The Greek debt crisis has everything to do with Cleveland sports

August 5, 2015

The New York Times recently published a column by Michael Powell titled “Sports Owners Dip Into the Public’s Purse, Despite Their Billions in the Bank.” The piece focused on Cleveland and last year’s county-wide ballot issue on the “sin tax,” in which the local pro sports owners, with the help of their corporate sponsors, spent […]

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Golden State is a fraud

June 4, 2015

With the Cavs set to face off against the Warriors in Game 1 of the NBA Finals tonight it’s especially important to point out that California should hardly even be a state, let alone a “Golden” one populous enough to support four NBA franchises. It’s one thing to note that the state is experiencing an […]

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Mayor Jackson was wrong about Ferguson and Cleveland

November 25, 2014

Last week, a spokesman for Mayor Frank Jackson brushed off the idea that Cleveland had anything to learn from Ferguson, Missouri, where the killing of an unarmed young black man, Michael Brown, by police has caused massive protests and civil unrest. “Questions about lessons learned from Ferguson and the preparations Cleveland might take ahead of […]

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The Plain Dealer’s John Kasich cover-up and other Election Day stories

October 31, 2014

The City of Cleveland hasn’t had a legitimately contested mayoral election since 2005, with incumbent Frank Jackson having run essentially unopposed in the two elections since then. Jackson will be the longest-serving Mayor in Cleveland’s 200+year history by the time his current term is up, and now folks are hearing that he’ll run for yet […]

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Columbus Day is a great American holiday

October 13, 2014

“A hundred castellanoes are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from [ages] nine to ten are now in demand.” — Christopher Columbus ————— In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue from Europe […]

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Have you seen our new chandelier?

October 9, 2014

It’s naturally tempting for more well-off Northeast Ohioans to believe that a renaissance is underway in the region. LeBron is coming back, the Republican convention is coming to Cleveland, fancy new buildings continue to go up downtown, we just got the world’s biggest outdoor chandelier, and the local paper has been trumpeting a “brain gain” […]

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Brown Is the New Orange: Josh Gordon, Pot, Prison and the NFL

July 31, 2014

Folks in Cleveland and everywhere are fairly up in arms over the disparity between the NFL’s recent 2-game suspension of Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice for having (allegedly) violently battered his wife, and the whopping 16-game suspension that star Browns receiver Josh Gordon is expected to receive pursuant to league policy for having tested […]

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44% of Cuyahoga County voters reject sin tax subsidy for Cleveland’s pro sports owners

May 7, 2014

Below is the text of a press release issued by the Coalition Against the Sin Tax (C.A.S.T.) in response to yesterday’s election results, with links added for reference. ————- Yesterday, by a margin of approximately 56 to 44 percent (101,717 votes to 78,741), Cuyahoga County voters approved Issue 7, also known as the Sin Tax […]

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Art Modell Hostage Economics Do Not Keep Cleveland Strong

May 6, 2014

The worst thing about the pro-sin tax (pro-Issue 7) “Keep Cleveland Strong” campaign is that it’s based entirely on a threat that the billionaire owners of the Browns, Cavaliers and Indians would somehow weaken Cleveland if they didn’t receive another $300 million handout to go on top of the $1 billion-plus in public subsidies that […]

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Issue 7 debate on Sound of Ideas: “Here’s one minute of dialogue that encapsulates the real sin tax debate perfectly”

May 1, 2014

Yesterday I appeared on WCPN’s Sound of Ideas for a discussion of the sin tax/Issue 7 with Cleveland City Council President Kevin Kelley and guest phone appearances by Cleveland Journalism Hall of Famer Roldo Bartimole, and Kent Whitley who was nominally representing the NAACP. We covered a lot of ground over the course of what was […]

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