Today, the National Bureau of Economic Research, the country's official arbiter of economic matters, has ruled that our current recession began in the 4th Quarter of 2007. Read their press release here.

UPDATE:  Sorry, Tom, I think the NBER made the right call. There is so much growth bias built into today's GDP numbers that I think a mere 0.9% growth in 1Q08, plus the negative growth in 4Q07, plus the fact that we have not had a single net job created this year, plus the fact that that 2Q08 GDP number was artificially inflated by the stimulus plan, that when you add all that up, it makes it pretty clear that this recession started in the 4Q of 2007. And BTW, your attempt to blame this recession on anything but the housing collapse is pretty damn laughable. 

At the press conference that just concluded, Gov. Strickland and OBM Director J. Pari Sabety announced that the state's projected deficit for the next biennium is $7.3 Billion. If government enacts a 10% across the board spending cut, there still would be a $4.7 Billion deficit. 

Despite the shortfall, Gov. Strickland is still ruling out tax increases, but not ruling out taping the state's rainy day fund, and urging President-Elect Obama to include direct aid to the state in the next economic stimulus package. 

Because I'm spending Thanksgiving with my family in Youngstown, I've received word that a deal has already been cut over who should replace Congressman-Elect John Boccieri in the State Senate, and that Alliance City Councilman At-Large Steve Okey is likely to be appointed to fill out the remainder of Boccieri's term. 

However, I'm also hearing that the Mahoning County folks aren't happy to see a Stark County person in "their" State Senate seat, and backroom machinations are still on going.

Here's hoping that all of our readers had a great Thanksgiving with their families.

And I'd like to send a speical thank you to all our servicemen and women who didn't get to spend Thanksgiving with their families. Thank you for your service, and I hope you return home safely soon.

Longtime Democratic blogger "Redhorse" has decided to close up shop over at Psychobilly Democrat.

PD was one of my early favorites and I know I'll be missing it. Hopefully we'll still be hearing from Redhorse every now and then, but either way I wish him well.

Ohio Daily Blog's Jeff Coryell may have retired from blogging, but his Twitter account alerted me to some very good news earlier today. The final tally is now in, and Debbie Phillips has officially been elected in the 92nd Ohio House district.

I've met Debbie once, and she was a genuinely nice person. I'm extremely thrilled to be able to finally congratulate her on her new job.

By the way Debbie (if your campaign staff hasn't locked up all your computers by now ), you should really look into getting yourself a Twitter account to keep us all in the loop. We need a Twitterer in the statehouse and I bet yours would be a better read than Tim Ryan's.

The Dispatch (R-Columbus) is reporting that Steve Stivers has added 115 votes to the narrow lead he holds over Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy. The change comes after Madison County released it's final vote tally.

While this takes Stivers lead to 594 votes, I'm still feeling pretty good about this race. Union and Madison counties were both expected to go for Stivers, and they both have final tallies now. Franklin County, which was expected to break for Kilroy still has several thousand votes left to count. If it were me, I'd much rather be in Kilroy's place right now.

Below is that statement from Secretary of State Brunner. Since she explains the situation pretty well, I’ll just leave it to her…

The US Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has remanded this case to the Ohio Supreme Court without ruling on the merits of the case.  We respect the court's opinion and do not anticipate appealing the court's judgment.  

This litigation has already delayed the final certification of the November election.  It is our hope that the Ohio Supreme Court will quickly affirm their previous clear guidance "to liberally construe election laws in favor of the right to vote," so as not to disenfranchise approximately 1,000 Ohio voters with a hyper-technical interpretation of Ohio law. 

Prior to the November 4, 2008, general election, the Secretary of State's office issued clear, consistent, statewide guidance regarding the casting and counting of provisional ballots.  For the ballots at issue, there is no evidence or allegation of fraud.  Each ballot was cast by a registered, eligible voter who provided a signature in a poll book before they cast a provisional ballot.  

Protecting the rights of citizens to express their voices through their votes is the paramount interest here.

I want to go off topic for a little bit and point out something that’s happening over in West Virginia. If you haven’t already heard, former Republican WV Governor Cecil Underwood died a few days ago.

Well for the last few months, a guy named Vic Sprouse (a former Republican WV state senator) has added me to his email list and spams my inbox with conservative commentary every couple of weeks.

Now to tie all of this together, below is an email that Vic sent out around 2 A.M. this morning.

I miss Cecil already Posted: 24 Nov 2008

In the depth of his loss in 2000 to an underhanded campaign by Bob Wise, to being beat every day on local talk radio and in the Gazette, to having someone he admired and considered a friend knife him in the back, to losing one of the closest races in the state’s history…  that night on a night he could easily have felt sorry for himself, he only cared about me.  At least, he made me feel that way.

I miss Cecil already.

Is this a fitting tribute to a friend, or just a cheap shot at political opponents?

I wonder if he spent as much effort on his own campaign's post-mortem as he has his party this year?  From the, literally, moonbat Washington Times editorial pages, behold the glorious wisdom of Ken Blackwell:

Now, after two disastrous election cycles, it is clear the Republican Party must refocus again. A reenergized GOP must make Republican principles appealing both to its base and also to the changing face of America. If the party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan wants to return to power, it must become the party of the 21st century. (emphasis added)

Gee, I wonder if there's a connection between his public belief that the RNC must make itself appealling to the "changing face of America" and his recent bid to float the idea of him as RNC Chair?  What's America's face changing to, Ken?

Some are blaming the party for moving too far to the right, losing moderate and independent voters to the Democrats. These people say social issues such as gay marriage and abortion should be replaced by economic issues. Others say the party has moved too far to the middle, demobilizing core supporters. These people cite the No Child Left Behind Act, agriculture subsidies, and now the $700 billion mega-bailout as examples of big-government policies.

Still others say that nothing is wrong with the party, and all the blame lies with John McCain and his campaign. They cite a lack of organization, a coherent theme, consistent strategy, and various missteps as leading to the GOP defeat.

Finally, some say that it's the president's fault, and the Republican Party simply could not win in this environment. They cite President Bush's low approval ratings, the percentage of voters who think the country is on the wrong track, and the declining economy as creating a no-win situation.

Wow, even Republicans think there are multiple reasons to think that Republicans suck.... they can't even agree which suck factor is the greatest!

A majority of Americans support domestic energy development, low taxes, and allowing people choice in their retirement planning and their children's education. The majority of Americans also support marriage between a man and woman, restrictions on abortion, protecting common religious expressions such as "one nation under God," and Second Amendment freedoms.

Wait, I thought even Republicans agree that there are multiple reasons why Republicans suck, now we're a center-right nation with the leftist party controlling both political branches of the federal government?  Also notice any changes back home in Ohio, Kenny? 

Liberals support domestic energy development.  They'd just rather develop renewable and new potential sources of energy than fossil fuels which are unable to meet our country's energy needs today, let alone in the future.  I'd love to have a 401(k), but I'm happy investing in a Roth IRA, so I'm okay with "allowing people a choice in their retirement planning."  I just don't think providing such risk in Social Security, the final social safety net, is a smart idea given the risks investors take with their other retirement planning choices.  By keeping social security as a true entitlement, people can invest with confidence that there's a safety net to protect them from the risks of private investment.   Without that safety net, less people may be willing to take the risk of investing in the equity markets. 

I'm fine with choice in education, but not a false choice system that takes resources for poorly resourced schools leaving more kids trapped in a worse school than the kids who get to go to a better school as a result.  Rising tide raises all boats, and all that jazz.

America doesn't support Ken Blackwell's restrictions on abortions.  Heck, not even the U.S. Supreme Court does.  I protecting common religious expressions and individual religious freedom, including from theocrats like Blackwell who promote policies which encourage state sponsorship of particular religions over others in the guise of "religious freedom."  I support the Second Amendment, especially as articulated in the Heller decision.  Blackwell, considers it an absolute right, something the U.S. Supreme Court (under a conservative majority) specifically denied.

I don't doubt that we haven't seen the death of the GOP, and that they'll eventually be back in the majority again.  But what exactly does Blackwell propose?  Through all of his platitudes, what's his solution?  I dunno.  But it begs the question: if Blackwell is right, then why isn't he Governor of Ohio right now?  Why was he the worst performer for the statewide Republicans in Ohio.  Mike DeWine and Betty Montgomery are part of that moderate base that Blackwell and Naugle despise so much, yet they almost survived the 2006 Democratic hurricane.  Blackwell and O'Brien, undeniably the two most conservative candidates to ever run for statewide office in Ohio under a major party's banner, did decidely worse.

Until Ken Blackwell can explain his own failure in 2006, does anything he say about 2008 really make sense or is it directly contradicted by his own personal history?  Blackwell ran as a social, economic, and even a foreign policy conservative (Iraq came up as an issue for some odd reason.)  He lost.... lost huge.  Blackwell ran against the "moderate" nature of Petro, saying that the base would stay home and the rest would be split with Strickland.  The only way the GOP could win, Blackwell argued, was to go with someone who excited the base.  Same thing for why McCain had to pick someone like Sarah Palin in order to be able to win Ohio.   Look at the scoreboard.  Why is that, Ken?

The more I read Ken Blackwell, the more I hope his ego-driven one-man promotion for his "possible" campaign for the RNC chair excites me.  I hope every Republican buys what Blackwell is selling just like they did in 2006.

According to the New York Post's Page Six, as reported by the Huffington Post, conservative whack job Ann Coulter broke her jaw and has had to have her mouth wired shut! 

Here's wishing Annie a speedy recovery, while at the same time wishing that the whole wired jaw thing could somehow be made permanent....

According to a story in today's Plain Dealer, Ohio's unemployment fund will soon go broke due to increased demand for unemployment funds, thus forcing Ohio to borrow from the federal government for the first time since the recession of 1980-82. It took until 1988 to pay back that loan.

Gov. Strickland had seen this problem coming, and had asked Ohio's Unemployment Compensation Advisory Council to broker a solution. However, no solution was forthcoming, as the business representatives on the Council suggested a cut in unemployment benefits, while labor representatives suggested an increase in unemployment taxes, and neither side was willing to compromise. So, now we will borrow from Uncle Sam.

It occurs to me that this fight mirrors the coming one over Social Security. The Social Security program is estimated to begin paying more in benefits than it takes in in taxes sometime around 2017. About this time, it will need to access funds from the Social Security Trust Fund, which in reality is filled with nothing but IOUs from Uncle Sam because Presidents going back to the 1960s have treated Social Security surpluses as ordinary tax revenue to be spent or used to mask the true size of the federal budget deficit.

So, there's going to be a similar fight, except instead of business vs. labor, it will be young vs. old. The Old will demand sharply higher taxes to pay for their promised social security benefits, while the Young will demand that the Old accept steep benefit cuts as punishment for foolishly electing politicans who ran up the national debt from the less than $1 trillion it was at in 1980 to the over $10 trillion its at in 2008 by promising hugely expensive wars and tax cuts at the same time. Who will win this battle? Will either side be willing to compromise? We'll just have to find out.

You can read their editorial here.

Seriously, I spent more time reading his latest post about deregulation and the economy deciphering what the post claimed what the post wasn't about, that I never could figure it out what he was actually trying to say.

Here's what the post says in a nutshell:

• During the campaign, Obama attacked Republican-inspired deregulation as being responsible for the current economic mess.
• The Clinton Administration cited deregulation as a "major" accomplishment and a result of the economic success during the 1990s. (BizzyBlog added the "major" designation).
• The Clinton Administration's deregulation policies aren't responsible for the current economic mess.  (BizzyBlog's words, not mine.)
• The media should have reported on the Clinton Administration's deregulations policies during the recent presidential campaign instead of letting Obama present the problem deregulations as only coming from the Republicans.

Seriously, that's how I boil down the post.  Please let me know if I'm being unfair here.  But if it weren't for that third bullet point, only then does he have an argument.  Otherwise, he's left complaining about the media not reporting on President Clinton's role in deregulation policies that BizzyBlog believes have no relevance to the cause of our current economic crisis.  Right?

But that's just scratching the surface of the crapitude of this analysis.  If your mind can put aside the media criticism on reporting on policies which the critic believes aren't relevant (and that could take an hour alone), then you have to see that the rest of the argument is based on overstating the evidence.

BizzyBlog's entire post is a rehashing of another post from Reason Online where a conservative think tank author goes on and on about how the Clinton Administration just loved deregulation.  However, that entire column is based on one document from the Clinton Administration... and unlike BizzyBlog, the Reason article never claimed that the Clinton Administration called deregulation in the financial sector one of its "major" achievements.  In fact, the source document for the entire Reason column merely lists it as an achievement.  One of hundred.

The entire argument is based on a single bullet point in a list of possibly a hundred bullet points on the Clinton Administration's record on the economy.  In fact, the deregulation bill that Obama specifically blames for the current economic mess, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, is only mentioned in the last sentence of that bullet point after other Democratic deregulation bills are mentioned. 

The rest of the document credits the fiscal conservativism, tax, education, and trade policies of the Administration.  To present this glancing reference to one deregulation bill as "proof" that the Clinton Administration believed that the Gramm-Leach Act was a central component of the economic success is simply intellectually dishonest.

Reason's main line of attack, unlike BizzyBlog, is to suggest that Obama was trying to have it both ways during the campaign: blaming deregulation on the one hand, but promises the economic policies of the Clinton that he credited for the boom time of the 1990s on the other.   But that argument only worked if the Clinton Administration, and others, believed that the economic success of the 1990s was solely due to deregulation... something the Clinton Administration simply didn't believe at the time, nor now.

What Reasonand BizzyBlog don't mention is how the Clinton Administration used the veto threat to greatly water down the Gramm-Bliley Act.  This is amazing since it's actually the central point in the WSJ article that the Reason post cross-links.

Indeed, the WSJ article mentions a bipartisan legislative chorus of dissent at the time accusing the White House and Congress by saying they had "caved in to special interests"-- the very line of attack Barack Obama made to the very same deregulation bill.  Again, Reason seems to be proving the very point it is trying to disprove.

Reason's entire argument is invalidated by its own hand-picked data.  There's nothing inconsistent with President-elect Obama saying he blames deregulation for the current economic mess but promising the same economic policies which were successful during the Clinton Administration-- it depends on Obama's definition of what a "successful policy" is.  Clearly, he doesn't share President Clinton's views about Gramm-Bliley.  And he shares the view of the bipartisan group at the time which thought the Act was too much of a giveaway to special interest.

Which brings me back to BizzyBlog's whine about the lack of the media coverage during the campaign about Clinton's "legacy" on deregulation.  First, Bizzy dishonestly omits the portions of the same Reason post which documented that the media, in fact, did report on President Clinton's connection to financial market deregulation.  President Clinton continued to defend it the act in news interviews this fall (Bizzy not only fails to mention this fact is covered in the Reason article; he apparently forgot that he posted about such news coverage connecting Clinton to deregulation at the time.)

In fact, a five-minute search of news articles on Google finds that just about any mention of the Gramm-Bliley Act specifically states that it "was also supported by President Clinton."

So where does that leave us?  That President Clinton and President-elect Obama disagree on whether the Gramm-Bliley Act was one of the many economic policies of the Clinton Administration that lead to the dynamic economic growth of the 1990s.  But we've known about this disagreement since September.... it's been in all the papers.  So what's new?

And what, then, is BizzyBlog's point?

I can't believe I'm beating Matt Naugle to the punch here (the official repository of all that is glorious about Ken Blackwell), but here it is...

The National Journal's "Hotline" is reporting that Ken Blackwell (winner of 36% of the vote in '06 gubernatorial election) is being "encouraged" to run as the next chairman of the Republican National Committee in a challenge to the bid of GOPAC chair Michael Steele.

In 2006, Blackwell, Steele and Lynn Swann were hyped by the RNC as evidence of increased diversity in the Republican Party (OH Gubernatorial, MD Senate, and PA Gubernational respectively.)  All three were spectularly failures as candidates and did worse than Republicans, on an average, did in 2006.

In fairness, Howard Dean had a spectular collapse as a presidential candidate in 2004, but was able to parlay that run into a successful campaign to become the new RNC Chair which was a very successful and well-praised tenure in office.  So, I guess anything is possible.

But you can't help but wonder if Blackwell is being encouraged to run because the Republicans are looking for a Republican Barack Obama, and not a Republican Howard Dean.  Blackwell's campaign was abysmal.  His fundraising was lacking, and his communication strategy was nonexistent.  His ground game relied on the help of the most fringe volunteer base of his party, and homeschooled children who were given volunteer work as a civics lesson.

It's hard to imagine two candidates who ran such horribly unsuccessful campaigns (Steele's campaign handed out fliers in Baltimore to pass out fliers that misled people into thinking he was the Democratic candidate) thrust into the job of returning the Republicans into power.  Instead of looking for someone with the political skills to navigate the party out of the political wilderness, the current race for RNC chair seems to be a contest of which candidate is the best expert in getting the party even further lost (if possible.)  After all, how else can you explain Newt Gingrich's candidacy, too?

[UPDATE]: Even Matt Naugle is skeptical... He thinks Michael Steele is the favorite because he's wishy washy on just how pro-life he is.  Funny thing is, I seem to recall Blackwell having that problem, too.

Happy Monday everyone! $20 billion of your tax dollars are going to inject capital into Citibank. Here's hoping that they are required to use this money to write down the value of their mortgage-backed assets which got them into trouble in the first place. As a matter of fact, why aren't all banks participating in TARP required to do that?

In other news, yesterday Steve Forbes went on CNN and called Henry Paulson the "worst treasury secretary in modern times" for his inconsistent work on the TARP program, but this morning, the link to that story has disappeared from CNN's website. Fortunately, CQ has the interview transcript right here. Why would CNN pull that down? A little pressure from the Bushies is about all I can figure, but why do they matter anymore, honestly?

While we had three posts on Thursday alone on "Samuel the Plumber" information, including citing to information from the Columbus Dispatch's blog, the Daily Briefing, this morning Bizzy is busy bemoaning a conspiracy theory that it's a late Friday news dump:

UPDATE 3, Nov. 22, 8:20 a.m.: A Google News search on “Joe the Plumber” Ohio (typed as indicated) shows that the earliest relevant story appeared in the Columbus Dispatch at about 5 p.m. on Friday (”15 hours ago,” per Google News, though the story now carries a 7:33 p.m. time stamp).

How convenient.

The Dispatch story does not mention of Mary Taylor’s statement, or for that matter the post-decision reaction of any Republican.

Yeah, except the Dispatch's blog had a post about Senate President Harris' reaction up on Thursday.  I know because I posted about it... two days ago.  Mary Taylor's press release isn't news.  It's political grandstanding.  What would she say if the Governor started publicly criticizing her personnel decisions?  There is no credible argument that the situation with the ODJFS Director has anything to do with the job of the State Auditor.  If there were, then why didn't Mary Taylor do anything about it other than send out a press release?  Why didn't her office investigate it instead of the I.G.  Because it's had nothing to do with her official duties; that's why.

As for the timing of everything, well, how could it come out any different?  Bizzy apparently thinks it's "odd" that the first published news accounts about the I.G.'s report wasn't until Friday... even though the report itself only became public late Thursday afternoon.  (Papers stopped issuing afternoon editions a looooong time ago.) He thinks it's odd that it's not until a day after the issuance of the I.G.'s report that the Acting Director issues additional punishments.  Why, I don't know.

And he bemoans that the Dispatch doesn't carry any Republican post-decision reaction (because it's SOOO easy to find a Republican legislator on a Friday when they've long since left town.)  Apparently, Bizzy can't be bothered with the Dispatch's blog which had reactions from Republicans a whole twenty-four hours before BizzyBlog himself even wrote about the IG's report, or the published newsstory in today's Dispatch with Sen. Harris' reaction (published the same day that Bizzyblog is complaining about any lack of reporting on the Republican reaction.)

I don't know whether BizzyBlog's multiple omissions are the result of inadvertance or intentional misleading of his readers, but it's hard to find someone's outrage genuine when he doesn't write about it until a full twenty-four hours after it's already been reported on the national news and such obscure information depositories such as Yahoo! News, the AP, and a site I'm sure no conservative has heard about called the Drudge Report.

BizzyBlog threw long on this story and claimed, with no evidence, that there was a systematic effort by the Strickland Administration to find information about "Samuel the Plumber" in some sort of Nixonian effort to publicly reveal embarassing information about Sam the Plumber.  None of that has been proven to be true, even as it relates to the ODJFS.  In response to news reports that mentioned searches by the Ohio Department of Taxation and the Ohio Attorney General's office, BizzyBlog said that they all "did wrong", with no evidence. Instead, we have a few isolated cases in which employees and the ODJFS Director accessed information inapppropriately, but did not disclose the contents of that information to anyone.

One could turn the same tactic on BizzyBlog and ask why his late posting on this may be an attempt to avoid the embarassment of acknowledging that he falsely accused the employees of multiple state agencies of violating the civil rights of a private citizen with a reckless indifference as to whether the accusation was true or not because he had absolutely no first-hand information in which to make such a bald assertion.  (Around the office, we call this "libel.")

Desparate to avoid people from realizing the multitude of employees throughout several state government agencies he may have libeled, now BizzyBlog is pounding the table in a classic distraction technique to get people to question absurd notions as to why an agency didn't take action until the next business day when the report evidencing the misconduct was issued until late in the day the day before?  And while he rants and raves about how everyone else was late to the party, he hopes nobody notices how late to the party he is, or the piles of professional reputation of honest public servants he soiled as he step over them on his way there.  Pay no attention to the what I've said yesterday, he begs, look what I'm saying now.

But what else can you expect from someone who thinks being published in the tabloid NY Post is a badge of credibility?

The Dispatch (R-Columbus) is reporting that four more Ohio Dept. of Job & Family Services employees have been disciplined for their checks on "Joe the Plumber." Two will also receive unpaid suspensions, while two additional employees will not be suspended but will receive written reprimands. 

These are rumors, so read into them what you will.

I'm hearing that as a result of the deals made in the House leadership contest, many of the progressive leaning reps that have been ranking members on committees will not be given the chair of those committees.

For example: I’m hearing that Vernon Sykes will be the Chairman of the House Finance Committee, while Michael Skindell won’t be on the committee at all.

I gotta say that these coalitions being formed among Democratic officeholders are really getting on my nerves.This is government, not "Survivor" or "Big Brother".