Now that it looks like we are not going to invade Greenland… at least not anytime soon… we can return our focus to domestic issues: ICE activity, anti-ICE protests, protecting the state against widespread daycare fraud—even if it is not widespread—and watching Ohio Democrats hope against hope that this year will provide the blue wave they need to become relevant again.
To help us better understand those topics, we turn to a panel of Statehouse insiders: Ohio Public Radio reporter Sarah Donaldson, Republican strategist Bob Clegg and Democrat Joseph Mas, who is a member of the Ohio Hispanic Coalition.
We’ll start with ICE.
Protests continue in Minnesota, where ICE officers have shot two people, including Renee Good, who was driving near an ICE enforcement activity.
Here in central Ohio, there is no sign of intense ICE activity, but detentions continue. Ohio State students protested the school, including the Border Patrol, at its career fair this week.
Officials continue to warn protesters not to get in the way of any enforcement activity.
Snollygoster of the week
Last week, the now former ICE Deputy Director Madison Sheahan quit her job to run in the 9th District Republican primary. She is the outsider, competing against current state Rep. Josh Williams and former state Rep. Derrick Merrin.
She also has not lived in the district for quite some time. She worked in South Dakota for then-Gov. Kristi Noem, then in Louisiana, and then for Noem again in Washington, D.C.
The Toledo Blade reports that the Lucas County GOP has privately voted to change the rules on who qualifies for their endorsement. The new rules say candidates must have lived in the district for at least one year before the election. Sheahan would come up a few months short and would not qualify for the party’s endorsement.
That is pretty shrewd, changing the rules after the race has begun. For that, Lucas County Republican Party leaders get our Snollygoster of the Week award.