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War, Strickland And Dems Like WHIGs, Blackwell Ran Out Of Room

In their first joint press conference, Ted Strickland and Ken Blackwell upheld the tradition of Ohio politics by not going into great detail on the great moral issues of the day. Of course, Strickland is infinitely preferable to the opportunistic Bush family sycophant, J. Katrina Blackwell.

One thing they could agree upon was excluding the Libertarian and Green Party gubernatorial candidates. Apparently, they were massively afraid that a real debate might perhaps break out and democracy might flourish. Indeed, there’s nothing more subversive than a marketplace of ideas. When asked by Bill Cohen, of Ohio Public Radio, what he thought about the two “minor” party candidates being left out of the event, Blackwell looked uncomfortable and mumbled, “Keep working,” and then ran. Literally ran out of the room. The video will be on the website soon.

I’ve thought long and hard about the bizarre nit-picking debate on the internet blogs over my exact words on how I would handle the Ohio National Guard situation. So let me be as frank as possible. If they would have let me in the debate, here’s what I would have said: I will do everything humanly possible to end the unjust and criminal war being illegally waged in Iraq. I will issue every order possible to block the deployment of the Ohio National Guard. I will give sanctuary to every soldier who seeks to disobey the illegal orders of the president of the United States. I will convene a committee of noted human rights scholars like Professor John Quigley at Ohio State to see whether the president should be tried as a war criminal.

Now my pragmatic friends, what’s Ted Strickland’s position on the war? Or, J. Kenneth Blackwell? The Democratic Party risks going the way of the Whigs, who refused to take a stand on the moral issue of its day – slavery. On basic principles of human rights, we cannot compromise on torture, illegal spying and criminal illegal wars. What defines us as Americans is not how much ass we can kiss with the powers that be, but that long tradition of direct dissent against the powers that be. Is my position clear enough?

Is my position clear enough?

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Full Transparency

So Diebold gets blasted on the front page of the Metro section of the Columbus Dispatch on Wednesday. Maybe the legendary blind men feeling up an elephant at the Big D’s editorial board are close to grasping the obvious: private, partisan, nontransparent e-voting machines with proprietary software are unreliable and undermine democracy.

The Diebold machines in Cuyahoga County, according to the recent Election Science Institute (ESI) study fail to perform in any acceptable way. ESI found that nearly 10% of Cuyahoga County’s voters’ ballots during the May 2 primary were “destroyed, blank, illegible, missing, taped together or otherwise compromised,” according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s coverage. 

Let’s see. Ten percent in Cleveland, the state’s key Democratic stronghold, another ten percent here, ten percent there. Pretty soon Blackwell’s 27% support among voters becomes a majority after he and his buddies at Diebold systematically disenfranchise urban voters. 

Of the course the idea for these machines not only came from Blackwell, but the epically corrupt Congressman Bob Ney, who brought us the HAVA bill and the rigged e-voting machines after the Bush boys stole Florida with punch cards in the 2000 election. 

My demand as a gubernatorial candidate is to hold the November vote on the only technology that is transparent: pencil and paper. Let us raise the demand and the slogan: No Voting Machines in November! Hand Counted Paper Ballots Only. 

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Pragmatism Is Another Word For Cowardice

In the middle of an illegal war in Iraq, which has branded him a war criminal in the eyes of the vast majority of people on earth, George W. Bush has made another attempt to turn America into an authoritarian nation. The Republican Congress wants to give the Fuhrer Bush control of the state National Guard forces. But luckily, as James Madison intended in that famous phrase “Ambition must be made to check ambition,” the governors have stood up as one for the principles of federalism.

At last weeks National Governor’ Association, the governors reminded Bush that “This provision was drafted without consultation or input from governors and represents an unprecedented shift in authority from governors as commander and chief of the guard, to the federal government.”

Help me stand up to George W. Bush. As governor of Ohio I will issue an executive order as commander in chief of the Ohio National Guard to prohibit the further deployment of Ohioans to Iraq. I’ve been criticized on the web by so-called pragmatic Democrats. A better word for them is unprincipled. The Democratic Party, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton are equally responsible for the illegal war and the deaths of 100,000 citizens in Iraq. If Democrats would be more principled, and less pragmatic, 100,000 innocent Iraqis would be alive and the United States would not be hated throughout the Middle East.

Pragmatism is another word for cowardice.

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