Wednesday, October 05, 2011

Early Voting Has Started

* Ohio's early voting has started.  If you want to find out how to vote early, get an absentee ballot, or other information about voting, contact your local county board of elections (see Boards of Elections Directory).
If you live in Franklin County, you may want to start here:  http://vote.franklincountyohio.gov/


Remember:   
Vote NO on Issue 2.


*  Guess what Gov. John Kasich has done and will continue to do?  Release inmates!!!!  An opinion piece in the Lancastereaglegazette points out the following:

....Gov. John Kasich signed a bill that will reduce the state prison population by about 47,000 inmates over four years. Obviously, that will save the state millions of dollars. Savings for taxpayers in communities these ex-convicts return to? Not so much.....

....Make no mistake, this is a good law. It will ensure that state prisons use their resources more wisely, on the worst criminals. But it also will make communities more responsible for the newly released state prisoners as well as lower-level criminals who will never be sent to state prisons.....

Once again we see that our overburdened local governments will need to pick up the tasks of following the former inmates, with less money from the state. 

And one more thing...... Gov. Kasich has passed out $100 million in tax breaks to his friends in business.  Here is how TheReckoner has explained it all:

.....It sure looks like a shell game where the money is being shifted around.
Kasich’s strategy is:
  1. Cut funding to local governments and schools and force them to either cut services or raise taxes.
  2. Privatize state-owned businesses sacrificing long-term revenue for short-term payments.
  3. Shift the savings to private companies to bribe them to stay in Ohio or move to Ohio. See Wendy’s, Diebold, Bob Evans, and OmniCare.
  4. Shift the savings to wealthy school districts and to privatization efforts.
When you look at it closely, Kasich’s strategy sure looks a lot like “trickle down” theory. Give to the wealthy and somehow it will “trickle down”.....

Exactly.

*****
*  How can you be surprised about this news?????
 Rep. Steve Stivers (OH-15th) is listed as one of the Republicans trying to stop the new whistleblower protections found in legislation following the banking collapse.  This just goes to show you that Stivers and his Republican buddies would rather protect bankers than regular, middle class people.

ThinkProgress:

....Financial experts and academics agree that strong whistleblower regulations could have prevented the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme and indeed much of the financial crisis if employees at firms engaged in fraudulent activity had spoken up early or had reported complex crimes to the appropriate authorities. Employees at firms at the center for the financial crisis, including troubled lender Countrywide, have cited intimidation and other illicit tactics as the reason few people spoke up as whistleblowers. Since the old whistleblower laws provided for weak legal protections for informants and relatively rare rewards, the Dodd-Frank financial reform law passed last year revamped the system with new rights for informants blowing the whistle on financial crimes....

........Trade associations for the big banks, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable, lobbied aggressively against the new rules, but failed to stop them. Now, bank lobbyists are attempting a rollback.....

....Rep. Steve Stivers (R-OH), a lawmaker-turned bank lobbyist-turned lawmaker again, is among the team of four legislators working to whip up support for the legislation. Stivers and Grimm have been showered with contributions from top Wall Street firms, including JP Morgan and Bank of America....

Some people thought that Stivers would be working to bring jobs to Ohio's 15th district.  HA!!  Two things that people should remember about Stivers are (1) as of today, he has not sponsored one bill to create jobs, and (2) Stivers is an example of the saying, "Once a bank lobbyist, always a bank lobbyist."
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*  For those industries (see OpenSecrets) that support,  Republican Rep. Pat Tiberi (OH-12th), here is some news that will delight them. Tiberi's district made The Top Ten of The Most Gerrymandered Districts of 2011 from the WashingtonPost:

...6. Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-Ohio): Tiberi is a lucky man. He represents a district that went 54 percent for Obama in 2008 and only went narrowly for George W. Bush in 2004. And yet he avoided tough challenges until last year, when the environment was on his side and he easily survived. He won’t have to worry again anytime soon, after the Ohio GOP lumped many of his Columbus Democrats into a Democratic-leaning Columbus-base district. Tiberi’s 12th district east of Columbus, meanwhile, would now have gone about 55 percent for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and more than 60 percent for Bush. Neighboring Rep. Steve Stivers (R), who represents the area west of Columbus, got a slightly smaller bump and almost made this list too....

Republicans are more interested in keeping themselves employed than trying to help people stay/get employed..

Vote NO on Issue 1, + 2, + 3.