More on the mess in Cleveland...

Rubber City Love is back with an update on the fiasco up in Cuyahoga County...

Just wanted to present the latest in the Frank Russo mistake by the mi-lake. As a refresher, the Cuyahoga County Auditor subpoenaed the tax filings, email and cell records of 32 private citizens because they had the audacity to request an audit of public records related to the auditor's F ups.

Now, the commissioners have basically gone ahead and said, "Ok, this is clearly stupid, but now it's reached the point where we can't even look the other way. Sorry 'bout it, Frank Russo." Here's some background on the story. To sum up, the commissioners voted to postpone retaining Mr. Climaco the attorney who's subpoenaed tax, cell and email records for 32 private citizens just because they had the nerve to ask to see public records. Why are the commissioners not retaining Mr. Climaco? Because what he's trying to do is doing is stupid.

But it's not just the Cuyahoga County Commissioners that have caught on to how silly this situation is. As a matter of fact, the Republicans in the Ohio House have seen fit to try to prevent similar situations in the future.

The best quote so far from all these hilariously disturbing stories refers to Climaco's assertion that the citizen's panel was called pursuant to a 150 year old law--as if that makes it invalid...
"And when Climaco, Russo's attorney, referred to the age of the law, she [Rachel Manias, one of the 32 subpoenaed] referred him to an older document, the Constitution."

This is gonna make me sound stupid, but Sarah Palin has nothing on Mrs. Manias.

Wanna see video of this debacle?

Anyway, the thing that really makes this all interesting are the amazing citizens who signed this petition. Every single one of them. Not only did they actually DO something about the Gong Show that was going on in their county, they're standing up to it. Week after week after week they're taking time out of their workdays -they're subjecting themselves to intimidation - they're putting their mugs in the paper and on TV (which sucks for most normal people). These people reaffirm my faith that our country does in fact kick ass.