Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Dec 28, 2011, 9:45 pm
Nestled in a strange nexus between sports, pop culture, politics, and religion one finds a debate raging about Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow that, like all things regarding the quarterback, has been overhyped and blown out of proportion. It seems the issue at hand isn’t Tebow’s style of play �...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Oct 27, 2011, 10:10 pm
Yesterday I read a 60-comment debate on Facebook about the Occupy Wall Street protests. Actually calling it a debate would be rather generous – it was mostly “teabagger” this and “Fox News that.” The whole thing was started with a someone posting a panel of Captain America saying to stand...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Oct 25, 2011, 9:35 pm
So … howya doin’? Last time we spoke was April, and judging from this blog, you’d think I was so mad over the Shuttle not coming to Dayton that it took me 6 months to get over the pain of NASA’s rejection. Never fear, it’s not quite that bad – though to say blogging’s been slow would ...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Apr 12, 2011, 10:27 pm
Grumbling has grown over the tiny nature of cuts reached in the recent deal to avoid a government shutdown. It’s sure to gain even more intensity after analysis shows that a lot of the cuts were accounting tricks and on programs that the President wanted to cut anyway. The upsetting bottom line �...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Apr 12, 2011, 9:48 pm
The hopes of an entire state were dashed today as NASA announced the homes for the retiring space shuttles. Florida, California, New York, and DC get the shuttles – leaving Dayton, OH and the Air Force Museum out in the cold. NASA Administrator Charles M. Bolden made the announcement at an aftern...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Apr 11, 2011, 10:40 pm
The city of Coldwater, MI finds itself the subject of a federal lawsuit after its city manager, Jeff Budd, found Tea Party signs “too political” and “too controversial” and banned all signs and banners as a result. The complaint (found here) was filed by the Thomas More Law Center on behal...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Apr 11, 2011, 10:04 pm
According to the Dayton Daily News, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden will make a decision tonight regarding the final resting place of the soon-to-be-retired space shuttles. The announcement will come tomorrow, and will be watched in the many cities that have lobbied for one of the shuttles, includ...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Apr 9, 2011, 12:36 am
This video is a couple of weeks old, but it still sticks with me. A brave amateur videographer stands atop a building in the coastal city of Kesennuma as the ocean literally consumes everything around: When we think of a tsunami, images of towering walls of water breaking across the surf spring to ...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Apr 8, 2011, 11:50 pm
As the minutes ticked closer to a partial government shutdown at midnight on Friday, Congressional negotiators were continuing to work to get a deal. With little more than an hour to go, it appears that a compromise has been struck, resulting in $39 billion in cuts for FY 2011 and a deal to vote on ...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Apr 7, 2011, 11:02 pm
After all the spectacle and ugliness surrounding the Wisconsin collective bargaining battle, the left transferred their rage over being stymied by Gov. Scott Walker toward a judicial election over a spot on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Incumbent David Prosser, who leans conservative, was being chal...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Mar 30, 2011, 10:17 pm
Another hurdle was surmounted in the saga of the controversial Ohio Senate Bill 5 as the Ohio House passed a modified version of the public employee union reform bill that passed the Ohio Senate a few weeks ago. The Senate now has to vote on the changes, and it’s widely expected to pass there wit...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Mar 28, 2011, 12:39 am
A former local Congressman is coming back into the spotlight with his method of protesting proposed Republican spending cuts. After representing Dayton and Ohio’s 3rd Congressional District for 22 years, former Rep. Tony Hall is leading several anti-hunger organizations in a fast that begins tomor...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Mar 27, 2011, 11:33 pm
Open Secrets, studying FEC data, has compiled a list of the top 140 donors since 1989, and the rundown should serve as a quick rejoinder to anyone who claims that money in politics unfairly helps the GOP. Of the top 25 biggest donors, sixteen of them contribute heavily to Democratic candidates, fiv...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Mar 24, 2011, 8:53 pm
So it’s been four months since my last post, and this is the first post of 2011. To say that I have been unmotivated to blog would be a massive understatement – indeed, it’s almost a slog to write this post. Still, I feel like I ought to write down what’s going through my head right now. W...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Dec 13, 2010, 9:39 pm
Opponents of the health care reform bill signed into law this past spring got a big boost from Virginia federal judge Henry Hudson today, who ruled that the mandate requiring individuals to buy health insurance is unconstitutional: U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson wrote that no court had expande...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Dec 9, 2010, 9:50 pm
The Senate saw some key votes today as Senate Democrats conceded they didn’t have the necessary votes to pass the DREAM Act, and tabled it until after the tax hike debate is completed. Harry Reid will try next week to push through the House version that narrowly passed yesterday, but finding 60 Se...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Dec 8, 2010, 10:47 pm
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, coyly toying with the notion of mounting an independent bid for the White House in 2012, seemed to be making national policy statements in a speech today, offering a “middle way” out of our economic problems while repeating the pox-on-both-houses (can we st...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Dec 8, 2010, 10:22 pm
The lame duck session has seen Democrats attempt to bring as much of their agenda to vote before they lose their House majority in January. The DREAM Act, which purports to grant conditional legal status to illegal alien children, is a pet project of Senator Harry Reid, who recently brought four ver...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Dec 7, 2010, 9:20 pm
As further evidence of what a deeply flawed health care reform bill Congress passed in March, news comes today of a sharp increase in the number of waivers granted to companies looking to stave off having to implement some of its measures next year. Jamie Dupree of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution r...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Dec 7, 2010, 8:58 pm
In a defensive press conference this afternoon, President Obama huffed and puffed about somehow being forced into compromising with Republicans on the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, trying to sell the deal to a liberal base that has exploded in rage over his flip-flop on vowing to raise the top ta...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Dec 7, 2010, 8:28 pm
Elizabeth Edwards, 61-year-old lawyer and wife to two-time Democratic candidate John Edwards, has lost her battle with breast cancer, as the Raleigh News and Observer reports today. No matter your politics, she came off as a strong and intelligent politician’s wife, not afraid to speak her mind or...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Dec 6, 2010, 10:03 pm
After much indignant foot-stomping by Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and many other Congressional Democrats, President Obama went in the opposite direction and announced a compromise on the expiring Bush tax cuts by extending all rates for two years in exchange for a 13-month extension on unemployment b...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Dec 2, 2010, 8:40 pm
With Senate Republicans vowing to a member to block any legislation until tax rates are addressed, the lame duck Congressional session has now been temporarily dominated by the debate over the expiring Bush tax cuts. Republicans want them all extended, keeping tax rates at their current level across...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Nov 10, 2010, 9:36 pm
Two recently-elected governors, John Kasich of Ohio and Scott Walker of Wisconsin, both ran on scrapping plans for high-speed rail lines in their respective states that would have been paid for with stimulus funds. Both felt, correctly in my view, that construction of these lines is a wasteful boond...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Nov 3, 2010, 9:20 pm
California, mired in deep public debt and hemhorragging jobs while still somehow smugly pleased with itself, seems like a train wreck these days. A sign of the times, just one day after Election Day, comes from the city of San Francisco, whose Board of Supervisors voted 8-3 to crack down on the hein...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Nov 3, 2010, 3:03 pm
In the largest wave since 1948, Republicans successfully flipped at least 60 Democratic Congressional seats to coast to a healthy majority in the House of Representatives. Several races are still up in the air at this late hour, but Republicans more than surpassed the 39 seats they needed to assume ...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Nov 3, 2010, 12:52 am
It was a close victory, but John Kasich has edged out incumbent Ted Strickland in the battle for Ohio’s governorship. This was a closely watched race in a swing state and bellwether indicator of political shifts. I thought that Kasich would pull this out, but the race had tightened so considerably...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Nov 2, 2010, 9:08 pm
Projections have now awarded victory to popular West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, defeating Republican hopeful John Raese, keeping the seat in Democratic hands as the successor to Robert Byrd. Manchin had initially seemed like a safe bet for Democrats, with a 60% or so approval rating in the state –...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Nov 2, 2010, 8:42 pm
Rob Portman has been projected to defeat Lee Fisher for Ohio’s Senate seat – the race was called fairly soon after polls closed, no big surprise as Portman had massive leads in the days leading up to Election Day. Marco Rubio has also been projected as the winner of Florida’s Senate race, bea...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Nov 1, 2010, 11:29 pm
With the massively important 2010 Election Day tomorrow, I figured I might as well give my prognostications with how things will shape up: The Republicans pick up 57 seats in the House, easily winning a majority. They’ll pick up 9 seats in the Senate, falling just short of winning control but st...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Nov 1, 2010, 11:05 pm
For most of the summer and fall, Republican John Kasich held comfortable leads in most polls over incumbent Democrat Gov. Ted Strickland. Over the last few weeks, however, the race has tightened considerably, with the latest Quinnipiac poll putting Kasich up by only one point. This is despite the fa...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Oct 28, 2010, 10:12 pm
It sounds either ridiculous or ripped from the pages of a futuristic sci-fi dystopia – but apparently it’s true. Scientists from UC-San Diego and Harvard are claiming that they have isolated a so-called “liberal gene.” The technical explanation is that those who have a specific variant of a...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Oct 27, 2010, 10:28 pm
A minor firestorm erupted yesterday when Joy Behar, co-host of The View, criticized a campaign ad by Nevada Republican Sharron Angle, implying the ad was racist. She then fired off a tirade that included the following lovely statements: “You know what I’d like to see her do? I’d like to see h...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Oct 26, 2010, 9:05 pm
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced today that his government would be expropriating the plants operated in his country by Ohio-based Owens-Illinois, a world leader in glass bottle manufacturing. It’s not the first nor certainly the last time that Chavez has nationalized foreign assets as a...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Oct 25, 2010, 9:35 pm
I have purposefully refrained from commenting on the dust-up over Juan Williams’ firing from NPR after comments he made on Bill O’Reilly’s show on Fox News – mainly to just get a little space from the emotional reactions from both sides. A brief refresher on the statements that earned Willia...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Oct 18, 2010, 9:12 pm
With prospects of electoral losses looming, President Obama has taken to the campaign trail in the final weeks of the midterm election cycle to push hard for Democratic candidates in states he won just two years ago. Speaking at a Massachusetts fundraiser on Saturday, the President made remarks that...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Oct 12, 2010, 9:56 pm
With no compelling message to sell voters on rewarding them with a continuation of their power, Democrats have seized upon an Internet meme and seemingly transformed it into their campaign theme. ThinkProgress, a liberal-leaning blog, published a post a few days ago speculating that the US Chamber o...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Oct 11, 2010, 10:34 pm
After first claiming that Democrats were beginning to make a comeback and could be expected to fare better on November 2nd, it seems that the new strategy is to hype up massive and unrealistic GOP gains with the goal of ridiculing the failure to achieve that level as somehow a massive repudiation. P...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Oct 8, 2010, 2:51 pm
Faced with the prospects of rising costs for providing mandated increases in health care coverage, some companies have floated the possibility of dropping employee coverage altogether, most notably McDonald’s. In response, the Obama administration has granted 30 one-year waivers to McDonald’s an...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Oct 8, 2010, 2:14 pm
Incumbent Democratic Rep. John Adler is facing a tough reelection battle against Republican Jon Runyan in New Jersey’s 3rd Congressional District – RealClearPolitics shows the freshman Congressman with a narrow 4-point lead. What complicates the picture is the campaign of a third-party...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Oct 6, 2010, 9:40 pm
A slew of factors are influencing voter disapproval and anemic Democratic poll numbers this 2010 election season – the weak economy and high unemployment after a massive stimulus was promised to bail us out, the rise of the vigorous Tea Party movement, and dissatisfaction among citizens of all...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Oct 2, 2010, 1:12 am
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took the bold step yesterday of reducing the crime of marijuana possession from a misdemeanor to a standard fine, moving it from an almost mandatory court case into a ticketable offense on the level of speeding. This comes in the face of an upcoming ballot pro...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Oct 1, 2010, 10:15 pm
Content warning for those squeamish about gore (Heads-up from Hot Air): The video is intended to be a hip and snarky piece of a campaign called 10:10 intending for cities to cut back on their carbon emissions. But it results in disturbing propaganda eerily fascistic and mildly offensive. The shti...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Sep 29, 2010, 10:29 pm
The House vote to adjourn until after the November elections took a surprising turn when House Minority Leader John Boehner took to the floor and urged Congress not to adjourn until it had acted in one manner or another on the extension or expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts. In response, Nancy Pel...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Sep 29, 2010, 9:55 pm
In the world of political rhetoric, there’s thoughtful commentary, blistering polemics, softball critiques … and what Steven Thrasher published today in the Village Voice. The title of the article is “White America Has Lost Its Mind,” and it’s all downhill from there as...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Sep 28, 2010, 11:03 pm
Hugo Chavez and his supporters suffered a major setback yesterday as the opposition party was able to bust up a substantial ruling majority in Venezuela legislative elections. Chavez’s opponents claim to have received 52% of the popular vote, but through odd proportionality rules that favor ru...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Sep 28, 2010, 12:49 am
There’s been rumbling for weeks that Rahm Emanuel, White House Chief of Staff under President Obama, was thinking of ditching the Obama administration to run for mayor of Chicago after Richard Daley announced his retirement. Tonight, two major news organizations, ABC and CNN, both independentl...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Sep 27, 2010, 10:55 pm
In an election cycle where the Democrats find themselves unable to run on their fabulous record of legislative accomplishments, name-calling and mud-slinging has become the SOP of this campaign, which seems to be one of the more uglier in recent memory. Wading into the fray is Democratic House Major...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Sep 27, 2010, 10:34 pm
Liberal newspapers and Ohio Democrats are trumpeting a new poll commissioned by eight Ohio newspapers (including the Dayton Daily News, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Cincinnati Enquirer, and the Columbus Dispatch that shows incumbent Democrat Ted Strickland only down by four points to Republican ...
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Jon W. posted an article on Wellsy's World - Sep 19, 2010, 10:36 pm
The big races in Ohio seem to be favoring the Republican candidates more and more. The evidence now comes from a set of Quinnipiac polls, the first of which puts John Kasich ahead of incumbent Ted Strickland by 17 points, 54-37. Kasich, a former congressman and Fox News host, holds even larger lead...
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