It’s at his web site, dated Friday (Hat tip to the R-Rated Whistleblower, whose actual link for March 13 won’t go active until late Monday afternoon):

Today former Air Force Lieutenant Colonel John Mitchel withdrew from the US Senate race. In doing so he narrows the field to incumbent Mike DeWine and two challengers, Bill Pierce and David Smith.

Colonel Mitchel commented, “This was a difficult decision, but it was the right thing to do, however with two challengers still in the race, unless one withdraws soon, it’s likely the status quo remains in place. My primary reason for getting involved in politics almost a decade ago was to bring sanity to national defense and veterans issues. Way back then I was talking about illegal immigration, one sided trade deals that moved our manufacturing base, hard currency, and sensitive technology offshore, and a broken defense acquisition process that our Senators and House Reps were using more as a crutch to get reelected than serving our war fighters who offered up the supreme sacrifice to defend our liberty and freedom.

….. Mitchel added, “Although I do not plan to publicly endorse either of the two remaining challengers, Mr. Pierce and Mr. Smith understand which one I feel is best qualified to serve Ohio in the US Senate. But it’s up to Bill and David to decide if Senator DeWine will face an up or down vote in the primary. I believe voters are tired of Republican kingmakers and phony, self-interested endorsers calling the shots, and it’s time the citizens and the candidates themselves make those decisions.

My thoughts:

• Every Republican in Ohio owes Mr. Mitchel a debt that can’t be repaid, not only for his service to our country, but for fighting the good fight both in 2004 and in other races prior to that. Those who have viewed his underfunded efforts as quixotic just don’t get it. The fact is that he pulled 195,000 votes running against George Voinovich in the 2004 primary while holding down a fulltime job and spending very little money. This result was tangible proof that there is widespread dissatisfaction with the Republican Party’s anointed leaders, and with the management of the GOP in this state. It showed the tantalizing possibility that a principled, fiscally conservative candidate willing to put an organized fulltime effort into unseating a RINO in Ohio can succeed. Thank you, Mr. Mitchel (I didn’t notice anyone else actually acting on their frustration, did you?). Here’s hoping your next effort can be fulltime in nature in say, 2010, against a certain Senator with a strange proclivity for inappropriately tearing up.
• Of the two remaining candidates, only one challenger, Bill Pierce, is putting in the fulltime effort needed to defeat Mike DeWine in the GOP primary. That means only one challenger, Bill Pierce, has a chance. Why Mr. Pierce should be chosen over Mike DeWine will be the subject of a future post.
• The other challenger, who has no plausible shot at winning, needs to ask himself: “Do I want to wake up on May 3 knowing that my votes kept Mike DeWine as my party’s US Senate candidate, and that if he then wins in November, we’re stuck with him for six more years? I don’t know, maybe this other challenger will move on to yet another state in a year or so (he has recently moved around, and quite a bit), and he doesn’t really care what happens here. I hope I’m wrong.

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UPDATE: Bill Pierce himself has two very important questions for David Smith. We’d all love to hear the answers.

UPDATE 2, March 13: Atreides at Columbus Townhall said this morning that “At our public forum, Smith promised to step down in favor of another candidate with a clear chance at victory.” I am attempting to investigate this.

Hide the women and children — Wal-Mart wants its own bank.
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Looks like a number of Congressman have their knickers in a knot over the idea that (the greedy, evil, exploitive, freeloading — pick your adjective) Wal-Mart is trying to get into the banking business:

A group of lawmakers on Friday said an industrial bank owned by Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, could threaten the stability of the U.S. financial system and drive community banks out of business.

In a highly critical letter to the acting chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., obtained by Reuters, a group of more than 30 Congress members asked the bank regulator to reject Wal-Mart’s application to open a bank in Utah.

“Wal-Mart’s plan, to have its bank process hundreds of billions in transactions for its own stores, could threaten the stability of the nation’s payments system,” the lawmakers wrote.

“Given Wal-Mart’s massive scope and international dealings, it is not possible to rule out a financial crisis within the company that could damage the bank and severely disrupt the flow of payments throughout the financial system.”

The congressmen said the losses to the FDIC, which insures deposits at banks and thrift institutions, could be staggering if Wal-Mart begins to have financial troubles that bleed into its bank’s business.

“Consider the consequences if Enron or WorldCom had owned a bank,” the group said.

The group included Ohio Democrats Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones and Rep. Tim Ryan, Hawaii Democrat Rep. Neil Abercrombie and California Democrat Rep. Loretta Sanchez. A complete list of signatures was not immediately available.

The representatives are acting as if Wal-Mart is the first retailer to set up its own bank, and as if there would be no separation between retail and banking operations.

Far from it. Retailers have had their own banking and financial services operations for years. Target has its own financial services operation, as do most of the other major retailers. I have yet to hear concerns that problems at Target, a very large operation, might “disrupt” things. These financial services operations all have to comply with state and/or federal capital maintenance requirements.

Is their objection to Wal-Mart’s size? I have yet to hear any legislators demand that Ford, GM, or Toyota, all of which are big, and the first two of which are facing dire financial challenges, spin off their banking and credit operations (although Ford and GM may do so, it won’t be because of regulatory pressure).

Some of the tiniest retailers have their own banking and credit operations. In fact, here in Greater Cincinnati, Spirit of America National Bank, a captive bank owned by Charming Shoppes, which runs the Fashion Bug chain of women’s clothing stores, primarily handles customers who carry the store’s own credit card, and has quietly operated without visible incident for almost 15 years.

If a small outfit like Charming Shoppes can run its own bank, what in the world makes these illustrious legislators think that Wal-Mart can’t?

If the hidden fear is that over the long haul a “Wal-Mart Bank” might spread its wings and start competing with the big banks, what would be wrong with that? Maybe by entering the fray, an aggressive “lowest price always” bank owned by Wal-Mart might bring down some of the outrageous “mistake” fees, like those assessed for late payments, going over the credit limit, or having a one-time bank overdraft. Consumers would welcome “threats” like these.

From here, the effort to keep Wal-Mart out of the banking business looks like an attempt to pile on while the company’s reputation is under a relentless assault in a number of unrelated areas. I see no defensible reason to oppose Wal-Mart’s entry, and would in fact welcome it.
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UPDATE: And speaking of “big,” and the possibility of a “financial crisis” — It would be interesting to see where these illustrious representatives who signed the letter stand on reducing the mammoth mortgage portfolios of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that expose taxpayers to huge financial risk.

Why can’t ministers speak out on moral issues without fear of intimidation from the courts or the IRS?

In his Friday OpinionJournal.com column, Brendan Miniter wrote on the IRS fight the pastoral leaders of the Ohio Restoration Project are in. This is a fight where the tax-exempt status of the churches run by Russell Johnson and Rod Parsley is at stake, and has troubling implications for anyone who believes in freedom of speech and religion:

Both Mr. Johnson and Mr. Parsley are fighting back, arguing that they’ve done nothing wrong by speaking out on what they see as moral, not just political, issues. If the IRS agrees with their accusers, however, the World Harvest Church and the Fairfield Christian Church could lose their tax-exempt status. It would be unusual for the IRS to mete out this kind of punishment, but as gay marriage, abortion and the war in Iraq increasingly draw religious leaders into politics, such complaints may become more common.

Just a few weeks after the pastors filed their grievance, the IRS released a report on the outcome of 132 similar anonymous filings against nonprofit organizations during the course of the 2004 presidential campaign, 63 of which are churches. The allegations against the churches include: inviting candidates to speak, donating money to politicians, endorsing individual candidates and publishing voter guides. Some of the cases were thrown out immediately, but 37 of the 47 churches that were investigated further were deemed to have run afoul of the tax code.

….. And for what purpose? Not surprisingly, a political one. Since this process is driven by citizen complaints, many of the churches to come under the tax microscope are in swing states (since the stakes will be higher). The outcome of the IRS’s action–intended or not–could have far-reaching effects on local, state and national elections. And though many of the churches that have been investigated favor conservatives, liberal pastors have found the IRS pounding on their doors as well.

But help may be on the way:

In response to this scourge, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty–a Washington, D.C., public-interest law firm representing all faiths–has sent to every house of worship they could find a letter promising to defend these institutions (free of charge) if they are targeted by the IRS for political speech.

So far the agency has issued letters of reprimand rather than actual fines, an indication, perhaps, that even tax officials aren’t sure about this little-explored corner of tax law. In fact, the letters are usually enough. Most churches will be easily intimidated, not having the resources to drag the IRS into court. But now, with the help of the Becket Fund, they can.

Telling pastors what topics they may and may not address from the pulpit would seem to be a violation of the First Amendment, but IRS lawyers say that the churches implicitly accept such limitations in exchange for being tax exempt. Becket Fund spokesman Jared Leland argues that pastors cannot be forced to give up their right to free speech.

….. Mr. Parsley has no such intention though. He is incensed at the idea that anyone would “deny clergy the right to be heard simply because they may not agree with our values.” In a reaction to the IRS that’s not unusual this time of year, Mr. Parsley sighs: “It’s un-American.”

He’s right. In fact, churches have a duty to specifically encourage their members to live their values. Part of living one’s values is voting for people whose positions are consistent with those values. Where it is known, consistent with the duty just mentioned, ministers should be able to indicate that those values are either favored by or opposed by specific candidates. And of course, this being a free country, congregation members are free to ignore the clerical counsel.

As far as I (and the Constitution) are concerned, clerics can stop just short of saying “vote for him/her” or “don’t vote for him/her.” Hopefully, The Becket Fund will be willing to defend any minister who does not cross that last line.

Jack Cashill is an Emmy-award winning independent writer. His credentials and credibility have never been successfully refuted.

He has a column on last Friday’s 10th anniversary of the mysterious death of former Commerce Secretary Ron Brown in a plane crash in Croatia that is a must read, especially as the story has a few characters in it who are still with us. The excerpts listed at the bottom at World Net Daily link are from Cashill’s book, “Ron Brown’s Body.”

The true story behind Brown’s death is something that I believe the current new media environment would likely have uncovered had it existed at the time. Unfortunately, we’ll probably never know the whole truth.

Five year-old Janey Rominski of Strattanville, PA is progressing nicely instead of hanging on for dear life because of titanium ribs:

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