Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Hot Topics in Ohio

Democratic candidate for Ohio's 15th congressional district, Mary Jo Kilroy, is calling attention to Steve Stivers' voting record. Stivers, a former bank lobbyist, is the Republican candidate for the 15th. In his many years as a bank lobbyist, Stivers worked on state senators and state representatives to go easy on the poor little banks. Lobbyists try to schmooze lawmakers to protect their employers. Stivers has continued his allegiance to banks and lenders (even payday lenders) while making things more difficult for the regular people.

istockanalyst.com
:
.....Mary Jo Kilroy, sees a negative where Stivers sees a positive. Her campaign has been drilling into Stivers' seven years as a top lobbyist for the former Banc One Ohio Corp., where Stivers often championed looser regulation of the banking industry.

Stivers and Kilroy are locked in a tight race for Congress in western Franklin County and Madison and Union counties. Kilroy frequently labels Stivers a "career banking lobbyist," while Stivers counters that he promoted economic growth in the state.

The Kilroy campaign says Stivers was an advocate of the kind of lax governmental oversight that it blames for the meltdown of some of the country's largest financial institutions......

The article cites examples of some of Stivers' pro-banking votes when he went to the Ohio Senate.

With so much avarice and mismanagement in the financial industry, can we really afford a former bank lobbyist as our member of Congress? Would he really work for us? Would he work to protect us?

*** Early voting started in Ohio yesterday. Now until October 6th, Ohioans can register and vote early in one stop. Register today. Vote today. Vote Obama.

> > > The Toledo Blade has a story about everyone's favorite Ohio Republican, Tom Noe:

Lucas County prosecutors asked Ohio's 6th District Court of Appeals yesterday to affirm Tom Noe's theft and money laundering convictions, rejecting his contention that he didn't receive a fair trial because of publicity and trial errors.

In a 50-page brief filed in the appellate court, prosecutors countered Noe's arguments one by one, saying his attorneys "failed to show that the trial court erred or that any error committed by the trial court rendered his convictions unfair."
The brief also said the "evidence presented at trial was more than sufficient to satisfy the state's burden of proof regarding the corrupt activity, theft, money laundering, tampering with records, and forgery convictions..."

Every single time Tom Noe's name appears in the news, Ohio Republicans get stomach aches.

************ Bruce Springsteen will perform on Sunday, October 5th, at Ohio State University on the Oval. Springsteen is here to support Barack Obama for President. According to the Dispatch, gates open at 3pm with Springsteen to perform at 4:30pm.