Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Mandel Has Missed Something Important


* I've gone over Josh Mandel's "Jobs Plan" (pdf) he has posted on his website and even the electmandel site.  There is something very important missing from the document :

 Despite the fact that Republican Josh Mandel is a military veteran, Josh Mandel has not included a plan to get returning veterans jobs.  

You'd think that Mandel would have taken care of his military buddies, but there is no mention of any program for employing our veterans.  Unfortunately, Josh Mandel thinks he is such a big macher that he doesn't need to worry about them.

Republican Josh Mandel, Ohio's absent Treasurer, is mentioned in an article in The Atlantic:

.....Mandel, the Republican standard-bearer in Ohio, is an example of a candidate whose promise hasn't matched his performance. Party officials recruited the highly-touted state treasurer and encouraged him to enter the race very early so he could raise as much money as possible to keep financial pace with Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown's flush campaign account. In hindsight, Mandel's decision to jump in before he was politically ready was a significant miscalculation. 

....He's gotten relentlessly bad press as a 31-year-old newbie who neglected his duties as treasurer to run for the Senate, and his campaign team has been flat-footed in handling damage control. 

When Mandel took an unannounced trip to the Bahamas in March to raise money from payday lenders, the speech earned him a slew of bad headlines and gave Brown fodder for future campaign ads. With millions of dollars of super PAC money being spent on the race already, the relentless fundraising pace was probably unnecessary, and it came at the expense of a bunch of negative headlines back home. The latest Quinnipiac poll shows Mandel losing ground to Brown, and his unfavorables going up. If Romney carries the battleground state but Mandel falls short, it will be a serious missed opportunity for Republicans.....

 Josh Mandel is against women's reproductive freedom, against pay equity for women, against the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, against the Affordable Care Act, against civil rights for our brothers and sisters of the LGBT community, against tax cuts for the middle class, against clean air/water/environment, against the auto rescue plan, against rights for workers (Mandel supported SB 5/Issue 2). What forward thinking person would vote for him?  As a woman, I don't want someone like Josh Mandel blocking my reproductive rights or my right to the same pay as a man doing a similar job!

Sen. Sherrod Brown has provided help for our returning veterans that need jobs:

....Brown was an original cosponsor of the VOW to Hire Heroes Act, a key provision of which is VRAP, which offers job retraining assistance to veterans between 35 and 60 years of age. According to the VA—which is administering the program along with the U.S. Department of Labor—VRAP offers up to 12 months of training assistance to unemployed veterans. Mr. Colon, of Youngstown, plans to use the program to take classes at Mahoning County Career and Technical Training College to become a Medical Assistant.

Between July 1 and September 30, 2012, the program will provide up 45,000 participants with retraining assistance, and an additional 54,000 veterans will receive assistance from October 1, 2012, through March 31, 2014. Participants must be enrolled in a VA-approved program of education offered by a community college or technical school. The program must lead to an Associate Degree, Non-College Degree, or a Certificate, and train the Veteran for a high demand occupation. More information about the program is available here.

The Sherrod Brown campaign website has more on the program for our vets:


”Service members who risk their lives protecting our nation shouldn’t have to wonder whether or not they’ll be able to find a job when they leave the service. Unfortunately, many do – and that’s not right,” said Brown, a Democrat, in a news release.

The program will help veterans train for jobs that are in high demand, from health care to protective service to production.

It will be limited to 45,000 participants from July through September and to 54,000 participants from October through March 2014. Already, about 27,000 veterans nationwide have applied, according to Brown.

While Josh Mandel is being held up with campaign cash from Karl Rove's PAC, the Koch Brothers' Americans for Prosperity, the American Commitment PAC, Sen. Jim DeMint's PAC, the MaverickPAC, and other right wing money PACs, Sen. Sherrod Brown continues to work for all the people in Ohio and our veterans.

•••••••  The Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives had their 33rd vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The Republicans have no alternative. Where are the freaking jobs, Boehner?