Anyone take offense of this morning’s Plain Dealer editorial cartoon. I did.

It shows some “birds” perched on a branch - possible enlarged parrots but with that vulture look.

President Barack Obama is one of them.

It puts President Obama in communion with Castro, Chavez and Ortega. The three have a communist emblem emblazoned on their chests. Hint. Hint. Obama doesn’t. But the implication is there. Very clever.

They are all singing, “AAWWWWCK! RESTORE THE DICTATOR IN HONDURAS.”

If you haven’t guessed by now, it’s the work of Kevin O’Brien, second in command of the PD’s editorial pages. What a shame. O’Brien, I mean.

Now you see what havoc “furloughs” mean to the newspaper.

O’Brien’s boss, Betsy Sullivan, is furloughed for the week.

When the cats away the mice must play.

So we get a right-wing, though Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist, Michael Ramirez, and his zest for attacking Democrats.

“On one level, ya gotta admire how Michael Ramirez goes for broke with his smears,” says the web site “Blue Herald – Right-Wing Cartoon Watch.”

Just O’Brien’s kinda guy.

Governor Disappointment should get off his ass and start working for the people who put him in the State House.

Gov. Ted Strickland apparently feels that if he proposes a tax that everyone with even a half mind knows is necessary for Ohio he’ll get voted out of office.

That isn’t the worse thing in the world.

That’s the only reason I can come up with to explain his reluctance to stop all the nonsense in Columbus – from cutting libraries, to say nothing of people’s dire needs - to proposing slots. My God man, don’t you have any real values?

Even losing office would be a cheap price to pay for getting Ohio moving. And it’s more likely that people will recognize political courage when they see it and reward it.

I quote from Zach Schiller’s fine piece in the Plain Dealer:

“Four years ago, the Ohio General Assembly approved the biggest overhaul of Ohio’ tax system in a generation. The income tax and business taxes were slashed in overall tax cuts worth more than $2 billion a year. The idea was to spur investment and jobs. (Me: Ha). As legislators meet in Columbus to decide how to balance the state budget, it’s a good time to ask: Has reform worked?

The tax burden in Cuyahoga County keeps mounting, recession or depression notwithstanding.

I mentioned recently that the City of Cleveland paid an annual $452,724 in property taxes for the Browns Stadium. County figures show that taxpayers also contributed $54,218,411 more in taxes to help the billionaire Lerner family. All regressive taxes, naturally.

The latest figures on the sin tax – originally assessed in 1990 for Gateway – show the $54-million now collected for Browns stadium. That’s in addition to the more than $220-million collected for Gateway.

Voters when they thought they might lose the Browns (horrors!) extended the sin tax to help pay for a new football stadium.

In June, Cuyahoga County taxpayers added $1.27 million to the kitty. Since August, 2005, the sin tax has produced $54.2 million, all distributed to pay for the football stadium.

Thus far $12.6-million has come from smokers, $19.3-million from alcohol drinkers, $17.7-million from beer drinkers and $4.3-million from wine drinkers.

Smokers have also contributed $46.8 million to the Arts & Culture kitty of Cuyahoga County.

I mentioned earlier that the increased quarter-percent sales tax for the Medical Mart & Convention Center cost county taxpayers $61.8 million so far. This tax started in January 2008.

I have a hard time understanding how the Greater Cleveland Partnership (GCP) can give $100,000 to get something on the ballot but can’t it support what it wants on the ballot.

Would you give $100,000 to something you hated?

GCP announced it would donate $100,000 to help put the reform issue that would significantly change Cuyahoga County government on the ballot.

Isn’t this just the kind of leadership we’ve been getting from our corporate leaders?

However, Joe Roman, GCP’s $445,000 a year president (2007 figure), says GCP isn’t endorsing the measure to be put to the voters. Not yet anyway. A $100,000 check doesn’t say you are for it? What does it take? A $1 million? $2 million?

The County reform measure has been lagging in financial support. Until the GCP contribution only $20,000 had been donated, according to the Plain Dealer today.

The reform wants to create a single county executive instead of the three County Commissioners – not too resistant to that move – but it would create in its place an 11 member council-type legislative body, which seems too cumbersome, bureaucratic and an invitation to more patronage and cost.

The latest figures show that the Cuyahoga County Commissioners quarter percent increase of the sales tax has produced $61,853,863 for the Medical Mart and Convention Center. Oh boy.

Is it too late to get out of the boondoggle? We’d still have the dough. Think of what other good it might do for our community. That’s $61.8 million sitting around.

The word continues to be that the convention business isn’t a successful place for the investments of communities. Just as we’re adding to the problem.

For the full story go here.

An article in Next American Cities, a national publication seeking solutions to improve U. S. cities, gives a balanced but “thumbs down” assessment of the rush to build new convention centers.

Does Jimmy Dimora deserve the privilege of being considered innocent until proven guilty? I don’t think the Plain Dealer believes so.

I can’t argue with there being news coverage of the county corruption issues. However, I think the Plain Dealer has been using the mess for a circulation boost.

Big black headlines almost daily. Lots of space that give the impression of a crusade. Large photographs of public officials.

It all has the quality of a campaign. However, editors don’t run for office.

They are running these days, however, for their lives. The temptation to play a juicy story big to attract and keep readers and subscribers has to be enticing.

Newspapers are troubled by declining interest and declining revenues. Anything that can change that formula presents opportunities.

Fat Jimmy Dimora makes quite a target. And the PD has been using him as a piñata on the front page almost daily.

Yesterday Dimora struck back. What he had to say doesn’t absolve him of anything yet. However, it did strike a feeling in me of, hey, maybe this guy isn’t as guilty as he’s been painted.

As he said himself, “I’m not an angel, but I’m not a crook.”

Well, it may take a court to prove the latter.

The City of Cleveland annually now pays $202,700 more in property taxes on Browns stadium as the Browns pay the city to rent the stadium all year.

Isn’t that some kind of generosity or maybe gross corruption?

Although Browns Stadium is owned by the City of Cleveland it must still pay property taxes because it is used for private business. The Browns are owned by the Lerner family.

The city pays a total of $452,724 in taxes on the Stadium land. The land is valued at $5,588,170 for tax purposes. The market value of the land alone is $15,966,200, according to the County Auditor’s Real Property Information.

And we keep giving away lakefront land for pennies.

The city pays the property tax only on the land, not the stadium built during the administration of Mayor Michael White. The stadium has - as Progressive Field and Quicken Arena have - been tax exempted by state law. The law was lobbied in Columbus primarily by White and County Commissioner Tim Hagan in the early 1990s.

The Lerner family paid nothing for the land and nothing for the stadium. Nice work if you can get it. And they could.

We can thank Mayor White for this gift-giving generosity.

The Plain Dealer, hot and heavy on corruption, today buries the fact that a man the paper says could replace Jimmy Dimora story has been indicted on bribery charges and theft-in-office, has relatives in political jobs, and has business relations he won’t talk about.

Isn’t that a recipe for a continuation of what we’ve been seeing the FBI spend countless our tax dollars trying to unravel here? Isn’t that the fodder of headline after headline on the Plain Dealer’s front page?

The potential replacement for Dimora as Democratic Party head may be, according to the Plain Dealer, Thomas Day, Jr., clerk of courts in Bedford.

Yes, the charges of bribery and theft-in-office against Day were dismissed by Judge John Angellota. But that doesn’t hold much water with me. A grand jury found cause but a judge didn’t agree.

In addition, late in Mark Gillispie’s otherwise very comprehensive piece, we’re told that Day has ownership interests in a printing company and a consulting firm with with County Prosecutor Bill Mason, Victory Communications Inc., which does work on political campaigns.

County Prosecutor Mason also conveniently refused to talk about these matters.

And the PD allowed him to remain silent.

Hypocrisy - thy name is Sam Miller.

Forest City Enterprises co-chairman and Treasurer Sam Miller says he’s willing to donate to the Cleveland libraries if budget cuts are made by the State of Ohio. Sam says that he will donate to keep libraries in poor areas open if the cuts are made.

Generous Sam.

He made that statement to the Plain Dealer as reported in its piece on protests against state budget cuts at the downtown public library.

The Plain Dealer the same day also reported on its front page about citizens attempting to lower their property taxes by lowering the value of the property as homes lose value.

Lowering the value of property hurts schools and libraries. It also takes from Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland by lowering revenue from property taxes.

Guess who is a champion of seeking (and getting) property tax reductions?

Well, of course, Sam Miller.

In other words, Sam takes dollars away from libraries and schools but in a pinch he’s willing to donate. Pennies, that is.

City libraries get 7.96 percent of collected property taxes. Cleveland schools get 55.13 of property taxes.

Bad economic news keeps hitting Ohio and Cuyahoga County. The newest data from researcher George Zeller concludes “the rate of layoffs in Ohio continues to increase very sharply and at an alarming rate.”

That is alarming.

In Cuyahoga County at this time of year the number of new claims for unemployment, writes Zeller, should be less than 1,000. The figure this week is double that at 2,094.

He also reports that Ohio’s “20,663 new unemployment claims for the third week of June are at a level now 171 percent higher and nearly triple ‘a job growth’ level of 7,617 that is normal at this time of year during economic growth periods.”

To read Zeller’s entire report go here: