Robart Drinks The Tea

The local chapter of the tea baggers were rockin' on the river in Cuyahoga Falls Wednesday. According to reports the place was packed with local patriots clamoring to get their freedoms back. The event featured remarkable speeches by pols including the king of sneer, Tim Grendell. He seems to be at all of these events.

Even Falls Mayor Don Robart got in on the celebratory berating of all things federal:

Robart said that former President George W. Bush's bailout ''has been a total failure'' and that President Barack Obama's stimulus bill ''has been worse.''

Uhh, yeah Don that stimulus bill thing has been so bad that your administration has opted in for millions of federal dollars. Someone should vet the mayor's speeches before he says something rash. While Don was busy riling up the crowd at the tea party his minions back at city hall were busy racking up ARRA funding.

To date the City of CF has applied for $138,527,132 in federal stimulus dollars. You can't make this crap up. Included in that amount is $50 million on behalf of the school district to build a new learning campus.

Robart has decided to water the trees of Cuyahoga Falls with the nickels and dimes of us tax paying patriots. Shhh, don't tell the gun toting loons at the rally you are actually big on spending federal dollars on roads, bridges and shopping center demolitions.

The request submissions are available at the State of Ohio's Recovery website.

Keno As Proxy

The results are in on Ohio's Keno gambit and the numbers are pretty weak. According to the State Lottery Commission the expansion of games of chance as a revenue source fell short, really short.

The venture that was used to beef up revenue to the State by an estimated $73 million performed well below expectation. The annual take for keno in Ohio, $30 million, not so hot.

Officials blame the shortfall on hard economic times. I blame it on the over-rated nature of gambling schemes to solve State revenue woes. The money raised by keno is earmarked for education funding but thankfully money is fungible. The State won't have to cut funding to education due to the shortfall.

The pressing issue now becomes the massive gamble the State budget has placed on video terminal slots and whether they will perform as advertised. The working number for the foray into gambling is expected to back fill revenue to the tune of $930 million. That's nearly a billion dollars in programs that were spared from the chopping block during the FY2010 budget process.

If the VLTs perform as poorly as keno the Gov' could be forced to cut another $500 million from the freshly approved State budget. Any subsequent cuts made will most certainly hit bone.

The Fringe Benefits

A Democrat is president and that means the fringe elements of the hard right wing are busy at establishing a foothold in the American body politic.

The debate around health care reform has certainly highlighted what's in store for the next several years. If it's not the rampant use of the Hitler comparisons it's the unitelligible dribble permeating the mob scenes at town hall meetings that defines this latest resurgence of reactionary mouth breathers.

This persistence of lunatic fringe in public discourse will have consequences. As the SLPC has reported, we've seen this kind of social movement before and it's back in vogue,

Almost a decade after largely disappearing from public view, right-wing militias, ideologically driven tax defiers and sovereign citizens are appearing in large numbers around the country. “Paper terrorism” — the use of property liens and citizens’ “courts” to harass enemies — is on the rise. And once-popular militia conspiracy theories are making the rounds again, this time accompanied by nativist theories about secret Mexican plans to “reconquer” the American Southwest.

Surely not all of the screamers at health care forums are of the militant ilk. Some of them are just uninformed or unwilling to listen to the facts of the matter. You'll have that anywhere. The problem is that the influence of the re-surging militia or Bircher movement will bleed into the everyday right wing cadre of citizenry. What was once very fringe will become more prevalent.

I'm afraid that all of the very important debates to be had in the next few years, like health care or climate change, are going to transpire in the midst of these proto-brownshirts that have descended on the public square like a modern day lynch mob. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the election of a black man as president.

Authoritarians Against Authority

The Beacon Journal is doing its best to keep Slurred-Speechgate in the news. The latest reminder is a front pager that attempts to stir up controversy about reports filed by police officers that responded to the scene of last weekend's Mayoral incident (I think a crime actually occurred there too). The question begging to be asked is whether a request was made to change the official account of what happened last weekend.

The Mayor's slurred speech is now front and center.

One of the officers had complained to the FOP boss that he was asked to white-wash the aspects of the report that mention the Plusquellic's slurred speech and nasty demeanor. There has to be more pertinent questions asked about the latest dust up between the FOP and the Mayor. That's really what this about isn't it?

Yeah Yeah, we know Plusquellic is brash and even heavy handed. The mayor's prerogative is to make it clear he's the guy running the guy running (micromanaging) the show in Akron.

As I've pointed out I think most effective mayors do have these traits. Sure it rankles the members of the public safety forces when the guy they are directed to show disdain for bosses them around. I'm sure the rank and file have been given their marching orders - the mayor is not to be trusted. An age old fight continues.

What rankles me, a taxpayer, is the blatant disregard by police officers for the just order of things in city governance. The Beacon article made sure to point out that the officer who made the claim has an honorable military record with the U.S Marines. While that is impressive and much appreciated it's not an excuse to contravene the mandate our elected leaders have to act as the chief executive of the city. Even though it may hurt your feelings.

How can I say this politely? The union president is not the elected leader of Akron, the mayor is. As an police officer you don't have to like him but, you do have to respect his position. He put in office by a vote of the people (twice in less than two years). In fact I'm almost sure that the armed forces are tasked with protecting our system which is based on the rule of law.

To go further I'd guess that one of the tenets that people who've served in the armed forces take with them is respect for the chain of command. The stubborn fact here is that the dude at the top of the food chain is the mayor and you don't have to like him to serve and protect the rest of us. The FOP leadership should consider this principle, especially if they are going to foist that Safety Tax Levy on us this fall.