u/CrowRoutine9631

>Ohio’s biggest tax break for data centers is more expensive than once thought. A lot more expensive. 

>In 2024, the state sales tax exemption for data centers cost Ohio about $555 million in revenue, four times more than the state Department of Taxation forecasted.

>In 2025, it cost a whopping $1.6 billion, eleven times more than the original estimate of $136 million

>And that’s to say nothing of the local sales taxes – another $166.8 million in lost revenue in 2024, according to new actual cost data provided this week by Ohio Department of Taxation spokesperson Andrea Lannom. 

Oooooops.

I have a friend who once received more in food stamps than she was supposed to, because someone miscalculated. She didn't try to mislead anyone about anything--some Ohio employee just did bad math.

Ohio came after my friend with a vengeance.

Let's see what they do with these miscalculations. I, for one, doubt they will do anything other than ​offer more tax breaks...

Needed a locksmith the other day, for stupid reasons that I won't be discussing here. 😂😂😂

The first three I called had local numbers and good reviews, and the (216/440) phone numbers all went directly to call centers in India. No one picking up the phone could tell me how much the simple service I needed would cost, not even a range, or how long it would take someone to get to me. Nor could they understand the name of my street, even after I spelled it a dozen times. (It's not tricky, trust me, two ordinary English syllables smooshed together.)

I don't have anything against the people who work in call centers, here or anywhere else. It's a job, and it's not like they're the ones making absurd money off of inconveniencing everyone.

But locksmithing is the most quintessentially local service ever. You can't log in to your locksmith online. You can't drop ship someone to drill your stuck knob. You can't remotely diagnose the problem via the interwebs. Is there really so much money in it that they all got bought out? Is there a reason local numbers now route me overseas? How is it possible that it even makes sense to have a call center in another time zone put you in touch with your locked-out clients here?

I just kept calling until I found someone who actually picked up his own damn phone. He was lovely, and solved my problem, but he doesn't plan to stick around--as an immigrant from warmer parts of the world, the winters here are too rough on him. I feel like once he leaves town, there won't be any locksmiths left who run their own businesses locally.

I hate the venture-capital, call-center, arbitration-only, hyper-optimized, anti-consumer world we live in these days, and was SHOCKED to find out that it's locksmiths, too. Who'da thunk?

Anyhow. End of rant. Anyone else have a similar experience, either with locksmiths or some other seemingly-local business?

>An updated analysis of census data shows that the gap between rich and poor persists in Ohio. And a new Republican “flat” income tax now in effect will only make it worse, the analysis said.

I'm soooooo surprised that Repubs are promoting a plan for rich people to pay even less of their fair share....

He's creating a $1.8 billion slush fund for people who felt unfairly prosecuted by the Biden admin.

>

>The Trump administration announced on Monday the establishment of a $1.776 billion fund to compensate people who claim they were targeted by the Biden Justice Department, creating a potential pipeline to funnel taxpayer money to his allies and supporters.

>The highly unusual plan — slammed by critics as a political slush fund — came after President Trump withdrew his lawsuit demanding at least $10 billion against the Internal Revenue Service, an apparent effort to skirt oversight by the judge in the case as he moves toward arranging a fund to funnel taxpayer money to his allies and supporters.

>The fund, with its symbolic dollar value, is intended “to provide a systematic process to hear and redress claims of others who suffered weaponization and lawfare,” a department spokesman said in statement.

I'm so tired of waking up to see hea​dlines like this in this state.

What tf is wrong with Ohio Repubs?

EDIT: typos, what I get for typing at 6 am without my glasses 🙄

Plan is to have the kids strip at the door, immediately bag all their stuff that was at his house as well their clothes, wash and dry dry dry dry everything.

Do I need to make the kids get straight in the shower as well? Or can they just put on clean clothes?

My house is messy and there's a lot going on..... Don't have the time, money, or mental overhead to be dealing with bedbugs, so I need to stop this at the door.

Kids' dad says he's steamed the mattresses and they'll be encased tonight, and all the clothes will be washed, but I obviously will rewash clothes, backpacks, lunchboxes, etc.

Amy suggestions for keeping them from setting up shop in my house?

It's been a real drag for her this year. She gets stuck in "group" projects over and over where she does all the work and the rest of the group fucks around. Sometimes, their fuckery has even been documented in Google docs history, which at one point I had to show one of her teachers how to use, so she could stop blaming my daughter (who had done 98% of the work and repeatedly, politely, in writing, asked her fellow group members to do the bare minimum) for group tensions.

After this last round (one boy literally hasn't come to school in the past three weeks, the other one has done nothing), I'm just finished. There's nothing left to do this year, and I'm not going to even bug any of her current teachers. But I would like to prevent this from happening next year.

My thought is to say, in writing and during the first week of school next year, to each of her teachers, "Last year, there seemed to be a trend of pairing Daughter with kids who need more support on group projects. This led to more work, lower grades, and a lot of anxiety for my kid. Would it be possible this year to pair her or put her in groups with kids who do their homework and regularly contribute to class?"

That's all I want to do, just to let them know that I'm paying attention and expect better. I honestly thought Daughter was doing it to herself, because she's friends with some of those boys, but she just told me that she's only once gotten to choose her group project partners.

I really respect teachers, and I know they have a lot of competing needs to balance in the classroom. I just want my kid to have an 8th grade year where she's not expected to carry the kids (always the boys) who need more help and who won't do the work. It doesn't seem fair to her.

So is this a good way to communicate that expectation without undermining her teachers or being too bitchy? I want to be firm and clear but not aggressive or nasty.

Thank you in advance for your advice!

EDIT, because some of the assumptions people are making here are wild.

1. It's not a race thing. The problem kids are all white boys.

2. It's not a class thing. The biggest struggle kid who has been in her groups this year lives nearby, in a much bigger, much nicer house than we do, and I know for a fact their income is way higher than mine.

3. I don't think my daughter is unique or special (obviously, she is to me, but she doesn't have to be to anyone else in the world) or should only work in groups with nerds.

4. I think my daughter has learned enough about how to work in groups, thank you. That's why she keeps getting stuck with the same kids that no one else wants to deal with, over and over--because she's good at it already. Please don't tell me this is a learning opportunity for her. She's learned. I'd like her to occasionally have the opportunity to actually learn some subject matter in group projects, and not just how to manage kids who don't, won't, or can't work.

5. I don't want her to never face challenges. I don't solve her problems for her. I let her/require her to speak for herself. I only step in when something really seems like asking too much of a 12-year-old kid.

6. Asking the same 12-year-old kid to babysit and provide educational support for the same struggle kids for every damn project is wrong. If it were one such project a year, or even two, fine, normal, that's how life is. But it's every class, every project. It's a decision teachers are making. I don't know why: to bring up grades, to manage the class, to keep problem kids from failing, I don't know. And I don't care. That burden can't fall on my kid every damn time. I'm asking them to mix it up a bit, not make her life a bed of roses.

7. With one exception related to an out-of-control teacher (so bad that families with more money pulled their kids from that school and put them in private school to avoid this one teacher), I am unfailingly polite and deferential to teachers. If I get a message home about a problem one of my kids created (usually my younger kid, not this kid getting screwed in group projects), I take it seriously and require a written apology to the teacher that same day, and then we have consequences at home. I'm asking for advice on how to politely, respectfully, but effectively communicate to her teachers for next year that her assigned group project teams should vary and not always be the problem kids. Next year's teachers will be a mix of this year's teachers and new teachers, and given that it's been every class and every project this year, I feel like it's kind of a theme that merits some discussion in advance of the problem, not after the fact--especially given that my kid hardly ever complains to me about anything. I only find out well after the fact.

>The letter strongly rebuts an argument that MetroHealth’s CEO made earlier this year, which contended that adding another trauma center in town could endanger patients by diluting the volume of injuries trauma teams see and therefore their skills. 

>“Suggestions that Cleveland Clinic would pursue any course of action that could jeopardize patient lives are unfounded, misleading, and dishonest,” the hospital wrote in the letter. 

>The new trauma center is instead part of a strategy to create faster access to healthcare, especially for the neighborhoods around the hospital’s main campus, it said.  

>The Cleveland Clinic did not, however, commit to a formal assessment of whether more trauma care is needed in the region, as lawmakers had asked.

I haven't really noticed CC's commitment to the neighborhoods around it. They rate super low on the rankings of private hospitals by their commitments to charity and health in their communities. And I remember during COVID, when they had space but wouldn't accept transfers of their own, established patients.

Anyhow. I guess the statement that the CC would "never pursue any course of action" that would endanger patients, or that they care about faster access to healthcare for the poor neighborhoods around them... well, it doesn't exactly ring true for me.

>The legal issue stems from how to interpret federal law that requires detaining immigrant “applicants for admission” who are “seeking admission” to the country. Contrary to prior administrations, the current one says the law requires detention not only of people apprehended at the border, but also those who have been in the country for years.

>****

>Murphy read the law to require detention. He noted the “harsh policy consequences” but said “that policy concern should not affect the judiciary’s neutral interpretation under fundamental separation-of-powers principles.” He said he was following the law “where it leads.”

>That sounds like something that could come from the Supreme Court, or at least from some of the GOP-appointed justices.

>Another example came last week, when Trump-appointed 11th Circuit Judge Barbara Lagoa dissented from a panel ruling that said the law didn’t provide “unfettered authority to detain, without the possibility of bond, every unadmitted alien present in the country.” Lagoa, who has been considered as a Trump Supreme Court pick, said the majority “rejects the text’s ordinary meaning.”

I fully expect SCOTUS to dismiss the hard work of the District Courts, disregard the voluminous record of facts, and rule based on how they feel, a la Kennedy v. Bremerton. What do you all expect?

Where I used to live, there was a place that sold mostly last year's models (new) at a hefty discount. You could get good brands for $30-$50.

Is there anything like that in the Cleveland area? New stuff is so expensive and I'm feeling so broke! But, despite my threats to feed them only coffee and cigarettes to slow their growth rate, my kids insist on real food and won't slow down at all. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️😂😂😂 ​ We get all our clothes from thrift stores, but it's trickier with shoes.

A place for discount kids shoes would be great, but a place for everybody would be better--one of my kids is already taller than I am and has bigger feet, so no kids shoes for that one.

>Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced Thursday he will resign and take a private-sector job with nonproft law firm Alliance Defending Freedom.

>The “surprise move” was first reported by the Columbus Dispatch.

>Earlier Thursday, Yost’s spokesperson did not confirm or deny the report when contacted, but half a dozen statehouse sources who wished to remain anonymous said Yost is expected to leave his job ahead of the November election.

Good riddance to bad garbage. Not a moment too soon, and many moments too late. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.... 👍👍👍👍

Only stopped because activists found it and complained, despite Shaker's official policy.