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Why must Ohioans pay for Medicaid for millionaires?

A recent review of Ohio’s Medicaid enrollment by state Auditor Keith Faber’s office found plenty of people enrolled who should not be receiving benefits — and it is not perhaps the group of people some low-aiming politicians hope you would expect. According to a report by The Center Square, the audit found 3% of Buckeye State residents receiving Medicaid benefits have more resources than allowed. In fact, “several” of those people are millionaires. Further, Faber’s office reported more than 3,000 people receiving state Medicaid benefits are dead. Ohio spends approximately ...

What’s next for Ohio’s school voucher program?

Thursday’s ruling by the Ohio 10th District Court of Appeals that the state’s EdChoice voucher program is unconstitutional will no doubt ruffle some feathers in Columbus. Good. Judge David Leland, who wrote the opinion for the three-judge panel, says the program violates the state constitution because it funds a separate school system, according to a report by The Blade, in Toledo. That violates the mandate for a SINGULAR public education system. It was the panel’s opinion that the voucher program also lacks meaningful state oversight, is unavailable to many rural Ohioans ...

Orchids & onions

ORCHID: To the National Park Service for awarding Austintown Township a $130,000 grant to revitalize the historic Austin Log House on South Raccoon Road in the community. The grant funds will enable improvements to windows, drainage and various aesthetic enhancements to one of the Mahoning Valley’s oldest historical sites. The cabin was constructed in 1814 by Calvin Austin, founder of Austintown Township who served as the first justice of the peace of the expansive Connecticut Western Reserve, from which Ohio was carved. The funding is aptly timed amid the nation’s celebration of its ...

Vote responsibly on local issues in our Valley

Leaders of local governments and public school districts in the Mahoning Valley are to be applauded for accurately reading the room of their 2026 electorate. That keen perception is clearly evident in the relative dearth of additional tax levies those leaders have deigned to place on this fall’s general election ballots. Of nearly 40 issues up for a vote this cycle in Mahoning and Trumbull counties, only six seek new money from taxpayers. The electorate in Mahoning County will face a meager four additional operating levies, while only two such issues are on Trumbull ballots. Of those ...

Hail Marco as classic orator

Back in my college days (American University, Washington, D.C.), required reading included the works of Greek playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Long after graduation they remained on my bookshelf. It was believed for generations that these men, along with philosophers Plato, Cicero and other great minds, could teach us. At too many of today’s colleges and universities we find courses in LGBTQ+ history and, according to Campus Reform, a 2023 course at Harvard “aimed to teach students how to prepare for a diversity, equity, and inclusion-filled future.” Harvard is not ...

MAGA masculinity: Protesting too much

We’ve seen Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lifting weights in snug Levis, sweat pouring down his naked muscled chest. Last February, the secretary of health and human services was “giving body” in the “Rock Out Workout” video. A jeans-clad Kennedy flexes alongside Kid Rock in black shorts, then strips off his shirt and joins Rock in a grotto-like pool. Provocative questions followed. Kennedy has become a hero to a MAGA movement that celebrates masculinity and pushes back against what it sees, not without reason, as an anti-male attitude flooding far-left feminism. I’m not the first ...