WCPO has the story.

NixGuy has a post.

My take: The aggressiveness is justified. One of these days McEwen supporters are going to realize that his conduct over the past 14 years is a serious matter.

This trumps “resume enhancement” and a few days of incorrect endorsements on a web site, doesn’t it?
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UPDATE. April 20, 7 AM: The Cincinnati Enquirer posted this about an hour ago (it was also in this morning’s print edition):

Republican Rep. Jean Schmidt has hired Democratic lawyer Stan Chesley to take legal action claiming former congressman Bob McEwen, her opponent in the May 2 GOP 2nd Congressional District primary, voted illegally in Ohio while he was a resident of Virginia.

Chesley, with Schmidt at his side in his downtown Cincinnati law office, said there is “a serious question about whether he should be allowed to vote for himself” on May 2.

He said he has yet to decide the form of the complaint he will file and whether it will be filed in state or federal court, or before the Ohio Elections Commission.

An Enquirer review of public records has shown that McEwen and his wife, Liz, have used the addresses of two different women in Highland and Hamilton counties to register to vote in Ohio, even though they did not live there. The McEwens own a home in the Washington suburb of Fairfax, Va.

“My question is, why didn’t he run in Virginia? That’s where he lives,’ said Chesley, a trial lawyer who has raised millions for Democratic Party coffers.

Michael Harlow, a spokesman for the McEwen campaign, said Schmidt has become “the laughingstock of the nation.”

“What other Republican would seek political cover behind one of the nation’s leading Democrat super-lawyers?” Harlow said.

I would think that at some point, these people need to seriously consider what they are allowing themselves to be associated with. It appears to be too much to expect for the candidate to recognize what his continued presence in the race may be doing to their reputations and credibility.

UPDATE 2: Let’s not forget that McEwen dragged his family into this (about halfway through the post), and that Highland County cancelled the registrations of his wife and two oldest children in addition to his in that infamous “Mrs. Lyle’s house is not your home” letter. Is he really willing to expose his children to legal action that could affect the rest of their lives in the interest of holding on?
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Previous Posts:

• April 16 — Bob McEwen’s Easter Nightmare
• April 17 — First with the Worst: Official McEwen Statement
• April 19 — Bob McEwen Should Withdraw, and Won’t, So Here’s an “Easter Nightmare” Update

Note: This was posted at 9:10 this morning and has been moved to the top for the remainder of the day.
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Rutz’s Lima News story is here.

A couple of us got chances to make points for Bill Pierce in the article, which we’ll take any time:

Bloggers are attempting to do the same thing for Republican Bill Pierce in his challenge against U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine. While the mainstream media gives little coverage to DeWine’s two challengers, many bloggers, frustrated with what they view as DeWine’s abandoning Republican principles, have latched onto Pierce’s campaign.

Tom Blumer, 51, of suburban Cincinnati, blogs at bizzyblog.com and is working with Pierce’s campaign. How much bloggers affect the outcome of the Republican Senate primary will be another benchmark for their influence, Blumer said.

At the very least, said blogger Tim Ferris, of Cleveland, he gets a place to have his say.

“We have that perfectly fine fellow, Bill Pierce, and they won’t even acknowledge him,” Ferris said. “He needs to be able to tell people what he thinks, without having tons of money. That’s what we do. That’s the democratic process, with a small ‘d.’”

….. “It’s tough getting any coverage by the Cincinnati Enquirer. I can’t figure it,” Blumer said about Pierce’s campaign. “The guy’s getting endorsements from counties that aren’t too far from here, and they don’t cover it. But when DeWine won Miami County, which is north of Dayton, they covered that. Bill cancelled his subscription over the issue.”

S.O.B. Alliance member NixGuy got significant mentions as well, and has posted on the piece.

I’m also encouraged that the director of the organization that did the “Worse than Worthless” polls before last November’s Reform Ohio Now initiatives went down in flames, missing the results by as many as 28 points (i.e., swings of as much as 56 points), was quoted:

This year, blogs won’t have much direct effect on voters, said John Green, director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron.

“Most people don’t read blogs. We have a relatively low percentage of the population that’s truly online,” Green said. “The number of people with access to the Internet is going up, but it’s not like telephones yet.”

If Mr. Green’s assessment of blogs’ impact is as accurate as his organization’s polls, blogs will determine the outcome of the election. Boo-yah.
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Note: I have endorsed Bill Pierce for Senate (his site; his blog; his contribute page), and have provided nominal financial support for his campaign. BizzyBlog is a member of Blogs for Pierce.

Nick Kristof gets a Pulitzer:

For distinguished commentary, in print or in print and online, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000).

Awarded to Nicholas D. Kristof of The New York Times for his graphic, deeply reported columns that, at personal risk, focused attention on genocide in Darfur and that gave voice to the voiceless in other parts of the world.

I’d be more impressed if Kristof was consistent about genocide, but he’s not — he’s still making excuses for Mao, history’s greatest genocide master.

So color me singularly unimpressed.

Imagine that — people who try to emigrate to Mexico illegally face a lot of problems:

Few Protections for Migrants to Mexico

By MARK STEVENSON
Associated Press Writer

While migrants in the United States have held huge demonstrations in recent weeks, the hundreds of thousands of undocumented Central Americans in Mexico suffer mostly in silence.

And though Mexico demands humane treatment for its citizens who migrate to the U.S., regardless of their legal status, Mexico provides few protections for migrants on its own soil. The issue simply isn’t on the country’s political agenda, perhaps because migrants make up only 0.5 percent of the population …..

Undocumented Central American migrants complain much more about how they are treated by Mexican officials than about authorities on the U.S. side of the border, where migrants may resent being caught but often praise the professionalism of the agents scouring the desert for their trail.

I said the government of Mexico isn’t crazy. But they are quite the collection of hypocrites when they complain about our treatment of immigrants, especially illegals.

Previous posts:
April 16 — Bob McEwen’s Easter Nightmare
April 17 — First with the Worst: Official McEwen Statement

Original Enquirer articles:
April 16 — “McEwen’s Residency an Issue”
April 16 — “McEwen Helps Foreign Clients”

This post and future posts on Bob McEwen’s candidacy for Congress in the Second District should not be necessary, because, based on what the Enquirer revealed on Sunday and the campaign’s non-response to what was revealed, there should be no McEwen candidacy at this point.

So, to be clear, since I said I would do so if there was no refutation within 48 hours, I am calling for Bob McEwen to withdraw from the race.

I am further noting for the record that those who know what the Enquirer has revealed and who know that the campaign either cannot or will not refute, and who still choose to vote for Mr. McEwen, are in my opinion making what is from all appearances a morally bankrupt choice. If you really are taken aback by whatever current or past offenses you think incumbent Jean Schmidt may have committed, or disagreements you have with her voting record as a State Rep or Congresswoman, you have a third choice on the ballot to consider in active challenger Deb Kraus.

I’ll go one step further and note that those who fail to distance themselves from Mr. McEwen in the remaining two weeks are also making a choice that will be remembered, and not just by me. As S.O.B. Alliance member Large Bill has stated: “If the allegations raised by the Enquirer are true, McEwen needs to immediately end his campaign, apologize to his supporters for betraying their support and wasting their donations and slink back to DC.”

I expect my call, the call of others, and the counsel he is likely receiving from some of those close to him to do the right thing to be ignored, so this post will build on what the Enquirer covered on Sunday.

BizzyBlog has independently obtained a copy of the press packet I am told the Schmidt campaign distributed to the press on Monday. I have also investigated a few related matters on my own, but have frankly grown very tired of piling on ever-more-obvious proof that Bob McEwen is unfit for public office.

So it would be tempting to recite the entire painful timeline constructed in the Schmidt press packet, and to go through all of the evidence bit by excruciating bit. But it’s not necessary. I’ll stick to the most egregious items. Spending excessive time on this would be nonproducative because, as Large Bill notes: “His campaign has officially become a comedy act.”

So here are the things that have hit me hard or have occurred to me that have not already been thoroughly addressed in the Enquirer articles:

• How he dragged his family, including his children, into his pretend residency — In the first few years after his 1993 loss to Rob Portman in the special election, he used his father’s home as his residence address while he and his family continued to live in Virginia. Then, when his two oldest children reached voting age, he registered them in Highland County, even though in all likelihood they spent very few days there. The “Mrs. Lyle’s house is not your home. You cannot use her address….” letter that Malia Rulon’s article says was addressed to “the McEwens” was addressed to Bob, Liz, Meredith, and Jonathan. That letter informed all four of them that their Highland County registrations had been cancelled.
• The Schmidt campaign claims that ALL of the McEwens’ children attended Virginia public schools (Rulon’s article suggested that she could only prove that one did). Update: An e-mailer believes that “at least one” of the McEwens’ children attended public school, and that they mostly attended private schools during their K-12 years.
• The Schmidt campaign noted something that I had independently confirmed before yesterday about mortgage loans in Virginia (this seems obvious, but confirmation was necessary) — as in Ohio, when you borrow money to buy or refinance a home, the closing documents require you to affirm that the property you are borrowing against will be your principal residence. The Schmidt campaign noted this in connection with money the McEwens borrowed against their Fairfax Station home on May 17, 2005 (seven days after McEwen filed his candidacy papers for the 2005 Special Primary election), but any time in the past 14 years that the McEwens may have borrowed against the property, the same loan provision would have been in force.
• Moving beyond the Schmidt campaign’s packet, what about absentee voting? I learned yesterday (not surprisingly) that the McEwens usually, if not almost always, voted absentee. Until this year, Ohio election law was fairly strict about the conditions where absentee voting would have been permitted. It seems most likely that Bob, Liz, and in the final years Meredith and Jonathan, would have had to attest that they would be “out of town on business” on election day (though I was also told that one or more of the children’s absentee ballots were sent to an address other than the McEwens’ home, perhaps to where one of the children was attending college, which is an acceptable justification). Weren’t those absentee ballot affirmations made under penalty of, uh, perjury?
• Then we get to matters involving the State of Virginia. Virginia law states that you have to get a Virginia driver’s license within 60 days of moving into the state. Since McEwen was in Congress until January 1993, he was exempt from that rule because he was working for the government and representing Ohio. But after he left Congress, he had 60 days to switch his driver’s license over to Virginia based on his residence there; it’s reasonable to believe that since then, he has been violating Virginia law.
• Wait, you say, he didn’t have a residence there. Phooey. Besides the issue with mortgage loan documents noted earlier, I believe it’s correct to say that the McEwens put Virginia license plates on their cars (if they didn’t, and actually put Ohio plates on their cars all these years, I believe the State of Virginia will be knocking on their door soon to collect 14 years of vehicle personal property tax, which until a few years ago was pretty steep). If they indeed obtained Virginia license plates, I have confirmed that they would only have been able to do so after providing proof of (you guessed it) residency.
• State income tax return information might also be fascinating. McEwen presumably had to file in Virginia because he would likely have had Virginia taxes withheld in some of his endeavors, and it would be obvious in audit cross-checking that he had a home there. Did Bob and Liz tell the state they were fulltime residents on their Virginia income tax returns? Did they file returns on Ohio? If they did, what did they tell the Ohio Department of Taxation about their residency status?
• Finally, going back to driver’s licenses, McEwen made this remarkable statement in the Enquirer article: “If a police officer stops you in California, you show him your driver’s license and registration, not the deed to your home.” Yeah, Bob, but when you’re pulled over the officer always asks “Is this your current address?” If you don’t tell him the truth, what are you committing?

This is the only campaign I can recall where the candidate could theoretically be wanted for multiple crimes in multiple states — which is why it should have ended by now, and why tonight’s Anderson Township “debate” will by definition be a farce.

It’s here at S.O.B. Alliance member Newshound.

Free Links:

• That’s a Lot of Competition — The Business 2.0 Blog reports there are 35 million blogs, and counting, at the rate of one new one every second of every day.
• Well-Kept Secrets Department — Black-owned businesses are booming, according to the Census Bureau (HT Kudlow). First sentence: “Revenues generated by the nation’s 1.2 million black-owned businesses rose 25 percent between 1997 and 2002 to $88.8 billion in 2002, while the number of such firms grew by 45 percent in the same five-year period.” Update: Well, well — USA Today picked up the story.
• Wizbang Scoops the Lazy Media (HT Best of the Web’s Taranto) — DHS deputy press secretary Brian J. Doyle, arrested in an underage sex sting operation, is a registered Democrat civil servant, not a Bush Administration appointee. This makes a Howard Dean joke here look doubly stupid.
• Kudlow Rips the Rob Portman Selection as Budget Director (”Uninspiring Choice” and “More on Portman“). That seemed a bit harsh at first, but I’m biased, since he was Second District congressman in this area for a dozen years, and seemed pretty competent. So I went to the Citizens Against Government Waste web site for specifics on his voting record, and found a troubling trend (items presented are CAGW’s Grade, Percentage Score, and rank among all House members for 1993-2004):
  

  2004 — B, 60%, 112
  2003 — C+, 60%, 141
  2002 — B, 59%, 72
  2001 — B+, 68%, 57
  2000 — B, 63%, 109
  1999 — A, 69%, 34
  1998 — A, 73%, 27
  1997 — B, 56%, 116
  1996 — A, 76%, 21
  1995 — A, 86%, 49
  1994 — A, 80%, 37
  1993 — A, 84%, 19

  From the above, you see that the real question on Portman is whether we’re getting the 1993-1999 fiscally conservative version or the 2000-2004 go-along, get-along version. I don’t like the fact that go-along, get along is the more recent of the two, but I sense that a year or so away from the fray may have given him a perspective on how much the budget process is in need of adult supervision. Cross your fingers.

• A Reason Besides Sarbanes Oxley That I Won’t Miss Mike Oxley –
  

  The home loan giant Freddie Mac has agreed to pay a record $3.8 million fine to settle allegations it made illegal campaign contributions.

  The fine announced Tuesday is by far the biggest ever levied by the Federal Election Commission. Because the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, widely known as Freddie Mac, agreed to pay the fine and stop breaking the law, the FEC said it would not take further action against corporate officials.

  ….. Freddie Mac was accused of illegally using corporate resources between 2000 and 2003 for 85 fundraisers that collected about $1.7 million for federal candidates. Much of the fundraising benefited members of the House Financial Services Committee, a panel whose decisions can affect Freddie Mac.

  ….. The lobbyists told Freddie Mac officials the fundraising effort was needed to help the corporation achieve its lobbying goals. Delk wrote in his 2001 performance appraisal that Freddie Mac had held more than 40 fundraisers for House Financial Services Chairman Michael Oxley, R-Ohio.

  I’ll never understand why Oxley is leaving with his halo mostly intact.

The American Revolution began 231 years ago today at the Battle of Lexington and Concord.

The Wikipedia account is very thorough. These two paragraphs near the end describe the battle’s importance, and contain an interesting bit of trivia:

In terms of accomplishments and casualties this was not a major battle. However, in terms of supporting the political strategy behind the Intolerable Acts and the military strategy behind the Powder Alarms, the battle was a significant British failure because the expedition contributed to the fighting it was intended to prevent and because few weapons were seized.

….. On American soil, it was no longer possible for any intelligent man in any colony to sit on the fence. John Adams left his home in Braintree to ride along the battlefields on the day after the fighting. He became convinced that “the Die was cast, the Rubicon crossed.” Thomas Paine in Philadelphia had previously thought of the argument between the colonies and the Home Country as “a kind of law-suit,” but after news of the battle reached him, he “rejected the hardened, sullen-tempered Pharaoh of England forever.” George Washington received the news at Mount Vernon and wrote to a friend, “…the once-happy and peaceful plains of America are either to be drenched in blood or inhabited by slaves. Sad alternative! But can a virtuous man hesitate in his choice?” A group of hunters on the frontier named their campsite Lexington when they heard news of the battle in June. Their campsite eventually became the city of Lexington, Kentucky which (as of 2000) contained over 8 times as many people as the Massachusetts town.