| Title |
Excerpt |
Author |
Date |
Total Comments |
Recent Comment |
| Court Clerk Restricts Viewing of Brinkman’s Suit Against County, City |
Per a notice on the court clerk’s website, public viewing of documents on the internet has been restricted for over a year due to concern about social security numbers being visible to the general public. Even if a new document, like Mr. Brinkman’s lawsuit, has in fact no social security… |
Michael Earl Patton |
08/14/07 |
11 |
08/15/07 |
| Trusting Government with Our Money |
With the upcoming voter referendum on the jail tax, I have been musing about tax policy. (Let me disclose up front that I am a candidate for Cincinnati city council.) I have said taxes are too high, but a more complete statement would be that I think taxes are too… |
Michael Earl Patton |
08/11/07 |
14 |
08/14/07 |
| Too Much Estrogen! |
Some of the most insidious water pollution are chemicals that are only present in extremely small quantities. They do not make the water appear dirty or give it a funny taste. They are not what we commonly would think of as poisons, such as mercury. They are not chemicals that… |
Michael Earl Patton |
08/05/07 |
10 |
08/07/07 |
| Destruction of Ohio’s Presidential Ballots |
Judge Marbley ordered the ballots to be preserved as they were evidence. Ken Blackwell also ordered the ballots to be preserved. The law requires the ballots to be preserved for 22 months following an election and the orders to preserve the ballots went out before the deadline. Even so, 56… |
Michael Earl Patton |
08/02/07 |
19 |
08/12/07 |
| Sales Tax Collections Sign of County Trouble |
In addition to the state’s 5-1/2% sales tax, Hamilton County imposes a 1/2% sales tax for general revenue and a 1/2% for the stadiums. In 2006 the county collected $128,069,685 from these two taxes. In 2005 the county collected $128,125,255. The core rate of inflation (excludes food and energy) was… |
Michael Earl Patton |
07/28/07 |
28 |
08/01/07 |
| COAST: Efforts to block jail tax vote exposed |
This is a newsletter from C.O.A.S.T. about the efforts of Commissioners Portune and Pepper to block the voter referendum on their recent attempt to raise the sales tax. Per the newsletter, Cincinnati City Councilwoman Leslie Ghiz is also deeply involved in the on-going attempt to frustrate the will of the… |
Michael Earl Patton |
07/28/07 |
51 |
08/06/07 |
| First Amendment Abridged at Fountain Square |
While the recent petition for putting the sales tax increase to a public referendum was being circulated, the No Jail Tax PAC heard reports that some petitioners were prevented by the police from gathering signatures on Fountain Square. Some others, including myself, had been left alone. Then in the last… |
Michael Earl Patton |
07/22/07 |
41 |
07/31/07 |
| War With Iran Planned? |
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=56705 Congress has already signaled Bush that he can go ahead with war. They have refused to demand their authorization first. They gave him everything he wanted for the Iraq War funding. This is a letter from Kucinich about the recent House resolution condemning Iran. Only he and Ron Paul… |
Michael Earl Patton |
07/17/07 |
10 |
07/20/07 |
| Is Cincinnati Booming or Busting? |
The 2000 Census counted 330,662 people in Cincinnati, which continues a decline since 1960 when the population was 502,550. For 2005 the Census Bureau initially estimated the population to be 308,728, a number which was later challenged by the City of Cincinnati. The difference between that number and the new… |
Michael Earl Patton |
07/03/07 |
18 |
07/06/07 |
| Incarcerex! |
Anti-drug War activist Rob Ryan has been working hard to prevent addiction to “Incarcerex,” which is being heavily promoted by unethical spin doctors as a remedy to sagging poll numbers and re-election anxiety. He has recently obtained a copy of the advertisement for Incarcerex, and asks that it be posted… |
Michael Earl Patton |
06/18/07 |
1 |
06/18/07 |
| A Few Notes On a Shooting |
First, let me say that the man was shot in or about the knee, and his wound was probably not life-threatening (although he did lose a lot of blood). One of my companions called “911” as soon as he saw the man lying in the parking lot. When I came… |
Michael Earl Patton |
06/17/07 |
44 |
06/20/07 |
| Exposed! Cranley’s Contribution Loophole |
Limited Liability Companies, or LLC’s, are relatively easy to set up and may be owned by one person or by two or more individuals. They are are often smaller than companies that are “incorporated.” The former typically have “LLC” after their name, such as, Victoria Group, LLC. If “Victoria Group”… |
Michael Earl Patton |
06/16/07 |
25 |
06/23/07 |
| Sheriff Leis, Bad Math, and Paris Hilton |
In a recent editorial in The Cincinnati Enquirer, Sheriff Simon Leis says we need a new jail: “Because of the current space limitations, the Sheriff’s Office was forced to early release more than 8,000 prisoners in 2006.” |
Michael Earl Patton |
06/10/07 |
10 |
06/14/07 |
| Tim Burke is Wrong! |
1. An Intelligent Approach to Justice —The Safety Plan enacted goes well beyond merely the provision of new jail space. Much of it is directed at programs designed to reduce crime and to reduce the number (70%) of offenders who wind up returning to jail at some later date. This is… |
Michael Earl Patton |
06/09/07 |
31 |
06/18/07 |
| The Un-democratic Democratic Party |
Of course, the petition merely demands a vote by the citizens on the subject, nothing more. Basically the position of the Democratic Party is that the voters cannot be trusted with the vote. After all, they voted against the plan in November that was supported by Commissioners Heimlich, DeWine, and… |
Michael Earl Patton |
06/07/07 |
9 |
06/11/07 |
| Who’s Running for City Council? |
David Crowley (D), 9-J John Eby (R), 26-I Michael Earl Patton (R), 4-H Paul Makin (R), 14-D Robert J. Wilking (R), 4-G Malik Showes (I), 26-X Yvette Barbara Baldwin (D), 12-J Sean Lackey, 14-E Andre Harper (R), 23-H Dadrin Washington (I), 25-A Eric Wolterman (D), 6-F Patrick F. Fischer (R),… |
Michael Earl Patton |
06/06/07 |
6 |
06/20/07 |
| Are We Getting the Real Story on the Jail Surge? |
And the reason why the Justice Center did not pass is very relevant to the debate surrounding the new jail. BAD warned Hamilton County that the Justice Center is operating over capacity and that it must reduce the number of prisoners housed there. The Justice Center was designed for 848… |
Michael Earl Patton |
06/05/07 |
24 |
06/07/07 |
| Portune Follows Through; Commission Enacts Jail Tax |
At the County Commission meeting today, Mr. Portune stated that, “Studies have been done and hearings have been held, and it is time to act.” Mr. Pepper joined with Mr. Portune, stating that, “Priority number one is public safety.” Commissioner Pat DeWine strongly disagreed, stating that the people rejected the… |
Michael Earl Patton |
05/30/07 |
26 |
06/02/07 |
| How High Will Gas Go? |
This Memorial Day weekend gasoline prices are at a record high. Though gas may decline a bit from time to time, the longer trends are not encouraging. The price will be going higher. Even if there is nation-wide gas rationing, $10 per gallon is a real possibility in the next… |
Michael Earl Patton |
05/26/07 |
1 |
05/27/07 |
| Portune Says No to Jail Tax Vote, Will Enact Tax Directly |
For the record, having an election in August to enact a sales tax hike is specifically prohibited under Ohio Revised Code (section 5739.021, par. (B)(1)). Such an August election would have required the Ohio Legislature, currently wrestling with the state budget, to change this section of the code and to… |
Michael Earl Patton |
05/24/07 |
25 |
05/28/07 |
| All About Concrete! |
If a government health care plan would involve the bulding of new clinics and hospitals throughout the country you can bet that it would happen. Well, at least the clinics and hospitals would. One of my favorite movies, The Great McGinty (1940), has the following bit of dialogue. In this… |
Michael Earl Patton |
05/20/07 |
4 |
05/21/07 |
| Prohibition I and II |
The first few quotes come from the book Prohibition: Modification of the Volstead Law, by Lamar T. Beman, copyright 1924. The book is a collection of essays pro and con, with some arguing that beer and wine should be allowed and only strong drinks be banned. I have selected some… |
Michael Earl Patton |
05/04/07 |
3 |
05/06/07 |
| Pot Law and Guns: No Link! |
One of the main reasons Cincinnati City Council gave for making the enhanced penalties for marijuana possession permanent, maybe even the main reason, was that the police seized 62 guns as a result of the arrests. Possession of small amounts of marijuana meant a ticket in the past, but section… |
Michael Earl Patton |
04/25/07 |
6 |
04/29/07 |
| Towards a Brave New Jail |
There is a movement towards a new justice system in Hamilton County, one that is based on the premise that technology is a substitute for seeing things with our own eyes. It holds that contact with family members and community is not beneficial to the person arrested. Concrete walls should… |
Michael Earl Patton |
04/16/07 |
38 |
04/24/07 |
| Can the Jail Hold All the Dangerous Women? |
The Hamilton County Prosecutor, Joe Deters, has often talked about how there is no room for “dangerous criminals” in the county jails. The Cincinnati Beacon has obtained data which show the number of arrestees released without a bail hearing and the number of prisoners released early. Now that cells in… |
Michael Earl Patton |
04/07/07 |
6 |
04/07/07 |
| Ohio’s Bizarre Definition of Aggravated Assault |
Here’s the definition used by the FBI, which is from the Uniform Crime Reporting Handbook. Aggravated assualt is “An unlawful attack by one person upon another for the purpose of inflicting severe or aggravated bodily injury. This type of assault usually is accompanied by the use of a weapon or… |
Michael Earl Patton |
04/05/07 |
4 |
04/05/07 |
| Pot Law’s Picayune Effect on Drug Availability |
As seen in the police report given to city council, 245 grams of powder cocaine and 2,813 grams of crack cocaine were seized due to this law (numbers have been rounded to the nearest gram). But the TOTAL amount of powder cocaine seized in 2006, per CPD’s 2006 Executive Information… |
Michael Earl Patton |
04/04/07 |
22 |
04/07/07 |