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Child welfare system is cratering in Ohio

Though the case has faded from the headlines, it has been only a little more than three months since 16 children were removed from the Siders’ home in Hamden. While that case makes its way through the system, Job and Family Services workers are sounding the alarm that part of that system is significantly broken. “I have been a county director since 1999, yet I have not seen such a challenging time in the child welfare system as I do today,” Jody Walker, head of South Central Ohio Job and Family Services, told lawmakers, according to a report in The Guardian, “specifically in ...

Cornell 7: The end result of modern feminism

When college students live out the ideals of modern feminism, the results are horrifying. Last month, a Jane Doe filed a lawsuit alleging that she had been gang raped by Cornell University students. "Cornell 7" refers to the number of men she has accused of inappropriate behavior, although not all are accused of rape. The incident occurred in October 2024 when the woman was a sophomore at the school. What isn't disputed is that the woman engaged in sex acts with multiple men at a Chi Phi fraternity party over several hours. Alcohol and drugs were involved. After the party, Jane Doe ...

Some children are too young to ride e-bikes and scooters

In parts of Ohio, it’s impossible to drive up to a youth sports practice or large gathering of friends without noticing the pile of e-bikes and scooters where older generations might have left their bicycles in the yard. But those electrically driven forms of transportation can be even more dangerous than our trusty old bikes (cinder block and plywood ramps notwithstanding). A couple of Ohio lawmakers have the right idea, then, with state Senate Bill 477, which would ban children 13 and younger from operating the devices, and require all users to wear helmets. According to a report ...

Mike Hovis by a nose in Trumbull County commissioner race

Most candidates from opposing political parties running for the same post struggle to find common ground with flashlights and maps. Republican Michael Hovis and Democrat Kristen Rock — vying for a Trumbull County Commissioners seat — actually have some. Both told our editorial board in their separate endorsement interviews that the commissioners — as currently constituted — are moving too slowly on some of the issues facing the county. In other words, Trumbull County could benefit from a little less conversation and a little more action, with apologies to Elvis Presley. We ...

Pike must still be executed

“Capital punishment presents moral questions that philosophers, theologians, and statesmen have grappled with for millennia,” wrote Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in a 2015 concurring opinion, so the Constitution’s Framers “handled it the same way they handled many other controversial issues: they left it to the People to decide.” The late conservative legal titan adduced the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee that no person shall be “deprived of life ... without due process of law” to offer a proclamation so intuitive that any middle schooler ought to grasp it: “It is ...

Republicans won’t lose US Senate

CNN’s data analyst Harry Enten said something interesting last week. He said Republicans have a stubborn habit of outperforming their September polling in the states that decide control of the Senate. He is right, and reiterated a point I have been making for some time that leads me to believe all might not be lost for the GOP in the Senate. In the major 2024 races, Republicans outran their September polls by 9 points in Iowa, by 6 in Ohio, and by 5 in Michigan. A skeptic will say that was 2024, with President Donald Trump on the ballot. As Harry noted, go back to 2018, the first ...