GOP is not a viable party in a healthy Democracy

The title of this blog post says it all, the GOP as it stands today is not a viable political party in a Democracy. This is not to suggest there isn't room for "conservatives" or "fiscal conservates". I will most likely disagree with them but those views are certainly welcome in a democracy. As are the views that are probably more progressive than my own. I didn't in fact register as a Democrat until last year when I felt the dissonace of the GOP with a Democracy, the importance of removing Trump from office. I will admit that over the last year I am leaning way more progressive than I was, way more certain of systemic racism and the influence of white supremacy in not only the GOP but in our military and law enforcement organizations.

Wiki is Up

So my wiki is up and running. I still have some operational tweaks to it I'd like to make but that's all they are is tweaks at this point.

https://wiki.neohawk.org

As a reminder, the wiki is the place where I am beginning to outline my political platform. What I mean by that is based on the events over the last year, the abomnination of the 45th President, the absolute traitorous and seditious policies pursued by the Republican Party, for the first time I registered as a Democrat. The GOP is not a political party, but can only be considered as such much in the way that Sinn Fein was the political arm of the IRA, Irish Republican Army.It is still part of a seditious domestic terrorist organization. The acquital of the 45th President where 43 Senators voted to acquit and immediately following the end of the Trial, Mitch McConnell condemns the former President as guilty to inciting and causing the Capitol Riot which just prior he voted to acquit him of those exact charges.

Historical Second Impeachment

Donald Trump was impeached for the second time today by the House of Representatives. While the vote pretty much split along party lines, 10 Republicans were brave enough to choose the country and the Constitution over cultish, seditionists and domestic terrorists. While it is clear that there are a significant number of GOP representatives that are choosing cult and sedition over the constitution, including Ohio House Representatives Jim Jordan and David Joyce, the sole true patriot of the republican representatives from Ohio was Anthony Gonzalez.

Problematic Politician Privilege

Saw this post on twitter tonight:

Live on @KCBSRadio, @RepGaramendi says members of the House have already written up new articles of #impeachment and @realDonaldTrump will "absolutely" be impeached again if he's not removed under the 25th. He says impeachment will be rapid and come "early next week."

Writeslikeshetalks - Senator Warren goes after Walmart

Ah, Walmart. Arisa Hawkins went to Walmart yesterday as final shot at getting some Christmas Ornaments - everywhere else was sold out of the item she was looking for. Yes, she's very picky. Anyway, somebody approached and asked her if she was the one selling food stamps.

Rumors have it the lady really needed to be talking to the Russian mafia since they're the ones selling the food stamps. And Arisa does not look Russian. Chinese or Korean maybe, but not Russian.

Anyway, saw an interesting article by Jill entitled "How Much Walmart Gave To Ohio Legislative Candidates, as U.S. Senator Warren Goes After Walmart". I was talking to someone at work about minimum wages, Walmart and other places that don't pay a living wage. Clearly raised in a "Tea Party" family he very much espouses the mantra that the wages are between Walmart and the employee, that it's a contract.

Highland Heights Gas Well Info - Important Meeting

I received this in an email from a concerned citizen.  It's really surprising to me that they would want to start fracking in our community park.  I get the idea that it's generate money, but at what cost?  

Be Afraid

Hat tip to Cleveland Scene.

I've always wondered how an something like the Roman Empire could fall. Now I know.

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

What Mayfield Hts City Council Race

Okay, so the other day I did a review of the Mayfield Heights Mayoral Candidates, based solely off their websites. A comment by Jill Miller Zimon that as far as she knew she was the only council candidate in Pepper Pike that had a web presence, I decided to see what was the case for Mayfield Heights.

After a fairly strenuous search, the only candidate with a web site I could find was David Sasak. Well that's not actually true, as Donna Finney has a page on Howard Sonenstein's site.

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that one of the other candidates has a site since I received some campaign pamphlet that had the site listed on it. Unfortunately, the pamphlet went where the rest of the junk mail goes. I'm now wishing that I had noted down the url before tossing it. But that's the extent of the attention it got, and it got more than the others only because it actually had a url on it. If it hadn't it would have been gone in 1 second rather than 3 seconds. Which brings me to another point.

Folks, if you want me to vote for you, you have to get in front of me. Junk mail is not getting in front of me since it almost hits the wastebasket the millisecond I touch it. In order to get in my face you have to get on something that comes across my pc screen. I don't get newspaper, haven't for years and years. You need to have a website, an rss feed, a facebook fan page or account, a twitter account. Something. Any one of those will do. Otherwise, you don't get my vote.

(If anybody is aware of a site for one of the other candidates, please let me know.)

And riding someone else's site doesn't cut it either. Reality is that while I could complain that Mr. Sasak's site is pretty weak, it exists. And my bet is he hasn't spend more than $4.99 per month on the hosting fees (GoDaddy) and not much on the actual design either (not a criticism!). If you can't afford that to get your message out, you can't get my vote.

So, be default, Mr. Sasak gets my vote. And for what it is worth, here, cut and pasted from his site, is what he's committed to;

I am committed to:
• Further improving our Senior services and activities
• Continuing improvement of our Parks and Recreation programs
• Maintaining a balanced budget, with No New Taxes
• Striving to continue fiscal responsibility in our City government
• Continuing to protect the integrity of our Zoning and Planning processes (and NO retail in Cedar/Lander areas)
• Work toward re-establishing local control over urban gas well drilling (and NO gas wells in our City Parks)

Not sure why retail is a problem in the Cedar/Lander area. Nor does the "no new taxes" mantra strike a chord without context. I don't want to pay higher taxes more than anyone else, but the amount taxed is less important than for what those tax revenues are used. However, maintaining a balanced budget is also a good thing, so a +1 for that bullet point.

Mr Sasek suggests that he's not a politician and that he doesn't lie. Well, of course you are a politician. You're running for City Council to represent us. By definition that makes you a politician. And what is so bad about being a politician? Politicians are by definition necessary to make this great republic of ours work. And you are participating, so don't duck it. And don't cast aspersions on every other individual representing us whether its local, state, or national. I'm not naive enough to believe that by definition politicians lie, cheat and steal to make their lives comfy. Or their friends. Though it certainly does happen, as we are witnessing at the Cuyahoga County level.

You paint yourself with same broad brush, Mr. Sasek.

Donna Finney's has two reasons we're supposed to vote for her. The first being:

Finney has served on the Building Committee for four years and was Chairman of the Legislative Committee and is currently Chairman of the Safety and Transportation Committee on Mayfield Heights City Council.

So far so good. The only other thing is that she voted against a pay raise for the Mayor. Is she going to make a motion to retract that pay raise if her sponsor Howard Sonenstein is elected? Other than the economy, are there no other reasons for voting against the pay raise? What were the arguments for the pay raise with which you disagree?

For what it is worth, the News-Herald has a comments from each candidate in an article. The Sun Messenger had an article back in August.

Mayfield Hts Mayoral Race

You can tell it's election season. The yard signs are everywhere. As you drive up Lander Road from Ridgebury towards Mayfleld Rd, it seems like more houses have the yard signs than not. In particular, the one's I notice are signs for the two Mayoral candidates; current Mayor Gregory S. Costabile and challenger Howard Sonenstein. Both of their signs had urls on 'em so I went and check them out.

Me being me, first thing I did is to check their sites with the wc3 validator. Color me impressed. The Mayor's site had only 5 errors, and the challengers only 3 errors. The Mayor's site looks like a simple mistake, while the Challengers is due to a piece of javascript. Pretty much as good as you could ask for...except fully valid of course.

Both sites also pass Section 508 validation tests, and both fail Web Accessibility. Both of these validation tests are to check:

"compliance with U.S. federal standards for accessible Web content, outlined in the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998, Section 508, Subpart B, §1194.22. Additionally, this guide can assist you in ensuring that your Web-based documents comply with World Wide Web, or W3C® WCAG 1.0 , accessibility guidelines."

Taking a look at the source, I was surprised to find that neither had google analytics code embedded to track access to the site. Perhaps someone is using a server based log analyzer. I would certainly hope so anyway because otherwise they have no idea who is accessing their sites nor from where.

Neither site, though, provided RSS feeds. So clearly the sites are static and largely will not change. Which of course without RSS feeds no one is going to know it changed anyway. Clearly it seems to me that they have web sites because they are expected to have websites, but that their web presence is not really part of the campaign strategy.

I cannot understand why sites like these don't have RSS. It just makes no sense to me. Even if the candidate doesn't understand it you would hope that the creators of the site do. I would have to say that this reflects more poorly on the Mr. Costabile than Mr. Sonenstein, as the Mayor has in his bio that the web site was "improved". Not nearly enough in my opinion. He does suggest that more changes are on the way so we'll see.

Okay, so that's where I always start. With the web site, how it's constructed and whether its really a part of their campaign. Clearly, it's window dressing to say that have one.

As a relatively new resident to Mayfield Heights, I have no idea who either these gentlemen are. So I read through the mass quantity of information available on their sites, all two or three pages (that sound you hear is me pulling my tongue out of my cheek). What I found interesting is that for many of the "achievements" of Mayfield Heights government, both take credit. And probably validly so, since one was the Mayor and the other on City Council. One would assume they would have to work together to get things done.

Gregory S. Costabile	Howard Sonenstein
Accomplishments	Accomplishments
Purchase of Oakville Park	Purchase of Oakville Park
Improved Cable TV	Improved Cable TV
Settled Costco	Settled Costco
Senior Transportation	Senior Transportation

Okay, so until that point it really doesn't matter to me which to vote for, since clearly they have both done good things. I think Mr. Costabile wins in that as he is the incumbent - if it ain't broke, don't fix it. There has to be something to differentiate the candidates, and of course there is.

Mr. Costabile goes on to list other accomplishments such as obtaining grants, managing the ODOT project so it was ended early and under budget amongst other things. On the other hand, Mr. Sonenstein lists the committees he was on and clearly had to work with the Mayor on some of those issues/accomplishments.

What is clearly different though is Mr. Sonenstein's claim to have fought the Mayor and the City Council President over a gas well in the Mayfield City Park. While I'm sure that the revenue from the well would help the city financially, from an eye-sore perspective in one of the really nice places in the City, I'd have to side with Mr. Sonenstein on this one.

On the other hand, Mr. Costabile points to increased environmental awareness and activities. He lays claims to planting trees and conducting energy audits of City Buildings. No where on Mr. Sonenstein's site is there mention of what I consider a critical issue. So I have to side with Mr. Constabile on this one as at least it's on his radar. I'd like to see both candidates, but at a minimum, Mr. Costabile since it is on his platform, to show up at my brother George's talk at the Townhall Series on October 26th. They'd learn quite a bit from someone who is playing a large environmental role in a major city(Washington D.C.)

So they both are still about even, with the incumbent being a tad bit ahead in my opinion so far. That brings me to their "platforms". I really like the fact that both candidates have clearly labeled "platforms" of what they plan to bring to the Office. Again, being a web guy, Mr. Sonenstein gets kudos for having the easier to read. 　His platform is numbered for easy reading, while Mr. Costabiles is more like a document, a bunch of paragraphs. Not that there is anything wrong with that per se, but it's just a little harder to read. Personally, I like the way Jill Miller Zimon has her campaign page where her issues are clearly labeled and you can pick the one you are interested on and it opens up to show just that piece. (To be fair, Jill's top page is filled with over 300 html validation errors, so both Mayfield gentlemen win in that regard. Note, I'm a big fan of Jill's regardless of whether I agree with everything or nothing she says. She's smart, dedicated, thorough, eloquent and worth listening to for what she has to say.)

Unfortunately, Mr Sonenstein completely loses me with his final item. It's in all caps. Why is he shouting at me? I don't even know the guy. Okay, I get that he's trying to emphasize it, but in the internet world ALL CAPS means one of two things; your all caps key is stuck or your shouting.

To add to that impression, in this section he insuates some serious claims. While he doesn't state it out right, he suggests that Mr. Costabile, the current mayor, uses the office for personal gain, plays favorites based on political favors, and does not commit to the job full time. That's some serious claims particularly when you are shouting them.

To be blunt, based on the contents and the style in which it's rendered, I find it unprofessional and childish. And that's where Mr. Sonenstein loses me. In addition, the platform of Mr. Costabile is much more thorough, covering a wide range of very specific topics. Mr Sonenstein's does as well, just not as thorough.

However, let's take a look at them specifically.

Gregory S. Costabile	Howard Sonenstein
Platform	Platform
Continued development of Economic plan - business park	Job Fair
Work with planners to support strong retail district	Cut Taxes based on reduced property value
Establish committee to develop action plan for Oakville Park	Health Care - leverage Hillcrest to provide immunizations, flu shots for residents, and clinics for those with no insurance, and creation(?) of other clinics
Expand Unity Day committee to include more residents	Create Dog Park
Expand Senior Programs	Sidewalk and Apron Replacement
Create new programs for teeanagers - volunteer opportunities and social events	Offer "out of hours" building inspections
Strengthen regional ties, improve state and federal relationships	More programs for children including sprinkler park
Expand building department services	shouting...sorry, that' should be: dedicate full time to office, treat residents equally, open and honest communication
Provide Fire and Police with state of art equipment and training
More recreational activities
Equip Services department to provide chipper services, leaf pickup, sidewalk repair etc.
Develop community groups
Find new and improved ways to be environmentally consicous
Implement grant to improve Ross Center

What seems to be clear to me is that Mr. Sonenstein wants to cut property taxes, create a job fair where residents have priority, and improved health care. Mr. Costabile at a minimum is keeping taxes the same, that lengthy list would hint as possible tax increase. But perhaps not. At a minimum, Mr. Costabile has a more thorough platform. Unclear to me is how he plans to pay for all of these items.

In the end though, I'd have to say I lean fairly heavily at this point to Mr. Costabile. Remember, I don't know either of these gentlemen and wouldn't know them if they passed me on the street. I am simply going by their websites.

I'd also like to point out to Mr. Sonenstein that if you click on the "Photos" link from the platform page, you are linked to a "template" that suggests the page was created in Scotland. I found the following pages on your site:

• index-1.html
• index-2.html
• index-3.html
• index-4.html

You might want to fix those or at least get a refund from whoever created this site. That's really unprofessional.

So, who is your choice and why?

Spaceman, Cowboys, and the Cuyahoga River Burning

The other night, I went to hear my brother George speak at the Princeton Alumni Association of Northern Ohio (held at the Cleveland Skating Club). I hadn't seen him in over a year, and while dinner was served he was at the table for the "important" folks. We were at the table with my Mom, and a woman, Juliette Reynolds, whom is a Princeton Alumni as well as a volunteer interviewer. Juliette is the President of babysteps, producers of Parent Talk, a game about parenting. The Plain Dealer also has a write up about the game and the company.

What was really interesting was that Juliette also grew up outside of the United States for most of her childhood, and came back to America for her high school years before matriculating to Princeton. So she was very interested in our kids experiences and had some great questions for Elly. And some good advice too!

But back to the topic at hand