The Enquirer noticed that there’s a competitive US Senate primary in Ohio on the Republican side of the ledger today. Better late than never, but nothing like cutting it way too close.

There’s an article (HT S.O.B. Alliance member Weapons of Mass Discussion), and an accompanying series of profiles.

Bill Pierce deservedly got good play with this quote:

“Basically, we’ve had three counties rebuke a two-term sitting senator,” Pierce said. “I think that says a lot. It says that there’s a level of discontent and dissatisfaction with the two-term senator.”

I’d make that four, because the Preble County tie, while it wasn’t a win for Pierce, it has to be seen as a rebuke of incumbent Mike DeWine.

Unfortunately, The Enquirer let Mike DeWine get away with a major misdirection on immigration. That’s not going to happen here.

First, it reported in the primary article that “He is supporting an immigration bill in the Senate that would create a guest worker program for illegal immigrants, something hard-line conservatives say is akin to amnesty.”

But in the profiles piece, they let DeWine say this about immigration:

I think any bill that we pass has to start with the idea of securing our borders … but we can’t stop there. We have to deal with the 12 million people who are here illegally and bring them out of the shadows.

Uh, excuse me, but the bill supported by DeWine that came out of the Judiciary Committee a few weeks ago did NOT address securing our borders, and tried to skip to “Step 2″ by proposing Amnesty-Lite.

That is NOT what Bill Pierce wants, and is one of many reasons why he correctly discerns “discontent and dissatisfaction” on the part of Ohio conservatives with Senator DeWine.

Bill Pierce wants a firm plan for physically secure borders as a precondition for addressing those who are already here illegally. That is what Ohio conservatives want, which is why Mike DeWine, though he voted the other way, pretended to want it in his Enquirer profile.

If you want a candidate who won’t try to fool the voters, Bill Pierce is the one.
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ADDENDUM — The Enquirer noted the following in its profile of that self-professed charismatic complete package “Mr. 362″:

“Political experience: Ran unsuccessfully for Ohio’s 2nd District, 2005; ran unsuccessfully for Tennessee’s 1st District, 2004; ran unsuccessfully for Utah’s 2nd District, 2002.”

Good thing The Enquirer published this, because you’ll never learn about his previous races by navigating through his home page; as noted previously, you’ll only find it if you remember this exact link from about 10 days ago.
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Note: I have endorsed Bill Pierce for Senate, and have provided nominal financial support for his campaign. BizzyBlog is a member of Blogs for Pierce.

The people at McEwen campaign headquarters and the Fairfax Station, Virginia Homeless Shelter will not be pleased with this (HT to an alert e-mailer):

Schmidt - 56%
McEwen - 33%
Other - 8%
Undecided - 3%

Aw, what the heck, I like bright colors, let’s show it:

A full list of Ohio Survey USA races is here.

Unfortunately, there is reason to believe the current enforcement moves against employers nationwide are window dressing, as Michelle Malkin’s post from yesterday indicated, and as her post today is already beginning to prove.

Butler County Sheriff Richard K. Jones, who I covered earlier this year, won’t be satisfied with the catch-and-release games Michelle has picked up on:

• First, he wants us to “Hold Legislators Accountable” on Election Day. Good idea — Bill Pierce gets it on illegal immigration, short-term and long-term; Mike DeWine doesn’t. If you’re in the GOP, vote accordingly on May 2.
• Second, as WKRC-TV is reporting (HT S.O.B. Alliance member Porkopolis), Jones is trying to bring the full force of his public-relations and law-enforcement authority to bear:
  

  Butler County Sheriff Launches Boycott Over Illegal Immigrants

  Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones Friday will launch a boycott of companies he says hire illegal immigrants.

  The sheriff also tells Local 12 he is winning a fight with Washington, and now the feds will help pay the cost of keeping illegal immigrants in the county jail.

  The sheriff’s office says it spent more than $23,000 jailing 30 undocumented prisoners in December.

No word on how much “help” is being provided by the Feds, but taxpayers of Butler County should be grateful that it’s more than what it has been previously — zero.

And wait until other jurisdictions find out that Butler County is getting help.

Maybe when our Washington lawmakers see the federal treasury being drained because of reimbursements to states and localities for taking care of a problem the feds have allowed to fester, we’ll start getting concrete solutions. Maybe.
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Note: I have endorsed Bill Pierce for Senate, and have provided nominal financial support for his campaign. BizzyBlog is a member of Blogs for Pierce.

….. except maybe to demonstrate the power of wishful thinking.

I expect better from AccountingWeb.com, but in this case I did not get it.

The headline gives the impression that bankruptcy filings are heading back up to pre-”reform” levels, but the text contains absolutely no support for the claim:

Bankruptcy Filings Rebounding Despite Intention of New Law

April 20, 2006 - The new bankruptcy legislation enacted on October 17, 2005, apparently only had a temporary effect on the number of bankruptcy filings. Some statisticians predict that filings will reach their previous levels in a year or more, according to the Baltimore Sun.

“The intent of the new law is to force more filers into Chapter 13 plans. These plans require more filers to make payments to their creditors as opposed to a Chapter 7 filing that completely discharges their debt,” said Jeffery Freedman, senior partner at Jeffery Freedman Attorneys at Law, according to Buffalo Business First.

Later in the article, there is an attempt to claim that financial distress and collection actions are on the rise, but there’s no meat on those bones either:

Bankruptcy attorney Rory Ellinger told Black Enterprise that although experiencing a reduction in bankruptcies lately, a reduced number of filings should not indicate there is any automatic reduction in the number in creditors starting collection actions on people and families experiencing financial hardship.

….. Brad Botes, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys, told the Baltimore Sun, “Congress tried to cure the sickness of too much debt by making it harder to get to the hospital.” He finished, “There is no other viable alternative. People have significant money problems.”

All in all, a very sloppy job designed to promote a set of conclusions that have no support, or at least no cited support.

Don’t get me wrong. I happen to think that filings will return to 70% - 90% of pre-”reform” levels. I’m just not going to claim that it’s happening until there’s actual evidence.

The Enquirer’s Politics Extra Blog has an entry about the womenformcewen.com (WFM) web site.

The WFM site is actually very thorough, and though the Enky entry calls it new, it appears to have been around for about a month. It has a nice blog from Liz which may have more entries than the McEwen campaign site has event and policy position reports. Liz’s blog definitely has had more activity since its first entry on March 25 than the bobmcewen.org web site, which until all previous entries were flushed out a few days ago, appeared to be an abandoned attempt at a candidate or campaign blog.

The WFM site once again leads us to the point noted earlier where we end up learning far more about Liz from the campaign than we ever get to learn about her husband — y’know, the guy whose name is on the ballot.

But I digress.

The WFM site has a picture that Enky Politics Blog entry author Malia Rulon says was taken at that $1 million-plus place in that eastern state adjacent to the District of Columbia — y’know, that place where the McEwens have usually slept since they occupied it in 1997, but which they don’t call their residence.

There’s also a family pic that includes one of the McEwen children wearing a Robinson Track sweatshirt. That portion of the pic is below:

Robinson is apparently a public high school in that eastern state in which the McEwens have not actually resided all these years.

Finally, I’m starting to understand why the homeless statistics in this country are so questionable.

When you combine what The Enquirer reported Sunday about the McEwens not having a place of their own in Hillsboro or anywhere else in Ohio from roughly 2000 until early 2005, with what Bob and the McEwen campaign claim about that place in Virginia not being their residence, you have to conclude that most, if not all, of the McEwen family should have been included in the homeless population statistics for about five years!

Homeless Bob and the McEwens

Accordingly, BizzyBlog has christened the place where the McEwens have slept most of the past eight or nine years as The Fairfax Station Homeless Shelter, which has thankfully spared Homeless Bob and the McEwens the misery and indignity of living on the streets, which of course no one would wish on anybody:

The Fairfax Station Homeless Shelter

Free Links:

• Michael Hiltzik is soooo busted - The LA Times columnist and blogger was caught dead to rights, and finally “admitted Thursday that he posted items on the paper’s website, and on other websites, under names other than his own.” Patterico found it, and both he and Hugh Hewitt (at this link and many more) have been all over The Times’ weak, slow, and mixed response.
• Steve Jobs Rules — Two years ago, record labels started making noises about variable pricing for music downloads and moving away from the 99-cent individual song price. They’ve gotten nowhere. I figure that if Wendy’s can still have a 99-cent menu after about 15 years, Apple can stick to 99-cent songs for quite a while.
• Quick Chinese Censorship Follow-up — The e-mail used as the basis for the 2003 arrest and jailing of Jiang Lijun in China (blogged yesterday), in which BizzyBlog Internet Wall of Shame member Yahoo! cooperated, was a draft.
• Speaking of Chinese Censorship — Internet-based phone company Skype is having trouble staying on the good side of the Chinese government and the government-run telcos.
• Megabus.com, the Internet-based bus company that made a splash when it introduced fares as low as $1 from Chicago to Detroit, has expanded into other cities.
• I thought the air seemed less polluted last night, and now I know why — Sure enough, The New York Times’ web site was down for about four hours.

Animals have instincts that sometimes save lives. This is one of those times:

15 April, 2006

BERLIN - A cat saved the life of a newborn baby abandoned on the doorstep of a Cologne house in the middle of the night by meowing loudly until someone woke up, a police spokesman said Saturday.

“The cat is a hero,” Cologne police spokesman Uwe Beier said. “Its loud meowing got the attention of the homeowner and saved the baby from suffering life-threatening hypothermia. The homeowner opened door to see why the cat was making so much noise and discovered the newborn.”

Beier said the boy was taken to hospital at 5 a.m. on Thursday, when overnight temperatures fell toward zero, and had suffered only mild hypothermia. He said there was no indication of what happened to the boy‘s mother.