Last week's Porkopolis column examined the in-fighting among the various Tea Party factions after the spokesman of the Tea Party Express wrote a satirical blog item about a letter from “Coloreds” to President Abraham Lincoln.

The not very funny but very hateful item was written by conservative radio talk show host Mark Williams, who was angered by the NAACP's resolution asking the political movement to denounce and expel its racist elements.

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Catherine Smith Mills, a new Republican candidate for Cincinnati City Council, is raising eyebrows with her campaigning.

Mills held a fundraiser April 8 that featured former Police Chief Thomas Streicher Jr. as the keynote speaker. In a press release touting the event, Mills is quoted as saying, “As a first time candidate, I am so lucky to have the support and mentorship of Republican leaders in Cincinnati like Tom Streicher.”

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For all the chatter about conservatives and Tea Partiers trying to take over the Republican Party by becoming precinct executives, the person who is perhaps the most prominent local conservative lost his race.

Amid the pages and pages of results from the May 4 primary election is the news that attorney Chris Finney, a leader of the Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes (COAST), was defeated in his bid for a seat on the Hamilton County Republican Party’s Central Committee.

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In the increasingly odd race for Ohio auditor, two local Republicans are making headlines around the state. Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters sent a nasty letter to the Tea Party's auditor candidate while County Sheriff Simon Leis Jr. defended the Democratic candidate from a GOP attack.

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His father might be busy trying to score the GOP’s presidential nomination, but U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is taking the time to speak at a Town Hall-style meeting in Northern Kentucky next week.

Paul is scheduled to attend an event organized by the Northern Kentucky Tea Party on Feb. 24. It will be held at the Calvin Perry Community Center, 8536 W. Main St., in Alexandria.

The meeting, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 2 p.m. and last for about an hour. Paul will speak first, then answer questions from the audience.

In the Tea Party’s announcement of the event, Paul is described as “a true champion of freedom” who has “worked to stop the EPA's war on coal.”

Paul, 49, is the son of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) who is seeking the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.

Elected to the Senate in November 2010, the younger Paul is also a practicing ophthalmologist in Bowling Green, Ky.

Paul made headlines during his campaign when he said he disliked portions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the landmark legislation that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin in hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters and all other public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce.

A restaurant or other private business with no government funding should be allowed to discriminate, he said. “In a free society, we will tolerate boorish people who have abhorrent behavior,” Paul added.

The Ohio Elections Commission today dismissed a complaint filed by Cincinnati Tea Party founder Mike Wilson against his Republican primary opponent in the race for the 28th Ohio House District seat. Wilson had filed a complaint with the commission contesting statements used in a telephone poll recently conducted by Tom Weidman’s campaign.

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A speech sponsored by the Cincinnati 912 Project at a local Catholic high school has been canceled because it violates the Archdiocese's policy prohibiting partisan events.

The 912 Project, a group inspired by right-wing talk show host and self-professed “rodeo clown” Glenn Beck, had rented space at Purcell Marian High School in East Walnut Hills for the Dec. 11 event.

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Although Fox News hasn’t touted the results so far on any of its shows, a poll by the ultra-conservative cable TV network found that the public views President Obama and the Internal Revenue Service more favorably than the Tea Party movement.

No, I’m not making this stuff up.

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The state-level political turmoil caused by the Tea Party and its financial backers, the Koch brothers, got its start in Wisconsin under rookie Gov. Scott Walker. Today, Wisconsin voters have the opportunity to oust six Republican state senators in unprecedented recall elections.

Follow the action via a live blog set up by Isthmus, the alt weekly paper in Madison, Wisc. Polls are open until 8 p.m. Central time, so there won't be a lot of action until later.

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Digging Ohio's primary election today. Everyone's expecting low turn-out, which only makes your vote even more valuable. If you're not sure what's on the ballot, check out CityBeat's roundup of election coverage for background on the U.S. Senate Democratic primary, the Democratic and Republican primaries for Hamilton County Commissioner, Issue 1 and more.

Dogging David Krikorian, running today in the Democratic primary for the 2nd Congressional District against Surya Yalamanchili and Jim Parker for the right to face incumbent Rep. Jean Schmidt in the fall. MSNBC's Keith Olbermann named Krikorian his "Worst Person in the World" a few days ago for suggesting that Indian-American Yalamanchili's name is too foreign-sounding to win an election.

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