62 feet tall and 40 feet wide at the base, showed Jesus from the torso up and was nicknamed Touchdown Jesus because of the way the arms were raised, similar to a referee signaling a touchdown. It was made of plastic foam and fiberglass over a steel frame, which is all that remained Tuesday.