Ohio 15th District

Kasich & Co. and Your Money

2012-01-28T11:06:00.000-05:00

* The Kasich administration loves to spend your money. Since winning the election for governor by the slimmest of margins, Gov. John Kasich and his staff have been living high off your money. In the last year, we've heard about -----

1. a still undisclosed amount of money spent to beef up security at the Kasich private estate in Westerville (see NewsHerald).
2. the overuse of state owned planes by Gov. Kasich and staff (DaytonDailyNews).
3. the higher than normal salaries of the governor's staff (Plunderbund).
4. the $23,000 charges for cell phones for the Kasich staff in one year (see Plunderbund).
5. how hundreds of thousands of dollars has been spent on the governor's official mansion that is currently vacant (see Sandusky Register).

Yet Kasich and his Republican Party love to make cuts to schools, the elderly, and the poor. This is what you get when people voted for a former vice president at Lehman Brothers.

*****

*There are some people that say we don't need regulations from the EPA. Would those people like to see dead birds and fish everywhere? Do anti-regulation people like polluted drinking water?

Dispatch:

Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. has agreed to plead guilty to charges in federal court and pay $4.5 m illion in fines in two incidents that date to 2008.

That year, the company recalled packages of wild birdseed coated with pesticides that were toxic to birds....

....Also in 2008, Federal EPA officials discovered that Scotts was selling lawn and garden products with falsified pesticide registrations. Court documents list a Scotts lawn service fertilizer, a garden “weed preventer and plant food” and another product called Southern Max Fire Ant Killer....

Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.

Republican Disasters

2012-01-26T17:46:00.000-05:00

>>>> We've heard this many times in the past---
Dispatch:

A charter-school treasurer from New Albany owes the state more than $600,000 because he illegally spent tax dollars at a Columbus school and two others in Ohio, the auditor of state says.

Carl Shye was the school treasurer for several charter schools statewide, including the now-defunct Montessori Renaissance Experience. An audit of that school’s finances found that Shye collected more than $112,000 in tax dollars meant for students even though the school had already closed....

....The school was closed in 2009 because of financial difficulties. If not for those problems, Montessori Renaissance Experience would have been forced to close because of poor academic performance.

This is the fourth time in six months that the auditor’s office has demanded Shye repay tax money.....

Remember these???????
DailyHerald (12/30/11):

A suburban company seeking to run a taxpayer-funded charter school at Great Lakes Naval Station drew scrutiny from Ohio officials for questionable spending of public money at similar ventures there......

Dispatch (7/23/08):

The defunct charter schools that operated in a Downtown shopping mall owe the state $3.3 million plus interest, a judge has ruled.

It is the largest repayment sought from a closed charter-school operation.

The two Harte Crossroads schools abruptly shut in March 2007, leaving students scrambling to find new schools, teachers without jobs and spotty paperwork about where the money went......

Vindicator (11/18/07):

Ohio charter school operators were given $2.55 million in state and federal planning grants to start 33 schools that were never opened.....

Cincinnati (8/5/08):

A charter school once called "an abject academic failure" by Ohio's attorney general owes the state $2.6 million, according to an audit released today.

Harmony Community School in Roselawn didn't provide necessary documents to show that it met state curriculum requirements, state Auditor Mary Taylor said. The school also didn't have records proving that all teachers were properly licensed.....

Ohio Republicans continue to support charter schools even though most of the charters seem unable to properly educate our students. The owners of these charter schools seem to be the only ones profiting (along with those Republicans that accept big checks from charter school owners).

-----

* Still oblivious. Gov. John Kasich is unable to understand why people are still upset about his plan to move the State of the State speech out of the Statehouse and down to a school in Steubenville, Ohio. The costs, and the inconvenience for taxpayers are just not something Kasich understands.

>>>>> More layoffs in Ohio----From the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services we have this WARN Notice:

Date Rec'd: 1/26/2012...Company: Fortis Plastics, LLC.....City (County): Wilmington (Clinton)...Number Affected: 119....

* City and county leaders are still furious with the Ohio Department of Transportation's plan to delay road construction in the state for ten years or more. The delays will continue to create slowdowns and bottlenecks for years to come.

*** Did you catch Gov. Mitch Daniels giving the Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union speech? Did you know that Mitch Daniels worked on the budget for the administration of President George W. Bush? Now Daniels is trying to blame our economic problems on Obama??? Mitch Daniels helped to guide the country into economic disaster with George W. Bush. What in the world was Mitch Daniels talking about? He sounded bizarre.

>>>> I guess when you have a lot of money sometimes you forget where you've put it!
ABC News is reporting that Mitt Romney forget to include his Swiss bank account info in his recent financial disclosures.

Where in the world is Josh Mandel?

2012-01-25T18:52:00.000-05:00

Imagine that you've been elected to a public office. People would assume that you are carrying out your duties, following events, attending meetings, verifying work, and fulfilling all of you responsibilities. That is what most people would expect of an elected official. Unfortunately, that does not appear to be happening with Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel.

CantonRep (Associated Press):

Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel hasn’t attended a single monthly meeting of the powerful but mundane state board that decides which banks will hold billions in state deposits, records show.

It’s common to send a designee to most meetings, but the total absence of Mandel, a first-term Republican, makes him unique among modern-era treasurers.

Meeting minutes, news clippings and interviews by The Associated Press show that every state treasurer since at least the early 1980s has some record of attending the Board of Deposit meetings in person. The treasurer serves as chairman.....

Is anyone else troubled by Josh Mandel's seemingly lack of interest in his job as Ohio Treasurer? Where has Mandel been?
-Mandel was in Washington DC doing some fundraising in Washington, DC (see YouTube).
-Mandel was the guest of honor at a fundraiser thrown by the Maverick PAC in Houston (see Flickr pic from 12/6/11).
-Mandel visited Hawaii on June 1, 2011 to meet with friends of Republican Linda Lingle and others (see Hawaii Reporter).

Mandel has spent a lot of time flying to various fundraisers instead of staying in Columbus, working, and attending those Board of Deposit meetings. I'm just saying.

Are Republicans sick of themselves????

2012-01-25T10:45:00.000-05:00

* Now even Republicans are complaining about their party's lack of initiative and their light legislative schedule. Could the John Boehner's Speakership be in trouble?

Politico:

....Staring nervously at a high unemployment rate, with the November elections around the corner, GOP lawmakers are concerned that what their leadership is revealing for this year’s work is simply not enough.

In short, they’re yearning for more than Speaker John Boehner’s signature infrastructure and energy production bill, and they worry they’re going to go home to campaign with a light legislative résumé.

“We need to get more done,” said Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio), when asked if what has been laid out is enough......

Of course, in all fairness, passing bills with titles that include words like "job killer" and pushing bill, after bill, after bill, to end women's reproductive freedom is wasteful. It is time to dump the Republicans at their nearest country club. Republicans are sick of their leadership and themselves, and we're sick of them too. As they continue to worship at the altar of Ayn Rand, and the Koch Brothers, they've sold their souls to the god of money.

* The fallout continues over Gov. Kasich's decision to deliver his State of the State speech out of the Statehouse (see Vindy). Kasich's grand plan to move legislators, staff, security, and equipment to another part of the state will cost extra money. I guess it must be okay for Kasich to waste tax money on this expedition and his state plane rides. However, we should keep in mind that school children, the elderly, and residents of cities/counties are seeing their services disappear because funding is going to support Kasich lavish transportation modes.

Arrogance?

2012-01-24T09:17:00.000-05:00

* Is John Boehner issuing a dare to American voters? Has Boehner become so arrogant that he thinks that there is no way that Republicans will lose control of the House of Representatives? Boehner and his "do-nothing" Republican House of Representatives have refused to back the President's job bills, but now Boehner thinks he in his leadership role to stay.

Politico:

Republicans will hold the House next year and for the next decade, House speaker John Boehner told POLITICO in an exclusive interview.

Boehner dismissed Democratic claims that House control is up for grabs and argued that the once-in-a-decade redistricting process has made the GOP’s hold on the majority

ironclad......

......“I think it will be nearly impossible” for Democrats to win back the House in November, Boehner said....

Do you think it is arrogance? Do you want to Boehner, Eric Cantor, and the Republicans to do nothing but help the wealthy and corporations for the next decade?????

*******

>>>> In my opinion, Gov. John Kasich is trying to "...rob Peter to pay Paul..." in his latest scheme to fund his JobsOhio. Kasich wants to use state money from liquor sales to fund his corporate giveaways to corporations.

BusinessFirst:

Gov. John Kasich wants to use $100 million a year in state revenue from liquor sales during the next quarter century to help pay for the state's privatized development arm to attract and keep businesses in Ohio, the Cincinnati Enquirer reports.....

.....JobsOhio will pay the state $1.4 billion up front for the franchise, the newspaper reports. About $750 million will pay off the state's existing bonds backed by liquor revenue, $150 million will fund Clean Ohio projects and $500 million will be stashed in the state general fund, the newspaper reports.

Ohioans are still waiting for the jobs from Kasich's JobsOhio.

----------------------

* Ohio's Attorney General Mike DeWine has a few problems on his hands in the foster care system and the crime labs.

PlainDealer:

Too many Ohio children are languishing in foster care, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said Monday....

.....DeWine called for a comprehensive review of foster care last month, after the beating death of a 2–year-old boy in Cincinnati. Police say DeMarcus Jackson was killed by his father shortly after a Hamilton County magistrate returned the toddler to parents with whom he had lived with only briefly......

I thought Mike DeWine could figure this out on his own. Why is he asking for the public's help? It might be that there are enough caseworkers and staff to oversee the huge numbers of children in the foster care system. DeWine should talk to Gov. Kasich about more funding.

10TV:

Ohio lawmakers made bath salts illegal last year, but some investigators said on Monday that they continue to find the drugs on store shelves.

According to scientists at the state’s crime lab, bath salt cases are up 10 percent.....

Isn't this an area where DeWine complained about in the 2010 campaign? Isn't Mike DeWine in charge of the crime lab? Is this another area where Kasich's budget cuts have hurt law enforcement or is Mike DeWine just a poor administrator?

You Didn't Get An Invitation???

2012-01-23T00:56:00.001-05:00

Guess what? Neither did I.

Dispatch:

Gov. John Kasich headlined an Ohio Theatre event last week funded by lobbyists with deep ties to his administration, raising questions about his oft-stated commitment not to favor special interests.

The Tuesday evening “One Year Later” celebration was sponsored in part by lobbyists Douglas J. Preisse, Robert F. Klaffky and Matt Borges, all of whom were ground-floor advisers to Kasich’s 2010 campaign or inaugural committee. The private party was attended by members of Kasich’s executive staff, cabinet members, many state lawmakers and some clients of the three sponsoring lobbyists, among others.

Kasich, who recapped the accomplishments of his first year in remarks to the audience, said Friday that the event did not undermine his promise to Ohioans that no lobbyists would receive preferential treatment. As a candidate and governor, Kasich has railed against special interests with their “snouts in the trough.”

Only special lobbyists were invited. How nice. Although Kasich might deny and special treatment for his lobbyist buddies, we can figure it out. No matter what Kasich says or does, he is definitely one of the 1% and the corporate owners. He never supported real people---only corporations, lobbyists, rich contributors, and CEO's.

Wouldn't you love to see an invitation list for that event? Me too!

_____

Ohio is losing big, big, money under Kasich's budget. If you're interested in finding out how much localities are losing, check out InnovationOhio's funding map link. As InnovationOhio states on their website:

....see the amount of cuts in state funding that each county’s local government and school districts will experience in fiscal year 2013, compared to fiscal year 2011, prior to the state budget’s enactment.

Where did all that money go?

>>>> An editorial in the Toledo Blade gives fair warning about any attempts by Gov. Kasich to make Ohio voters any more upset. The editorial compares Kasich to other right wing, anti-worker governors like Wisconsin Gov. Walker, now facing a recall.

ToledoBlade:

....Gov. John Kasich similarly annoyed many Ohio voters when he balanced the state budget on the backs of local governments and schools, sold profitable state assets, and tried to curtail the collective-bargaining power of public-employee unions. But neither the Ohio Constitution nor state law allows statewide elected officials to be recalled, so he doesn't have to worry about facing a challenge like Mr. Walker's.

Still, Mr. Kasich should pay attention to Wisconsin. Ohio voters are angry about government spending too. But polls suggest they are not convinced that the solution is to throw schools, workers' rights, children, and poor and elderly Ohioans under the bus.

After Issue 2 lost last November, Mr. Kasich said he had heard voters' voices. But if voters decide he remains tone deaf, they can reiterate their message at the next gubernatorial election.

Although Ohio voters cannot recall Kasich, there are other ways to make him less powerful--- vote for Democrats for the Ohio House and Ohio Senate. If Democrats were in control of the Ohio General Assembly, Kasich's right wing agenda would get nipped in the bud.

***** One of Kasich's BFFs, Rex Elsass, is profiled in the Dispatch. Elsass is another one of those friends/consultants that helped bring Kasich to the governor's office. (Note: If you follow the link, beware of the ugly Christmas sweater.)

>>>> Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, the Republican so bored with his new job as Treasurer that he started thinking about running for U.S. Senator only weeks after being sworn into office, has released his work schedule. Here is what was found by an analysis of Mandel's records and financial disclosures by the Ohio Democratic Party:

.....Despite at least 50 events related to his Senate campaign (largely fundraising), Josh Mandel found the time to talk with just 8 businesses in Ohio. This echoes an Associated Press report from last week that shows his “weekly calendars as state treasurer are almost devoid of appointments outside of staff meetings and speaking engagements. And he’s yet to hold a single news conference to discuss the work he’s doing for Ohioans.”

In fact, “Treasurer”Josh Mandel has been to Washington D.C. alone at least as many times as he’s met with Ohio businesses according to his schedule.

Equally troubling is the omission from Mandel’s schedule of 10 out-of-state trips he took just one month after being sworn into his four year term as Treasurer. While Mandel’s camp laughably claimed the trips were mostly for“official business,” Mandel’s trips were largely to locations that raised huge sums of money for his U.S. Senate campaign, despite being funded by his state campaign. FEC law clearly states that a federal candidate’s campaign may not accept assets of any kind from another committee established by the same candidate....

If Mandel is soooooooo disinterested with his job as Ohio Treasurer, he should resign and go work for his wife's family. Mandel's lack of real legislative experience and leadership in his previous post in the Ohio General Assembly makes him a lightweight in the political spectrum. It might be all fun and games with his travel experiences, fundraising parties, and meeting like-minded right wingers and rich CEO's, but he has a job as Ohio Treasurer that he seems to be neglecting.

Saturday Afternoon in Central Ohio.....

2012-01-21T12:21:00.000-05:00

* With the redistricting in Ohio, current Republican Mike Duffey (and Kasich's BFF), will have some tough competitors for District 21 in the Ohio House of Representatives. The new alignment has Dublin and Worthington in Ohio House District 21. One of Duffey's opponents is Democrat Donna O'Connor. Donna O'Connor is a classroom teacher and she has been a fighter for her students in and outside of the classroom. O'Connor says that she will support the middle class, fight for policies that create fair wages for everyone, and stand up for our children. Isn't time that we had someone like Donna O'Connor fighting for us? To get more information on Donna O'Connor, visit www.oconnorforohio.com.

Early voting starts January 31st!

(Let me remind you that Republican Mike Duffey was an enthusiastic supporter of SB 5. Duffey's neighbors and former friends in Worthington have been appalled at his embracing of the Kasich agenda. Need I say more???)

_____

>>>>> It looks like Ohio Gov. John Kasich is losing more friends in the Cleveland area. Some have accused Kasich of delaying road construction in an effort to push his plan to sell/lease the Ohio Turnpike.

Cleveland.com:

With his administration under fire and his motives questioned this week for suddenly leaving the long-planned Inner Belt Bridge project shortchanged, Gov. John Kasich on Friday fired back....

....The governor also said the timing of the Ohio Department of Transportation's announcement on Tuesday that it was running a $1.6 billion deficit for road projects was not a politically calculated move to drum up support for his unpopular Ohio Turnpike leasing idea, as his critics have asserted....

...It has all left Cleveland leaders feeling blindsided and angry with the administration and worried over potentially decades-long gridlock that could emerge from a half-completed bridge into the heart of the city.....

According to the Ohio Secretary of State's website, then Gov. Ted Strickland beat Kasich by over 100,000 votes in Cuyahoga County in 2010. Does Kasich think that voters in Cuyahoga County will forget this move on road construction and how he added to road congestion?
(FYI: The Secretary of State's page has these numbers from the 2010 election for governor:
Kasich: # of votes= 1,889,186 (49.4%).............. Strickland: # of votes= 1,812,059 (47.04%). Kasich won the election by only 77,127 votes.)

___________

A new Quinnipiac Poll shows Ohioans has some interesting news about Ohio. Here are some of the highlights-----
Cleveland.com:

....U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown is in pretty good shape for his expected November showdown with Republican Josh Mandel.

The Democrat holds a 47-32 edge over Mandel among those surveyed, a finding almost unchanged since late October, when a Quinnipiac survey found Brown up 49-34. The always critical independent voters favor Brown by a 44-27 margin.....

....Gov. John Kasich's job approval rating remains negative, with 39 percent approving and 48 percent disapproving of the way he is handling his job. His numbers were 38-50 in December.....

John Kasich is definitely not spreading sunshine in Ohio. He has been a major disappointment for even those that voted for him.

---------

I heard a clip of Rush Limbaugh saying the following in his attempt to defend Newt Gingrich: "....Everybody has an angry ex-spouse..."

MediaMatters has the clip---

Really? My husband and I do not have any ex-spouses. We've been married almost 38 years to each other and no one else. Having angry ex-spouses might be more common in the Republican Party. Why would anyone take anything Limbaugh and Gingrich say as fact?

Layoffs, Bullying, and Republicans

2012-01-20T11:02:00.001-05:00

* There are more planned layoffs in Ohio. ODJFS has posted the latest Warn Notice:

PCCW Teleservices (US), Inc., in Tiffin (Seneca County), Number Affected 128.

>>> Think Progress found this about Ohio's approach to health care reform:

Ohio of two minds on health reform: “When it comes to federal health reform, the Kasich administration seems to be of two minds. One of Gov. John Kasich’s top appointees, Greg Moody, has enthusiastically embraced a key goal of health reform: boosting quality and moving toward more preventive, coordinated care. But a second official, Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, who Kasich tapped to head Ohio’s insurance department, has impeded implementation of the Affordable Care Act, calling it a ‘catastrophic law.’” [Newark Advocate]

Kasich and Taylor appear to be at odds ---- again.

-----------------------

>>> Ohio has passed an anti-bullying law. There was one dissenting vote in the State Senate---Kris Jordan. If the name Kris Jordan sounds familiar it is because his name has been in the news. Plunderbund can catch you up on that---> Plunderbund.

*******

**** Senator Sherrod Brown has revealed something that banks do that should be stopped.

FDL:

I brought up one of my chief problems with the possible foreclosure fraud settlement, the fact that AGs have already tried a settlement that mandated banks to deliver loan modifications to borrowers, and they flat-out didn’t do it. But Sen. Sherrod Brown offers up another problem. It turns out that, under the settlement, the banks could be allowed to pay out penalties using mortgage capital – basically the assets of investors, not anything that would harm the banks themselves. I wrote about this a couple weeks ago:

To be clear, a substantial number of investors would support principal reductions. They’ve come out and said so. They often end up in a better place with them than with foreclosure sales. But they would not have any say in the matter, according to this proposal, and the banks would get off scot-free for their fraudulent activities. The losses in the system would incur to the homeowners and the investors [...] not only is the $19-$25 billion figure inadequate to deal with the massive foreclosure crisis or the extent of the fraud perpetrated, but banks would have a way to wriggle out of some of the charges.

It’s good to see Brown pick up on this in his letter to the lead negotiators on the settlement, which I’ve put in full below. In addition to stating that the sum total for the settlement is inadequate, Brown criticizes this creative accounting where the banks wouldn’t even pay the penalty....

While Sen. Sherrod Brown is working to protect consumers, other elected officials aren't
doing as much. Sen. Sherrod Brown is always finding out ways to help people.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

More layoffs in Toledo, according to the Toledo Blade:

Mercy is laying off about 55 employees in Toledo-area offices and hospitals to help deal with lowered reimbursement rates, an increase in uninsured patients, and other economic factors.

Most positions being eliminated are among management and not involved with patient care, including some in back-office functions such as billing, payroll, and finance, Mercy spokesman Megan Manahan said.

Employees whose positions are being eliminated were notified Tuesday, and some will lose their jobs the end of this week, Ms. Manahan said. The majority of Mercy's 7,500 employees are in the Toledo area, and hospitals in the region are not affected by layoffs, she said....

Which group is holding up reimbursement? Can you say Republican?

Don't Say I Didn't Tell You....

2012-01-19T19:43:00.000-05:00

* Mitt Romney has flipped, flopped, and in some cases, flipped again. Personally, I cannot keep all his statements straight. Perhaps this will help us (YouTube):

Check out MittvMitt for more.

______

A prison guard in Ohio has lost his job over something he wrote on his Facebook page. See HuffPost for the story.

>>> Gov. Kasich spoke at Central State on Martin Luther King Day. By some accounts, his speech was over the top.
The Dispatch:

....Kasich then described his own rise from a small, blue-collar town near

Pittsburgh to the Ohio legislature, Congress, Lehman Brothers and Fox

News, and finally to become Ohio’s 69th governor.

“I can’t figure it out. Somehow the Lord has shined on me,” Kasich said.

“And then he allows me to be governor. It’s incredible. So for me, you see,

you’ve got to carry out the plan, and the plan is about lifting people. We

talk about balancing budgets and all of that, that’s kind of not the deal.

The deal is providing an environment so that people can be hopeful, and

they’re hopeful when they can work and when they can feel satisfied,

when their children can do better and when their marriages are more

secure and their neighborhood works.

“And you can never run over people who a lot of people run over. You

know why? It might be an angel you’re running over.”

(OMG! If you go to the Dispatch link, read some of the comments at the bottom of the page. They are a hoot!)

You might also want to check out a comment made by a student at Central State about Kasich's speech----
http://twitter.com/#!/WowItsSpencer

WowItsSpencer Spencer Franklin

the BAD out weights the GOOD in Kasich case...if you think about it he said I FIXED OHIO BY MYSELF AND CSU NEED TO DO THE SAME

17 Jan

Kasich's ego is so big that it is incredible that the rest of us can fit within the state's borders with him.

Want to Help President Obama?

2012-01-19T16:32:00.000-05:00

* Are you interested in helping President Obama get re-elected? Volunteers are needed at the brand new "Obama for America" headquarters located at 1973 Dublin-Granville Road in Columbus, Ohio (at the corner of 161 and Beechcroft). The office is just getting set up, but they are already scheduling volunteers.

For additional information, visit http://www.barackobama.com/state/OH/

Public Education in Ohio...

2012-01-18T23:52:00.000-05:00

* It has come to this in Ohio's schools----

Fox8 has a report on Garfield Heights School District which has made drastic cuts to programs, teachers, the school day, and eliminated lunch.

Fox8:

...As of Tuesday, programs like elementary music, art and physical education are gone and libraries are closed.

School days are shortened to just 5 1/2 hours -- leaving kids less time for instruction, and working parents scrambling....

....Kids who qualify for free lunches were sent home Tuesday with a bologna sandwich, an apple and a pickle....

From the GarfieldHieghtsCitySchools website the new school hours have been posted:

New School Hours Start January 17, 2012

New school times are listed below:

Elmwood and William Foster Elementary        8:10 a.m. – 1:40 p.m.
     Morning Kindergarten & Preschool                   8:10 a.m. – 10:50a.m.
     Afternoon Kindergarten & Preschool                 11:00 a.m. – 1:40 p.m.

Maple Leaf Intermediate                               7:40 a.m. - 1:10 p.m.

Middle School                                                   7:45 a.m. – 1:15 p.m.

High School                                                       7:42 a.m. - 1:40 p.m.

The Garfield Heights School District has been unable to pass a school levy for many, many years. These types of cuts have happened over the years in many Ohio school districts because elected officials refuse to take on school funding. Gov. John Kasich did make major cuts in school funding in his budget.

The Republican controlled Ohio General Assembly has been too, too, too busy doing other things rather than solve school funding. The Republican agenda in Ohio has included a heart beat bill, more abortion restrictions, an attempt to end collective bargaining, selling Ohio's prisons, restructuring the Ohio Department of Development to follow Kasich's wishes, allowing guns in restaurants, refusing federal funding for a rail system, telling lies about Ohio's public employees, making cuts to Ohio's health programs for the poor and elderly, expanding charter school enrollment, cutting public education funds, cutting funds to cities/counties and local governments, etc.

While our state tax money keeps flowing to failing charter schools that serve a small percentage of Ohio's students, our public school children are losing out because the GOP won't fix our school funding.

Is your tax rate higher than Romney's???

2012-01-18T18:43:00.000-05:00

>>>> Thank you, President Obama, for stopping the Keystone Pipeline. We don't need any project that endangers our citizens, our environment, and our food supply. The Republicans say that this pipeline would create lots of jobs. Every single time a Republican opens his mouth, the jobs created by the pipeline increases. Even the estimate of 20,000 jobs is overinflated because at the most, no more than 2,000 jobs would result.

***

* Republican multi-millionaire Mitt Romney revealed that he has a tax rate of 15%. OMG!
That is incredible! Yet this guy wants more tax cuts for people like himself!!!!????? If you want to compare your tax rate to Romney's, there is a handy new tool online. Let me warn you---- sit down now.

Visit WhatMittPays. I did our income and let me tell you, Romney and those in his income bracket don't need any additional tax breaks. It just doesn't seem fair that we pay more in taxes than Romney.

Wait! There is even more on how Romney pays less in taxes.

Citizens for Tax Justice:

Although it is not apparent on his financial disclosure form, Mitt Romney has millions of dollars of his personal wealth in investment funds set up in the Cayman Islands, a notorious Caribbean tax haven.....

....But tax experts tell ABC News there are other reasons Romney may not want the public viewing his returns. As one of the wealthiest candidates to run for president in recent times, Romney has used a variety of techniques to help minimize the taxes on his estimated $250 million fortune. In addition to paying the lower tax rate on his investment income, Romney has as much as $8 million invested in at least 12 funds listed on a Cayman Islands registry. Another investment, which Romney reports as being worth between $5 million and $25 million, shows up on securities records as having been domiciled in the Caymans.

Official documents reviewed by ABC News show that Bain Capital, the private equity partnership Romney once ran, has set up some 138 secretive offshore funds in the Caymans....

Wow! Incredible. What else hasn't he told us?

*** In Ohio politics, Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, is recycling an old lie of his. He is trying to claim credit for Ohio's credit rating. Politifact already knocked down Mandel's lie months ago. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Mandel should just try doing his present job instead of running all over the country to meet with lobbyists and PACs.

Things Not Going as Planned?

2012-01-18T01:16:00.000-05:00

* Delay. Delay. Delay.
Why is everything in Ohio taking so long to fix? When he was elected by the slimmest of margins, John Kasich said he would bring jobs to Ohio. We are still waiting. Ohioans have learned that despite all of Kasich's braggadocious plans, nothing is really getting accomplished.

Here are a list of projects that Kasich has yet to accomplish or has "fixed" to such an extent that the roll out has been delayed.

* SCHOOL FUNDING---
RecordHerald:

A key state legislative leader predicted Tuesday that a new approach to paying for Ohio's public schools will not be complete until sometime in 2013, leaving school districts across the state to grapple with their budgets in the absence of a predictable school funding formula.

Lawmakers scrapped the existing "evidence-based model" of school funding advanced by former Gov. Ted Strickland in the two-year state operating budget passed in June. The formula was sweeping but lacked the funding to be carried out....

....Russ Harris, a long-time school funding consultant to the Ohio Education Association, the state's largest teacher union, said the last budget eliminated Strickland's funding concept - developed over two years - without replacing it with anything. That has meant uncertainty for school districts, he said....

School districts will have a difficult time planning because the Kasich administration can't get the job done on school funding. Now Robert Sommers, of Ohio's Department of Education, is leaving, according to Stephen Dyer at 10th Period.

10thPeriod:

Less than a year into his job as Education Czar for Gov. John Kasich, Robert Sommers has decided to leave the administration. Under his leadership, the state ditched a national award-winning school funding formula and reforms, replacing them with no funding formula and ridiculed reforms. And he also infamously suggested that student-teacher ratios of 50:1 could work.....

.......It wasn't that long ago that candidate Kasich boldly declared that he would ditch Ted Strickland's Evidence Based Model because it didn't put money in the classroom, whatever that means. What Gov. Kasich is realizing is that it's a lot tougher to do something than it is to criticize someone else for trying.

Once again, another Kasich plan bites the dust.

* CASINOS---
PlainDealer:

The opening of casinos in Cleveland and Toledo will be delayed for several weeks, and likely much longer, because the required background checks on the gaming operators and vendors are well behind schedule.

The Ohio Casino Control Commission received the sobering news during its meeting on Wednesday from its consultant, Spectrum Gaming Group, as representatives of the casino operators, Rock Ohio Caesars and Penn National Gaming Inc., looked on.

Neither operator commented publicly at the meeting but were clearly disappointed. Each day the gambling spots are not open could cost the operators a combined $1.4 million, according to a Plain Dealer analysis of revenue projections from state and company officials.....

Aren't there people assigned to make sure things are getting done on time?

* ROAD CONSTRUCTION---
Cincinnati.com:

A new plan by the state’s Department of Transportation delays the completion of six Southwest Ohio highway projects, two of which will add 14 years to the time before motorists see orange barrels disappear.

The same plan grants $44.8 million of new money for right-of-way purchases for rebuilding the Brent Spence Bridge.

Jerry Wray, director of the transportation department, said Tuesday after a meeting of the Transportation Review and Advisory Council (TRAC) that highway plans by previous administrations were far too big for the department’s budget and the new plan will bring projects in line with what the state can afford. He said the state has to look for new methods of controlling costs or adding revenue, including possibly making Brent Spence a toll bridge....

From the PlainDealer's perspective on the road delays----

The flow of commerce and traffic through downtown Cleveland will suffer with ODOT's plan to delay funding a second Inner Belt Bridge until 2023, officials say.

Local leaders are demanding answers and insisting ODOT stick to its timeline of demolishing the existing Interstate 90 bridge in 2014 and building a new one by 2016, to pair with the new span going up now in the Cuyahoga River valley.

ODOT shocked community leaders here and across the state Tuesday with a draft list showing that major, new projects will be postponed for years at a time.....

The Kasich administration is blaming previous administrations. Really? Can't the Kasich administration take responsibility for their own inept "planning" and budget failures.
This means more road construction jobs will not be created. If federal money is tied to these road jobs, there are certain time frames that must be adhered to for the money to be used.

The Kasich administration says they have no money for roads. What happened to all that money that went to corporations to increase jobs? Where are the jobs? Was that money just wasted?

____

Senator Sherrod Brown is known as a champion of the middle class. Republican Josh Mandel? Not so much. Sherrod Brown cares about people, Mandel is more concerned about corporations, CEO's, and special interests (polluters).

Bloomberg:

....Brown has established himself as a populist in the mold of Howard Metzenbaum, the former Ohio senator who championed liberal causes, said Dale Butland, a Columbus Democratic strategist.

Mandel is “not ready for prime time,” Butland said in a telephone interview. He is running after taking office last year as treasurer and serving in the Ohio House of Representatives since 2006.

“People can look at Josh Mandel and look at the way he has jumped from office to office in a very short period of time and think to themselves, ‘My God, this guy was born with a filing fee in his hand,’” Butland said.....

I just hope that Mandel spent more time on his current elected office as State Treasurer. I have a fear that some items are being overlooked or pushed aside because Mandel is more interested in his next campaign.

Which one would you choose????

2012-01-17T09:42:00.000-05:00

* Which job training program provides a chance for a bright future?

Gov. John Kasich has a new initiative he is pushing---job training. Here is a story followed by my opinion.
Fox 19:

Governor Kasich announced a commitment Monday from three community colleges to actively recruit and train young minorities in Ohio, including Cincinnati State. The Queen City college will be launching a new training program for people working in the food service industry.

"It is not good enough in Ohio for only those in the suburbs to realize the benefit of economic growth and prosperity," Gov. Kasich said during a special event celebrating the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. "We want members of our minority communities to advance and become managers in the state of Ohio and leaders in our country in the business profession," Gov. Kasich went on to say.....

On the surface, providing job training sounds like a good idea. However, what does this type of job training say about John Kasich and his views of minorities?

Why is there such an emphasis on food service? Food service jobs are
(a) low paying, usually at or near the minimum wage,
(b) subject to the ups and downs of a changing market,
(c) restrictive, in that the chances for advancement are small,
(d) not providing opportunities for training for new technology for the 21st century,
(e) the program appears to limit minorities to low-paying jobs.

Take a look at what Sen. Sherrod Brown said when he discussed a new program to train candidates for biosciences. Cincinnati State:

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown joined President Owens, officials from the BioOhio program and other guests for a press conference at Cincinnati State to discuss strategies for connecting individuals with jobs in emerging and high-tech industries.

Of particular interest to Sen. Brown is a program jointly operated by Cincinnati State and Sinclair Community College that trains unemployed workers for jobs in the biosciences industry.

“It’s unacceptable that so many hardworking Ohioans are struggling to find jobs while high-tech industries struggle to fill vacancies. That’s why it’s critical that we invest limited workforce training resources to not only help unemployed workers find jobs, but also to attract new employers in high-tech industries,” Sen. Brown said, during a press event held at a biotech lab in the Health Professions Building on Cincinnati State’s main campus. “By working with Cincinnati State and Sinclair,’’ he added, “BioOhio is helping connect more Ohioans with the jobs of tomorrow, while also boosting Ohio’s biotech industry.”

BioOhio is a non-profit organization launched in 1987 to promote research, education and industry involving bioscience in Ohio. Today, more than 1,340 bioscience firms have operations in Ohio, employing more than 62,500, according to the organization.....

Which program provides students with more opportunities for growth, challenges, and an opportunity to provide an income for a family? The food service program appears to limit minority students to only low paying, part time jobs in the food industry. Personally, I believe that Sen. Sherrod Brown and the federal program provide endless possibilities for students.

Dr. King's Work

2012-01-16T20:12:00.000-05:00

* U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown spoke today at a breakfast honoring Dr. Martin Luther King. The ToledoBlade:

The fight of Martin Luther King Jr. continues today in Ohio against efforts to restrict worker and voting rights, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown told a crowd honoring the slain civil rights leader Monday.

The Democratic senator made the remarks despite the fact that the man who signed two laws that he referred to, Republican Gov. John Kasich, was seated close by.

“Today Martin Luther King would recognize that we’re in troubling times,’’ Mr. Brown said. “We’ve seen an assault all over our nation on worker rights. The state next to us, Indiana, we’re seeing another right-to-work initiative that will in all likelihood go into effect....."

Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown has always been a supporter of workers and the middle class.

Unfortunately, someone thought that Sen. Sherrod Brown was too political in his speech about Dr. King. It might be that Alex Triantafilou doesn't know much about Dr. King's contributions. Perhaps Alex Triantafilou is too young to remember the life and times of Dr. King, but I remember. Dr. King fought for voting rights, civil rights, non-violence, and equality in all aspects of our lives.

I did find this Twitter post from the Republican Chairman of the Hamilton County Republican Party:

ChairmanAlex Alex Triantafilou

Leave it to failed Sen. Sherrod Brown to improperly politicize Dr. King's legacy...that's why I'm voting for Josh Mandel.

6 hours ago
Triantafilou should search the archives at The King Center to find the information on Dr. King's work in the area of pay equality and fairness in the work place. Dr. King also supported unions.

It is sad that these young Republican whippersnappers like Triantafilou always try to come up with their own facts. Republicans should remember that people are entitled to their opinions but not their own facts. In the case of Triantafilou voting for Josh Mandel for U.S. Senate, let me remind everyone that Mandel supported SB 5 (check out Mandel's picture at the Mason, Ohio "Yes on Issue 2" rally).

__________

* I don't know about you, but greed makes me sick to my stomach. After reading this article from the Washington Post, you too might be disturbed by some moves made by Republican John Boehner and his push for the Keystone Pipeline.

WashingtonPost: (h/t to DailyKos)

....Environmentalists note that in December 2010, according to Boehner’s financial disclosure forms, he invested $10,000 to $50,000 each in seven firms that had a stake in Canada’s oil sands, the region that produces the oil the pipeline would transport. The firms include six oil companies — BP, Canadian Natural Resources, Chevron, Conoco Phillips, Devon Energy and Exxon — along with Emerson Electric, which has a contract to provide the digital automation for the first phase of a $9.4 billion Horizon Oil Sands Project in Canada.

Bill McKibben, a climate activist and co-founder of the group 350.org, wrote in an e-mail that Boehner has received more than $1 million from fossil-fuel companies, “and now we find out that he’s got extensive personal investments in companies dependent on tarsands oil.”

“He was willing to shut down the government in part to prevent enough time for serious environmental review,” McKibben added. “In any other facet of our public life . . . this whole list taken together would be seen for the gross conflict of interest that it is.”

Doesn't that just make you absolutely sick??? Boehner's constituents should ask him if he is putting his personal wealth before their needs and those of 300,000,000 Americans.

The Public is Against It

2012-01-16T00:39:00.000-05:00

The Ohio Republicans must have some crazy notion to do everything that Ohioans don't want.

1. First they passed SB 5, then voters defeated it.

2. Then Kasich proposed selling the state prisons, even though Ohioans were against it. Of course, Kasich did not get his over-hyped money and not all the prisons were sold.

3. Kasich wants to sell off/lease the Ohio Turnpike like Indiana did. Kasich and his staff are working hard to get this done, even though Ohioans are against it. Kasich believes he'll get something close to the $3 billion that Indiana's Gov. Daniels got for his state's toll road. (According to the HeraldTimes, Daniels admitted that the "....foreign investors "overpaid" for the Indiana Toll Road five years ago....") In an article in Businessweek, the Indiana Toll Road investors are upset.

Businessweek:
...Now five years old, the Indiana deal has yet to turn a profit, or break even. Two overseas companies—Cintra Concesiones de Infraestructuras de Transporte, a unit of Madrid-based Ferrovial, and Macquarie Infrastructure Partners, an investment fund managed by Macquarie Group (MQG) of Sydney, won the right to run the road with a daring $3.8 billion bid—$1 billion more than the next-highest offer.....

.....The private investors haven’t made out so well. Had the road been profitable, they stood to make millions per year over the life of the 75-year project. As it is, they have not been able to get past the debt they incurred winning the bid. They have met their annual debt payments only by borrowing money and may default before loans mature in 2015, according to disclosure documents from Macquarie Atlas Roads, one of the investors.....

Truckers and drivers are staying off the Indiana toll road because of huge increases in tolls.

4. Republicans now want to raise the speed limit on the Ohio Turnpike, but the public is against it (see WTRF).

Ohio's GOP members should just keep going against what the public wants. It will only help the Democrats.

*******

**** Ohioans would like to know how much time Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel (Republican) actually spends working in his elected position. Mandel has traveled to Denver, Hawaii, Florida, Texas, Washington, DC , Aspen (Dec. 28), New York, etc. to raise money for his run for U.S. Senate. Meanwhile, Josh Mandel said he was too busy to talk to the media. With his weak legislative background, Mandel would just be a puppet for the right wingers.

------------

After an extremely long break, the Congress will be back in DC. I wonder what they won't accomplish this time. Where are the jobs, Mr. Boehner? Where are the jobs, Mr. Cantor?

_______

I'm wondering if the Ohio Farm Bureau has a position on imported vegetables being sold at Anderson's? A company called Woodstock Farms has frozen vegetables in the freezers at Anderson's with packages clearly marked as being from China. With our farmers working so hard to make profits, why is Anderson's not supporting the American farmers? Importing "fresh" vegetables from China makes me wonder how safe such a product would be for American consumers. If you shop at Anderson's, make it a point to question their choice of imported frozen vegetables.

Anti-Bailout Kasich Now Supports Automakers

2012-01-13T12:19:00.000-05:00

Where do Republicans stand on clean air, clean water, and a safe environment?
(video from Realrepubs.com)

Real Republicans on the EPA from Sierra Club National on Vimeo.

* * *

* Isn't it amusing how people against President Obama's measure to save the American auto industry are now throwing themselves at automakers? Both John Kasich and Mitt Romney were against the auto bailout. Today, however, Kasich can't do enough to kowtow to the auto executives. Kasich even made an appearance at the Detroit auto show, according to the Detroit News.

* Job cuts at Wright-Patterson: Airforcetimes:

The Air Force plans to cut 598 civilian positions at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, as part of its next round of buyouts and early retirements....

>>> Northcoastnow is reporting 150 job cuts are planned for Lorain Schools and will include teachers. (h/t Dailyjobcuts)

- - - - - -

>>> Former Gov. Ted Strickland will be spending a great deal of time one of the most prestigious universities in the world.
Cincinnati.com:

Former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland will spend the spring at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, located at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.

He will spend the academic semester as a resident fellow, interacting with students, participating in the intellectual life of the Harvard community and leading weekly study groups on a variety of issues, according to a press release from the school.....

Strickland has worked in other areas of academia. His push, as governor, to unify the public universities of Ohio and make college education more accessible has been extremely beneficial to students.

***** President Obama has proposed streamlining some government agencies to save money and make things easier for small business owners and international trade.
USA Today:

President Obama asked Congress today to give him the power to make it easier to reorganize the federal government, starting with a plan to combine various offices devoted to international trade.

"We live in a 21^st-century economy, but we've still got a government organized for the 20^th century," Obama said in remarks at the White House.

Speaking to a group of invited business owners, Obama asked for what is called "fast-track authority." It would enable him -- and future presidents -- to propose specific reorganizations for up-or-down congressional votes; Congress could not amend or change the plan submitted by the president.....

Will Republicans vote against this? Are Republicans just going to sit on their fat a**#* and do nothing until November?

Notes----

2012-01-12T09:04:00.000-05:00

* The hits just keep coming in Gov. John Kasich's "job creation" agenda:
----- The Coshocton Tribune reports that Longaberger has laid off 80 employees.(h/t DailyJobCuts)
----- Strongsville Patch notes the closing of the Franklin Covey Store in Strongsville, Ohio.(h/t DailyJobCuts)

* Residents in northeastern Ohio want answers about the recent earthquakes they've experienced. Even though experts have started to evaluate the cause of the quakes, oil and gas companies appear to be preparing to dismiss their findings, in a statement from a spokesman for D&L Energy, Vince Bevacqua.

FuelFix:

Boos, applause and the occasional outburst marked a gathering of about 500 northeast Ohioans seeking explanations Wednesday for a series of earthquakes that has hit their area since deep injection drilling came to town.

At a news conference after the forum, the company that voluntarily shut down an oil and gas wastewater well to study any links to the quakes urged caution in accepting a seismologist’s finding that their injection well almost certainly caused the quakes....

In a state investigation into 11 earthquakes in the region this year, Columbia University seismologist John Armbruster said that the injection of thousands of gallons of brine wastewater daily into the injection well on Youngstown’s west side almost certainly caused the quakes. State officials said they believed the well activity caused pressure to build near a fault line and led to the seismic activity......

......Bevacqua said the company hopes its own study will provide different feedback. The study has not been started yet and Bevacqua was not able to provide a timetable.....

The oil and gas companies will have their own findings.

***** Mitt Romney must be accustomed to the good life, seeing how he gets his shoes shined on the tarmac at the airport (h/t winningourfuture and sayitaintsoalready.com)

More Layoffs and Kasich's Friend

2012-01-11T19:23:00.000-05:00

* There have been more layoffs posted at the Warn Notice page at the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services:

1/10/2012 Macy's Parma (Cuyahoga County) - Number Affected = 127

1/10/2012 CSC Beavercreek (Greene County) - Number Affected = 114

(These two companies above should be added to the layoffs of 173 people at Diversapack of Monroe, LLC, and 93 individuals at Xanterra Parks & Resorts (see ODJF).)

We're not even half way through the month and Gov. John Kasich's "job creation" has already produced over 500 layoffs since the beginning of 2012.

* Mitt Romney and Gov. John Kasich must be old friends judging by the video and pictures posted at Mitt Romney Central. Any friend of Kasich's is not a friend of mine.....

*** The movie When Mitt Romney Came to Town is now online here.

> Think Progress has a graph from Citizens for Tax Justice that shows how the Republican presidential candidates would give tax cuts. All of the Republicans would give huuuuuuuuuggge tax cuts to the top 1%.

Think Progress:

Although Willard Mitt Romney calls it envy, it is really about fairness. Republicans are not interested in fairness.

***** OMG! Would the Kasich administration withhold federal funds for STD prevention in Cincinnati over stupid stuff and give it to GOP-controlled Hamilton County? It looks like that is exactly what happened according to a story in CityBeat.

Layoffs in Ohio, Despite Kasich

2012-01-10T13:37:00.000-05:00

The job losses keep coming in Ohio. No matter how much Gov. John Kasich brags about his job creation, the truth is that the layoffs just keep happening:

1.   ODJFS WarnNotices:
Diversapack of Monroe, LLC - Monroe (Butler County) - Number Affected 173
Xanterra Parks & Resorts - College Corner (Butler County) - Number Affected 93

2.   Hoggy's will be closing all but one restaurant in central Ohio. According to the news report on 10TV: ....More than 100 employees are affected by the closures...

3.    Mount Vernon News reports that 84 Lumber in Mount Vernon, Ohio, has closed, with six employees losing jobs.

---------------------

* We've found Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor!!!! Taylor has finally been seen out of her undisclosed location. Gov. John Kasich seems to have a rather primitive view of what Taylor should do. It is apparent to many people that Taylor's place on the ticket was just for window dressing.

Taylor's appearance in the Youngstown area must have been set up to try to calm the fears of residents in the earthquake riddled area of Ohio. With eleven earthquakes in the last few months, Kasich and Taylor will have to do a lot to make people feel better about fracking.

BusinessJournal:

As the state continues to look to capitalize on the Marcellus and Utica shale plays, the Kasich Administration's "first priority is to make sure that we are doing all we can to protect the health and safety of our people and the environment," Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor stressed Monday...

....State officials are investigating a potential connection between a brine injection well operated by D&L Energy Group and 11 earthquakes that struck the Mahoning Valley last year, including a 4.0 temblor that shook the region New Year's Eve. The well is used to dispose of wastes produced by the shale fracking process.....

.....Shale drilling was the focus of the four protestors who stood in front of the South Avenue banquet hall. Jaime Frederick of Coitsville said she was protesting on behalf of her and her family who, she said, have been made "seriously ill" by fracking chemicals. The chamber "should be promoting green jobs and green energy that do not make us sick," she said. Drinking water that she hadn't been aware was contaminated "almost took [her] life," she said.....

Do you really think that Kasich and Taylor will stop the drilling if scientists find that the activity is causing the earthquakes?

Playing "Keep Away"

2012-01-09T00:30:00.000-05:00

* Is Republican Rep. Steve Stivers (OH-15th) playing a game of "keep away" by not visiting the urban parts of his current district? Why hasn't he visited the northern suburbs of Columbus that are in the 15th? The election that involves the new redistricting map, isn't until the end of the year. Why doesn't Stivers care about today's constituents?

According to the Circlevilleherald, Stivers was visiting "....part of his tour of southern counties that will be included in Ohio’s 15th House District following state restructuring...".

(Note: I believe that the reporter actually meant "redistricting" instead of "restructuring" in the article.)

*** On Stiver's Facebook page, he has the following entry regarding President Obama's recess appointment of Richard Cordray:

COLUMBUS, Jan 4 -

Columbus, OH – The following statement can be attributed to Congressman Steve Stivers (R-OH).

"This appointment is a direct attack on the U.S. Constitution that I took an oath to protect and defend. Hearings should be done through the Senate nomination process, in the open light of day.

"While I consider Rich a friend, and he is both experienced and capable, there are still larger questions about the lack of accountability of the bureau and its budget."

What a bunch of baloney! Stivers is concerned about upholding the Constitution? Really? Isn't concerned about the fact that the Republican controlled House of Representatives has done N-O-T-H-I-N-G to create jobs. Isn't Stivers embarrassed to be collecting a paycheck when he and the Republican Party haven't created jobs or fixed the economy????

Nearly every bill from Boehner Republican House is a political statement of some sort by using phrases like "job killer" in the actual legislation title. Where are the jobs? Why aren't Republicans doing some work? They've hardly passed any bills, but they have named a lot of post offices.

Stivers and his big bank backers are upset about the appointment of a consumer watchdog like Richard Cordray. Stivers has been protecting bankers by slowly chipping away at the bank reform bills that were put in place after the great Wall Street meltdown. Even as a member of the Ohio Senate, Stivers voted against consumer protection and for predatory lenders. Stivers is basically doing the same job he did as a bank lobbyist--- protecting the interests of bankers.

President Obama was within his rights and powers to make this appointment. He hasn't caught up to the 99 recess appointments that G.W. Bush made (NBC politics).

There he goes again...

2012-01-08T00:59:00.000-05:00

* There he goes again. Republican Rep. Steve Stivers (OH-15) is holding office hours for constituents, but not in Columbus, Upper Arlington, or Worthington, which are all currently in his district.

The Madison Press:

Congressman Steve Stivers (R-Columbus) will be in London for office hours from 6-8 p.m. in Monday, Jan. 9, at the Madison County Chamber of Commerce, 730 Keny Blvd., London....

Stivers continues to avoid the majority of his district. Is he afraid of us? Obviously, Stivers still hasn't delivered the jobs he promised. He has, however, been the best thing that ever happened for bankers, stock brokers, insurance companies, and Wall Street. He has their backs, while the rest of us wonder when he'll deliver for constituents.

______

>>>>> Did you know that Ohio Republican candidate for Senate Josh Mandel was the primary sponsor of only 4 bills while he served in the Ohio House of Representatives? In the 128th General Assembly, Mandel and Jay Goyal sponsored HB 123 (there are no recorded votes on HB 123) and HB 171 (HB 171 never came up for a vote). Both HB 123 and HB 171 were assigned to a committee, but nothing else happened to his legislation.

Mandel's activity in the 127th session, wasn't any more significant with only 2 bills sponsored, HB 151 (there was no vote on HB 151) and HB 644 (there was never a vote taken on HB 644). HB 151 and HB 644 never came before the entire Ohio House for a vote.

Seriously, Mandel is a lightweight in the area of legislative experience. How can he hold a candle to the work and experience of Sen. Sherrod Brown? Here is Sen. Sherrod Brown's work experience (bio from Brown website): former U.S. Congressman, former Ohio Secretary of State, served in Ohio General Assembly, former public school teacher, and taught at the Ohio State University.....

Sen. Sherrod Brown has always stood with Ohio's middle class, and was a strong supporter for the repeal of SB 5. He stood with Ohio's teachers, firefighters, nurses, police officers, and state workers.

Josh Mandel is strongly supported by right wingers like Sen. Jim DeMint. We're known by the company we keep.

Kasich---Not on the Good List

2012-01-05T17:57:00.001-05:00

* Rolling Stone has an interesting list of people in an article titled, "The Quiet Ones: 12 Leaders Who Get Things Done" that is now online. In the introductory paragraph, the writer, Tim Dickson, compares some Republican braggarts with the real leaders who've demonstrated organizational skills and serious achievements.

RollingStone:

In 2010, a new generation of Republican governors rose to power by posing as pragmatic Mr. Fix-Its with "common sense" answers to the nation's most intractable problems. In his victory speech in Wisconsin, the newly elected Scott Walker vowed to find "solutions to the challenges we face," promising "every worker, every family in this state that you have an ally in the governor's office." Instead, Walker and his band of GOP brothers – including rookies like John Kasich in Ohio and Rick Scott in Florida, as well as veterans like Jan Brewer in Arizona – have used their offices to wage ideological crusades against union workers, immigrants and the poor. Far from finding solutions, these GOP fire-breathers have paralyzed their state legislatures, sparked federal litigation and even, in the case of Kasich, earned a direct rebuke from voters – who flocked to the polls last fall to roll back the governor's attempt to gut collective-bargaining rights for state workers. "The wave of recently elected, highly ideological Republicans have already seen their politics fail," says Simon Rosenberg, president of the progressive think tank NDN. "Their numbers are in the toilet because they grossly miscalibrated the mood of the country."

But while these high-profile conservatives are giving good governance a bad name, a new wave of leaders across the nation, both in and out of government, is quietly creating real change – on issues ranging from mortgage foreclosures to marriage equality.....

Don't you just love how Gov. John Kasich's name comes up in these discussions as an example of failure? Even though John Kasich contains to brag about his job creation, Ohioans are still waiting for these jobs. Where are the jobs, Mr. Kasich? The list generated and published in Rolling Stone shows us that things get done most often by people who are quietly effective and persistent.

> Speaking of layoffs and closings......
DailyJobCuts linked to a Washington Post article that reports Macy's will be closing some stores, even in Ohio:

...More than 830 workers will be affected by the closings — 375 at Macy’s stores and 463 at Bloomingdale’s. But many may have the option of taking jobs at new stores the company plans to open.

The closing Macy’s stores are in Topeka, Kan.; Laurel, Md.; Parma, Ohio; Antioch, Tenn.; and Texas City, Texas. The Bloomingdale’s closures are in Atlanta; Oak Brook, Ill.; North Bethesda, Md.; and in the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn....

So sad.

Bizjournals serves up the facts for Ohio:

Ohio layoffs continued to rise last month, as the rest of the nation saw a drop.

Employers in Ohio announced 895 job cuts in December, more than double the 381 cuts in November....

_________

* A blast from the past ---Here is what John McCain's campaign had to say about Mitt Romney in the 2008 Republican primaries:
YouTube

Which Mitt are you getting today?????

***** How can anyone forget Mitt Romney's op ed piece in the NY Times (11/18/2008) which is titled, Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.
Mitt Romney seemed to be unable to have any empathy for Detroit and the autoworkers during the debate about the auto bailout. Even today, Romney seems to be lacking any understanding of what it is like to be without a job, or the difficulties of living on a fixed income. He just can't relate.

Stivers Staying Out of Columbus---Again

2012-01-05T00:02:00.000-05:00

* Once again, Republican Rep. Steve Stivers (OH-15th) met with his constituents-- that are not located in Franklin County. Stivers has made it a career of avoiding spending any amount of time with his constituents in Columbus and Franklin County. He'd just rather talk to the mostly white, conservative Republican voters in rural parts of his district than have to deal with real problems with people that live in more densely populated areas. Stivers moved his district office out of Columbus, to Hilliard, so that he wouldn't have to rub elbows with the diverse community of Columbus. In an article in the Wilmington News Journal, Stivers met with people in Clinton County, which will be part of the nearly drawn congressional district.

Here is a small excerpt from the Wilmington News Journal:

...A lot of the talk from the locals, particularly at the agriculture round table, was to the effect that they don’t want government to impede their opportunities, Stivers said.

An example is Steve Fricke, who oversees the Buckley Bros. grain elevator business. Fricke spoke about the Occupational Safety and Health Administration — called OSHA — which is the main federal agency charged with the enforcement of safety and health legislation for the workplace.

The cost to make the local grain elevator be in compliance with OSHA regulation on “lots of little things,” said Stivers, was $50,000.....

This is the kind of stuff Stivers and the Republicans promote--- overturning regulations that protect the safety of workers. Republicans believe that spending money on safety in the work place is a waste of money. They don't care if a few people are injured or die in grain elevators.

Working in grain elevators is very dangerous. Here are a couple of examples of accidents as noted by OSHA:

OSHA.gov news release (May 9, 2011):

TAFT, Texas – The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited Taft Grain & Elevator Co. with four willful and 16 serious violations following the death of an employee who became engulfed in grain at the company's work site in Taft.....

OHSA.gov news release (January 24, 2011):

MOUNT CARROLL, Ill. – The U.S. Department of Labor has fined Haasbach LLC in Mount Carroll and Hillsdale Elevator Co. in Geneseo and Annawan, Ill., following the deaths of three workers, including two teenagers. The workers were killed when they suffocated after being engulfed by grain.....

Stivers and the Republicans need to stop protecting business owners, corporations, and banks. Obviously, the Republicans don't care about people.

------

>>>> Thank you, President Obama, for appointing Ohio's own Richard Cordray as the nation's consumer "watchdog" today. Cordray is an honest, hardworking individual that will protect consumers from the greedy corporate b*#@%*ds.

Fracking and Earthquakes in Ohio

2012-01-04T09:27:00.000-05:00

* How many earthquakes in Ohio are enough for the Kasich administration to bring a permanent halt to drilling in Ohio? If the quakes were centered in Westerville, Ohio, near the Kasich private residence, would the fracking, waste water well drilling, and shale exploration stop? You betcha!!!

The RTCC had this press release:

Five shale gas drill sites have been closed in the US state of Ohio after a magnitude 4.0 earthquake struck over New Year, with calls for a full ban being raised.

Ohio Governor John Kasich, a strong supporter of the gas industry’s activity in the state, closed the wastewater well deemed responsible for the quake.

However, Democratic State Representative Robert Hagan has called for a hiatus on all fracking activity until further investigations “conclude it is safe”....

If you read the rest of the article, you'll learn why other locations have suspended fracking.

>>>> Once again, Marc Kovac, the Dix Capital Bureau Chief, finds a lot of unfinished business left by the Republican dominated state legislature. It also seems, according to the article, that Gov. Kasich is a little testy when reporters ask him about SB 5. Oh, my. Is someone a little thin-skinned?

HudsonHubTimes:

...Some of the bills showcased the deep partisan divide between the majority party and their Democratic counterparts. You can't review 2011 without mentioning the debacle that was Senate Bill 5, legislation that Gov. John Kasich wishes media types would stop rehashing.

"I know you folks are so fixated on this," he told reporters during a recent year-end speech and Q & A session....

The unfinished/stalled legislation listed by Kovac includes: House Bill 108, House Bill 61, House Bill 136, Senate Bill 165. Check out the HudsonHubTimes to find out what each of those bills might be important to notice.

Do Ohioans have a short memory?

2012-01-03T18:50:00.000-05:00

* Hey, all you union people in Ohio! Remember how we all united with you and helped you beat back SB 5? Are you still with us or have you gone back to the Kasich Republican Party? Are you willing to support a Republican presidential candidate that will push similar legislation against collective bargaining?

Well, Republicans in Hamilton County think that the "We Are Ohio" members and their supporters have a short memory. All those police and firefighters that worked to defeat SB 5, are you going to run back to the backstabbers in the Republican Party? Are you going to vote for anti-worker Republicans?

Politics Extra@ Cincinnati.com:

...Readers of the Enquirer won’t learn anything they don’t know. Republicans may have “overreached” last year with Senate Bill 5; municipalities are struggling with looming cuts to the estate taxes and local government fund; and Republicans like Greg Hartmann say Obama will lose.

Most Republicans in Hamilton contend that outrage over the antiunion law will fade. The election will pivot, they say, on discontent with the economy and ebbing satisfaction with Mr. Obama’s performance, especially among moderate Republicans.

“The newness and the excitement are just not there,” says Greg Hartmann, a Republican Hamilton County commissioner who is backing Mitt Romney for president. “Republicans who voted for Obama just aren’t going to do it again.”

Is Greg Hartmann right? Are you disinterested in an agenda for workers and the middle class?

We're hoping that you will stand with the Democrats and the people that continue to support you. We'll all be watching you to see if you back Kasich and the Republicans or President Obama and the Democrats. Will you stand with corporations and the Republicans or with middle class workers and President Obama?

-----------

* Unless you live in northeastern Ohio, you probably didn't know that that part of the state had been experiencing earthquakes. With the most recent earthquake near Youngstown, you wonder if the state has tried to cover up some of the previous episodes. What do you think? Is all this fracking and drilling worth our health and safety?

______

While doing some grocery shopping this afternoon, I was surprised to see packages of frozen vegetables from China. Of course, I did not buy them because I do have some concerns about the safety and quality of food products from China. How is it possible that some markets are not supporting American farmers and companies? Why are we importing vegetables from overseas if we have a plentiful supply here? It might be time to address the managers of these stores and question their choice of suppliers for food products.

Kasich: Lame Duck???

2012-01-02T20:13:00.000-05:00

* An online poll at ONN shows that Ohioans continue to give low approval ratings to Ohio's Republican Gov. John Kasich:

Poll

I'm not surprised. Kasich and the Ohio GOP misjudged voters when they passed SB 5. The smackdown given by Ohio's voters has made Kasich nearly a lame duck, even with three more years left in his term. His exaggerations about job creation and over use of the state planes has demonstrated his enormous ego and his lack of contact with real people. He just doesn't care.

In the news.....

2012-01-02T09:15:00.000-05:00

* Progressive talk radio has returned to central Ohio this morning on AM 1580 WVKO.
Set your radio dial or listen online.

* Gov. John Kasich appears to be avoiding Cleveland's SCLC, a well-known group that has promoted civil rights for decades. Details are at Cleveland.com. When I read it I couldn't help but remember when Kasich told State Sen. Nina Turner, "I don't need your people."

* Insurancenewsnet has this little clip from the Akron Beacon Journal about Republican Josh Mandel:

...In his rush, interestingly enough, Mandel missed the deadline for filing his financial disclosure papers with the Senate. More, he couldn't find time to speak in Akron, telling the Press Club no thanks, seven months after the invitation arrived. If he did speak? He would need to elevate his game. What distinguishes Mandel the Senate candidate so far, beyond his formidable fund raising, has been his lack of readiness, unsteady on the issues, throwing wild punches, in need of the seasoning a full term in the treasurer's office would provide.....

Mandel is not ready for primetime.

Earthquake in Ohio?

2012-01-01T15:14:00.000-05:00

While you may not have been paying attention, people in McDonald, Ohio, had an earthquake on Saturday.
PlainDealer:

The strongest of at least 11 earthquakes to rattle an area near Youngstown in 2011 hit Saturday afternoon....

.....Within an hour of the quake, State Sen. Bob Hagan, Democrat of Youngstown, called for a statewide moratorium on injection wells used in fracking, a procedure in which pressurized fluid is injected into a rock formation to harvest natural gas.

But Jim Zehringer, the director of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, said the earthquakes were likely related to the injection of brine wastewater into the ground near a previously unknown fault line. The wastewater comes from fracking drilling operations....

From USA Today:

...A 4.0 magnitude quake Saturday afternoon in McDonald, outside of Youngstown, was the 11th in a series of minor earthquakes in area, many of which have struck near the Youngstown injection well. The quake caused no serious injuries or property damage, Zehringer said....

....Patti Gorcheff, who lives about 15 miles from the epicenter, said her dogs started barking inexplicably Saturday and the ornaments on her Christmas tree began to shake. Her husband thought he heard the sound of some sort of blast....

...There are 177 similar injection wells around the state, and the Youngstown-area well has been the only site with seismic activity, the department said. Zehringer said that to shut down all of the wells because of seismic activity near one would be an overreaction.

Jim Zehringer might feel differently if he lived in the immediate area of the Ohio earthquakes. I'm sure Ohioans, especially those in northeastern Ohio, are sooooo glad to have Zehringer explaining the causes of the earthquake. So far, I've not seen any educational background that would explain Zehringer's "expert" opinion on the cause of this seismic activity. Seems to me that Zehringer is just doing as he has been told by the Kasich administration.

In case you might be interested, Arkansas had a large number of earthquakes from 2010-2011. An NPR report from 2/18/11, had these startling statistics:

There was a 3.2-magnitude earthquake at 6:18 a.m. local time this morning near Greenbrier, Ark., the U.S. Geological Survey reports. That's in the north central part of the state....

...Since Sunday, USGS says, there have been more than 50 earthquakes in that area. And, local station KATV reported yesterday, there have been more than 700 in the past six months.

Will Ohio have a similar number of earthquakes now that the Kasich administration has put down the welcome mat for oil and gas exploration in the state?

More Ohio Job Losses...

2011-12-31T10:46:00.000-05:00

* There will be more layoffs in Ohio with the closing of Kmart and Sears stores. The list of Ohio stores that will close is at CNN (h/t to DailyJobCuts) and it includes:

Kmart- Chagrin Falls

Kmart- Springfield

Kmart -Reynolds Rd., Toledo

Kmart- Manhattan Blvd., Toledo

Kmart- Medina

Kmart- Hamilton Rd., Columbus

These closings have not been posted on the WARN list at the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services.

Good News for Central Ohio

2011-12-30T19:47:00.000-05:00

* Just in time for the big election of 2012, the people of central Ohio will have some old friends back in town on the radio.

****

Progressive talk radio is coming back to central Ohio!!!!!!

~~~~ Hooray! ~~~~

***** ****** *****

Radio-info.com:

Until recently, WVKO has been LMA'd by the lay-Catholic St. Gabriel Radio, and that group has just acquired its own station. In mid-December, St. Gabriel Radio closed on its $2 million purchase of WOSU-AM at 820 from Ohio State. Starting January 2, WVKO owner Bernard Ohio LLC puts this lineup on 1580: Stephanie Miller, Ed Schultz, Thom Hartmann, Mike Malloy, Bill Press and Leslie Marshall. The website, including the talent schedule, is here......

Set your dial for AM 1580 for January 2nd.

How did Stivers vote???

2011-12-30T11:31:00.000-05:00

* It looks like some Ohio Republicans are in the hot seat for their recent votes.
AthensNews:

Three freshman Republican congressmen who either represent Athens County now, or are likely to after the election next November, are defending their votes last week that critics say nearly resulted in a middle-class tax hike for 2012.

All three were among the Tea Party House Republicans who on Dec. 21 voted down the U.S. Senate's two-month extension of the 2 percent "payroll tax holiday" (to continue at 4.2 percent rather than 6.2 percent). They include Reps. Bob Gibbs of Lakeville, 18^th District, Bill Johnson of Marietta, 6^th District, and Steve Stivers of Upper Arlington, who will be representing most of Athens County in the new 15^th District.....

...Rep. Stivers, whose newly drawn 15^th House District, will include the great majority of Athens County, told the Dispatch that notwithstanding the frustration of governing, "I think when you talk to most of the freshmen, they feel like they're making a difference, and we feel like we've had an impact on Washington."

Stivers thinks he is making a difference? Really? Where are the jobs? Why is Stivers against President Obama's infrastructure employment bill that would put hundreds of thousands of people back to work? Why is Stivers more concerned about overturning the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill than keeping middle class tax breaks?

The sad thing is that Stivers is not working for voters in the 15th district. Stivers is doing his best for his contributors and backers---- bankers, insurance companies, Koch Brothers, utility companies, and their CEO's. It is their agenda that he is following. In the end, Stivers is also protecting his own net worth of between $400,000+ to $1.3 million (see OpenSecrets for details). No wonder he isn't doing anything to help the unemployed and the poor---- he just doesn't get it.

_____

* Gov. John Kasich seems reluctant to choose his new favorite Republican Presidential candidate. (Could it be that Kasich only picks losers?)

Vindy.com:

....Kasich was an early backer of Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and reportedly urged New Jersey Chris Christie to run, too.

But neither of those officeholders are in the race, and Kasich told reporters recently he did not have plans to publicly support other individual candidates during the primary season....

In the Vindicator article, authored by Marc Kovac, Kasich continues to compare Ohio to Florida. I have no desire for Ohio to have a government and tax policy like Florida. The schools in Florida have overcrowded classrooms and huge problems with funding. A lot of the jobs in Florida pay close to the minimum wage. If Kasich loves Florida so much he should resign and move there.

Several years ago, voters in Florida passed a law to reduce class size. However, according to an article in the Miami Herald, districts are being fined now for not getting their classes down to the state maximum. (How can a school district that already lost some state funding come up with millions of dollars in fines to pay the state???) With the push for charter schools by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, less and less money is being allocated to fund Florida public schools, which educate a majority of students.

_____

Florida school districts could face fines as high as $66 million for failing to comply with the class size amendment.Broward County Public Schools is facing the largest penalty, followed by Miami-Dade, which could have to pay about $9 million. Duval and Pasco county school districts are facing fines of $6.8 million and $4 million, respectively.In all, 35 districts were found to be out of compliance with the law, which specifies the amount of students allowed in core classes. Districts will have an opportunity to appeal and have their fines reduced.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/24/2560281/35-fla-districts-face-possible.html#storylink=cpy

Is anyone else just sick of the Republican presidential candidates? Romney's cockiness and expensive lifestyle doesn't convince me that he understands why Republican policies have damaged this country. Romney's business experience resulted in a lot of people losing jobs and pensions while he made millions for himself and his buddies. If that is the way Romney would conduct himself as President, I'm against the "save the rich" philosophy.

*****

The Columbus Monthly has a little blurb about Josh Mandel's problems with the truth. Ha!

**************************

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Peace

Good Health

Love

********

Looking Back

2011-12-29T10:46:00.000-05:00

This year, we've learned a lot about everything. We've learned that---

--= Gov. John Kasich, William Batchelder, Shannon Jones, and other Ohio Republicans are not interested in helping Ohio's middle class. They would, however, give as much state money as they could to corporations and CEO's.

--- A huge group of Ohio's middle class workers organized and fought back against the Ohio GOP, Kasich, and SB 5. The Republicans and their anti-collective bargaining legislation were defeated by the citizens of Ohio.

--- Josh Mandel, current Ohio Treasurer, decided very early after he was sworn into office (in January 2011) that he didn't like his new job. Now Republican Mandel, supported by far right Tea Party supporters like Sen. Jim DeMint, and other conservatives, is a candidate for U.S. Senate. Mandel has yet to reveal his goals and views because he is more interested in attacking the defender of the middle class in the U.S. Senate, Sen. Sherrod Brown. (Mandel did support SB 5: see YouTube and JournalNews.)

--- Kasich did his best to ignore and tear apart all legislation supported by former Gov. Ted Strickland. As a result of Kasich allowing Strickland's ban on exotic animals to expire, 56 exotic animals from a Zanesville farm were released and later killed to protect the public (see the Dispatch). Kasich had to backpedal his anti-regulation mantra after the public and the media demanded action to restrict the ownership of exotic animals.

--- People in Ohio's 15th congressional district learned how far to the right Republican Rep. Steve Stivers was willing to go when he voted to do whatever he could to help his banker friends by repealing piece by piece of the banking regulations put into law falling the Wall Street disaster of 2008. We still have not seen any job creation legislation coming from Stivers.

--- How can we forget the total failure of Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives John Boehner? Boehner continues to cave into the demands of his far right Tea Party Republicans and the 1%. Face it. Republicans might be able to get elected, but they are uninterested in helping a majority of Americans.

--- Donald Trump is concerned about Donald Trump.

--- John Kasich like to use state planes to fly as often as possible.

--- Rules and laws are for others- not Republicans.

More later-----

Truth?

2011-12-28T00:18:00.000-05:00

Now you know......

Ohio Senate President Tom Niehaus was recognized for something he said that rated a "Pants On Fire" award by PolitiFact. Niehaus made comments that union people had done damage to the Statehouse and PolitiFact looked at his claims:

"Unfortunately, we have documented instances where people defecated in the building. We have documented instances where they have written on the walls," Niehaus said. "This is the people’s house. I used to say treat it like it’s yours. Well, I don’t want it to be like it’s theirs if that’s the way they treat their own home."

Some union groups responded immediately, denying that a group featuring police officers, firefighters, teachers, nurses and others unionized workers would commit such vile acts in the storied building.

PolitiFact Ohio looked into Niehaus' claim. It was chosen as one of it's favorite items from the year.

Niehaus and Batchelder (see my previous post below) are willing to do anything to win----even tell lies.

>>> Here is an update on a lawsuit against White Hat Management, Ohio's largest charter schools owner. Dispatch:

The 19-month fight over whether Ohio’s largest for-profit manager of charter schools must share detailed financial records could be coming to a close.

Franklin County Common Pleas Judge John F. Bender has decided he can rule on the case, and he reiterated an order he made in August that White Hat Management release records showing how the charter-school operator spends the millions of tax dollars it gets each year.

Bender had halted the case last month to determine whether the court had the authority to preside over the lawsuit. On Friday, Bender stated that the court had jurisdiction.....

If our tax dollars are going to charter schools, their refusal to detail their financial records is a slap in all our faces. What makes charter school owners think they are above the law and the courts? Republicans have made it too easy for charter schools to operate and get away with substandard results.

After the holidays.....

2011-12-27T11:40:00.000-05:00

I hope you all had peaceful Christmas and Hanukkah celebrations. I'm recuperating from overindulging in too many cookies and candy.

**** As Gov. John Kasich brags about all the money he has spent this year, more evidence in pouring in about how his administration is wasting our tax dollars.

WLWT:

Ohio Gov. John Kasich doesn't live at the state's official governor's residence, though taxpayers paid to fix the mansion's roof and to keep cable running at the home this year.

The Columbus Dispatch reports that $438,720 was spent in 2011 to staff, maintain and repair the mansion in Bexley, just outside of Columbus....

There must be a cheaper way to maintain the home while no one lives there.

*** Republican Rep. Steve Stivers (OH-15th) is a lot more conservative than some voters thought he'd be in Congress. That's My Congress shows his leanings:

...Rep. Stivers's Conservative Action Score: 55
The Conservative Action Score is calculated by compiling a series of observably conservative roll call votes and bill cosponsorships in the 112th Congress and comparing Steve Stivers's behavior against that conservative standard:

Disregard for constitutional protections of American civil liberty
Secrecy and exclusion of citizens from government
Support for discriminatory policy
The symbolic denigration and practical undermining of science and education in America
Active harm to the environment or passive allowance for environmental destruction
Pursuit of further advantage for those in America who are already its richest
Dismissal of peaceful possibilities and obeiscance to the military-industrial complex

A score of 55 means that Representative Stivers has taken 55% of the possible conservative actions identified on the That's My Congress scorecard....

Why are some Republican lawmakers working to protect bankers, corporations and polluters? Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.

>>> Progress Ohio has the latest tall tale from Republican House Speaker William Batchelder and it is filed in the "Liar Wire" category. Does Batchelder think people are so stupid that no one will check his false claims? We have a few relatives in Canada and not one has said anything negative about the Canadian health care system.

* * Best bumpersticker I've seen recently:

I love Ohio

Too bad our governor is a douchebag

Thank you, President Obama!

2011-12-23T11:00:00.000-05:00

This just in....
Because of efforts by the President, House Republicans and John Boehner have caved and just passed the payroll tax cuts. Thank you, President Obama for standing with all Americans and against the Republicans.

>>>> Is Ohio's Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor in the hot seat????
10TV:

Gov. Kasich said Thursday that he wants Lieutenant Governor Mary Taylor to repay the state for use of a plane and a state lawmaker calls for an investigation, but Taylor said she already paid the state back in full.

State Representative Matt Lundy (D) of Elyria called on the state auditor to get to the bottom of four flights taken by Taylor, 10 Investigates' Paul Aker reported.

The Columbus Dispatch first reported Taylor flew in the state King Air aircraft to her hometown near the Akron-Canton airport. Taylor reimbursed the state more than $1,000 for the flights.....

Kasich managed to keep Taylor out of his way, but now is he trying to get her out of office?

**** I cannot even stand to hear Newt Gingrich's voice. Ewwwwwwww. His pomposity is nauseating. Did you know that a caller into Limbaugh's show asked about having a "homewrecker in the White House" if Newt was the nominee? (see DailyKos) Just remember folks, Gingrich wrecked his marriages too.

Mitt Romney has changed his mind more times than anyone I know. He has been for and against nearly every issue. The way he treated his dog is also very troubling (see SNOPES).

> What has political analyst Charlie Cook done to his hair? (He is on MSNBC right now.) Is that a comb over, new hair color, or a hair piece??? It is frightening!

* EnvironmentAmerica at Capwiz has the score cards for Sen. Sherrod Brown (Democrat) and Sen. Rob Portman (Republican):

Ohio Senators	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	Score
Sherrod Brown (D-OH)	+	+	+	+	-	+	+	-	+	+	+	81%
Rob Portman (R-OH)	-	-	-	-	-	-	+	+	+	-	-	27%

Legend

Y Voted Yes (No position by organization)
N Voted No (No position by organization)
+ Voted With Us
- Voted Against Us
P Voted Present
NV Did Not Vote
I Not in Office
S Speaker (Typically the speaker does not participate in roll call votes.)

Why does Portman hate the environment??? Steve Stivers is in the same ballpark as Portman. Republican Rep. Steve Stivers (OH-15) has a horrible environmental record. Stivers voted 29 times against the goals of EnvironmentAmerica.

The Good, The Bad, and the Really Shameful

2011-12-22T11:38:00.000-05:00

**** THE GOOD ****

The Nation magazine presentS The Progressive Honor Roll of 2011:

...MOST VALUABLE SENATOR: Sherrod Brown

Faced with what was supposed to be a tough re-election race in 2012, Brown could have taken the easy way out when Ohio Governor John Kasich signed legislation attacking the collective-bargaining rights of public employees. Instead, Brown leapt into the fight, speaking and rallying with the workers of Ohio and even turning what had been his campaign website into a vehicle for the movement to overturn the antilabor law. It was a gutsy move, but it paid off. Brown’s poll numbers soared as Kasich’s plummeted. Brown threw himself into the successful campaign to overturn Ohio’s law in a November referendum. At the same time, he was fighting in Washington against flawed free-trade deals that shutter US factories while failing to bring prosperity to foreign lands. Brown, a leader in the push to address poverty and disease in developing countries, is anything but an isolationist. He’s an internationalist who understands the need for global resistance to policies that privilege corporations over workers from Cleveland to Chongqing. In 2011 he linked those struggles more effectively than any other senator....

Ohio's middle class must remember that Sen. Sherrod Brown stood with them. When the Ohio GOP and Kasich targeted them, Sen. Sherrod Brown worked with and supported We Are Ohio and the middle class. Stand with Sen. Sherrod Brown now and in 2012. He has your back.

There is one more person from Ohio that The Nation recognizes in their 2011 list:

MOST VALUABLE STATE SENATOR: Nina Turner

“An apology! An apology! I want an apology!” announced Turner, a Cleveland Democrat, as thousands cheered the defeat of Governor Kasich’s antilabor legislation. Appearing on Ed Schultz’s MSNBC broadcast from Columbus on the night of Ohio’s historic November 8 vote, Turner was every bit as energetic and every bit as unyielding as she had been throughout the long campaign to defend the rights of public sector workers. Kasich “owes Ohioans an apology for not working on the No. 1 issue, which is jobs!” said Turner. While many Washington representatives disappointed in 2011, state legislators stepped up as champions for labor rights, the public sector and economic justice. Turner wasn’t the only smart, passionate legislator to take the national stage, but the breadth of her agenda stood out. As she was standing up for workers’ rights, Turner was also taking the lead on an array of economic development, voting rights and social justice issues....

Nina Turner is an incredible fighter for all Ohioans. She has demonstrated her strength and courage in facing Kasich and his policies. Nina Turner made us proud.

----------

*THE BAD:
The House Republicans have demonstrated that they will do anything to thwart the recovery of our country. With John Boehner and the House Republicans refusing to even vote on the compromise bill on a two month extension of the pay roll tax cut that was passed in the Senate, Americans are horrified. What will people do if they lose, at minimum, an additional $1,0000 per year?

The House Republicans wanted a one year extension of the pay roll tax cut this August, but they were against it because........ President Obama was for it. Now, the House Republicans have decided not to vote for the two month extension of the tax cut because
(1) it was pushed by more moderate Republicans in the Senate,
(2) they'd rather create financial disarray than help people,
(3) they now want the one year pay roll tax cut they were against (see NYTimes and JoplinGlobe), and most importantly,
(4) they are against anything that President Obama wants and Americans want.

John Boehner and his House Republicans want your taxes to go up because they have more important things to do than cut middle class pay roll taxes.

**********

****The Really Shameful:

Republican Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner is the #1 putz on his remarks made about the First Lady Michelle Obama.

MediaBistro:

...In his story that published early this morning, Bice reports on the pub’s No Quarter Blog that Sensenbrenner “took several swipes” at the first lady. He sources Ann Marsh-Meigs, a 72-year-old retiree, who was on hand and offended by the congressman’s remarks.

An excerpt: “He then talked about how different first ladies have had different projects – Laura Bush and literacy – and he named two or three others,” Marsh-Meigs said in an interview last week. “And then he said, ‘And Michelle Obama, her project is obesity. And look at her big butt.’

Sensenbrenner spokeswoman Amanda Infield reiterated to Bice that her boss plans to phone the first lady’s office to apologize.

(Of course you remember rotund Republican Rep. Jim "I want my gavel" Sensenbrenner and his crass ending to a committee hearing when he took his gavel, shut off the microphones and the lights before witnesses called by Democrats could testify.)

Shame on Sensenbrenner. Who voted for this bozo????

This is Kasich's job creation?????

2011-12-21T22:41:00.000-05:00

* More layoffs in Ohio----ODJFS:

12/20/2011 -Park Farms---Canton (Stark County)- Number Affected: 225 .....

* Republican Rep. Steve Stivers (OH-15th) seems to be doing a lot of legislative work that protects banks, bankers, stockbrokers, insurance companies, and cement manufacturers, but doesn't necessarily help the consumer.

Lexology:

On December 8, 2011 the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Insurance, Housing and Community Opportunity approved legislation eliminating the Federal Insurance Office’s (“FIO”) and the Office of Financial Research’s (“OFR”) authority to subpoena information from insurance companies. H.R. 3559 (the Insurance Data Protection Act), was introduced by Representative Steve Stivers (R-OH) and was approved by a party-line vote of 7-5, with each Republican on the Subcommittee voting in favor.

The legislation still needs to be approved by the House and Senate; however, the Subcommittee’s approval is perceived as a step in the right direction by those in the insurance industry who have expressed concern over encroaching federal regulation, typically reserved for the states......

Stivers is the protector for big business. Why is he trying to prevent the federal government from issuing subpoenas? Aren't there some insurance companies that routinely cheat people, deny them their rights to settlements, and even discriminate against certain groups? Why is Stivers protecting insurance companies instead of consumers?

>>>>> Plunderbund has exposed the latest plan by Gov. John Kasich to use your tax dollars to ruin our schools---- Teach for America.

Don't Blame Me---I didn't vote for these GOPers!

2011-12-21T15:49:00.001-05:00

* The new redistricting boundaries drawn by Ohio Republicans has received a lot of negative attention from non-partisan groups and others interested in fair elections.

DaytonDailyNews:

Montgomery and Greene counties are part of one of just three “competitive” U.S. House districts created by the new congressional map signed into law last week by Gov. John Kasich, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the Ohio Campaign for Accountable Redistricting...

....The other districts all had majority part indexes higher than 55 percent. Twelve districts favor Republicans and four favor Democrats.

Dan Tokaji, a professor at the Moritz College of Law at the Ohio State University, called the map a “disgrace to our democracy” because of political gerrymandering....

Considering recent Republican behavior in the state and nationally, Republicans just don't seem to care about average citizens, working people, the poor, students, and the elderly. Republicans have demonstrated they will go to any lengths, lie, and smear their opponents, just to win. When Republicans win elections, they seem incapable and uninterested in doing anything that helps the majority of people. All you have to do is look at the actions of the House Republicans and their refusal to continue tax cuts for average Americans.

In a related story.......

ChicagoTribune:

In Congress' tense drama over how to extend payroll tax cuts for 160 million Americans, it may be the most intriguing subplot: whether Republican House Speaker John Boehner is losing his grip on members of his own party.

Boehner and many Republicans scoff at the idea.

But the House's rejection on Tuesday of a bipartisan Senate plan to extend the tax cuts for two months has raised questions about Boehner's efforts to lead compromise-resistant House Republicans who have helped ratchet up the tension in Congress......

Just a few days before the screw up in the House, Boehner appeared to be willing to go forward with the deal from the Senate. Then the Tea Party Republicans, like spoiled children, demanded that Boehner refuse the compromise. Apparently, Boehner is being pulled around by his nose by the most junior members of his caucus---the Tea Party Republicans. Boehner is not providing leadership. Under Nancy Pelosi, things got done in the House. Now with Boehner----not so much.

Keeping Watch

2011-12-20T11:57:00.000-05:00

* Although Gov. John Kasich may say he will protect the people and the environment with the fracking taking place in the state, working class people in Ohio know that Kasich cannot be trusted.
Business-Journal:

Gov. John Kasich said Monday "tough and clear regulations" will be put in place governing the emerging shale gas industry in Ohio, and stressed the industry's impact could reach statewide, not just in the eastern part of the state.....

....Although Kasich, early in his remarks, attempted to distance himself and the work being done by his administration from politics, the Ohio Democratic Party reacted to his press event by issuing a statement that charged that Kasich has "alienated and vilified Ohioans who disagreed with him" rather than bringing the people of the state together to solve its problems.

"On Election Night, voters were asked if they supported the direction in which John Kasich was taking our state, and they answered with a resounding 'no,' " said Seth Bringman, the Ohio Democratic Party's communications director. "From his attacks on workers' rights to voting rights to women's rights, John Kasich has not stood with Ohio's middle class in the past year."

Past behavior is an excellent predictor of future behavior. Middle class families, teachers, fire fighters, police officers, nurses, and public employees know how that no matter what Kasich says, he will continue to favor corporations over people.

**** The Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives will go home, enjoy their homes over the holidays, and continue to get their pay and benefits. The Senate is adjourned until the new year and cannot be called back. The House, under the Republican leadership, is now throwing a tantrum and wants things changed in the original bill. While people would have their taxes increase, unemployment benefits would end, Medicare access to doctors would be in danger while the Republicans refuse to have an up or down vote on the tax cut bill.

Contact Boehner's office---(202) 225-6205 (202) 225-0704 fax
Contact Cantor's office---(202) 225-4000 or (804) 747-4073 or (540) 825-8960 or
(202) 225-2815

>>>>>> Even though Josh Mandel was due to file his financial disclosure form on May 15, 2011, he just filed it, according to CanadianBusiness:

....Democratic spokesman Justin Barasky said Mandel released the report only to the media, not to the public, on Friday — and at a time when it could easily get lost in the shuffle.

"For nearly six months Josh Mandel broke the law and illegally refused to disclose his personal finances despite every other major Senate candidate in the country being in compliance," he said. "And now he continues his evasion tactics by filing a report still not yet available to the public on the weekend before the biggest election in the country."

.....Mandel has not yet officially announced his candidacy for the office, though he has been consistently fundraising for the bid....

Isn't that interesting? Mandel can collect money but hasn't formally announced? That sounds a little shady to me.

Mandel is still hiding from the press. He must be afraid that his extreeeeeeeeeeeeeemely conservative views that are pro-tea party, pro-corporations, and anti-Middle Class will scare the voters away. Mandel's super secret fundraising trips around the country to conservative groups is bringing in money, but he has refused to actually discuss anything. He continues to attack Sen. Sherrod Brown, but Mandel refuses to share his views.

I'd like to see how much time he actually spends in his office as Ohio Treasurer.

Below is Mandel on another fundraising trip to DC: YouTube

Isn't it curious that it took Mandel sooooo long to complete his personal financial disclosure but he had plenty of time to travel from one end of the country to the other to do his fundraising?

Speaking of people being out of their offices-------- Where is Ohio Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor? Is she actually performing any of her duties of office or as Director of Insurance? Is she working in an undisclosed location?

Republicans Just Don't Get It

2011-12-19T10:14:00.000-05:00

* The Fremont News-Messenger gets it, but Gov. John Kasich doesn't.

News-Messenger:

The Kasich administration is touting a big reduction in the state's unemployment rate, a drop from 9 percent in October to 8.5 percent last month.....

.....the labor force -- the number of people age 16 and older who are working or actively seeking work, excluding the retired, students, prisoners and a few others -- declined by 22,000. That's the largest month-to-month drop in the labor force since that same date, July 1983, when it was chopped by 69,000.

There were 49,000 more Ohioans working in May of this year, yet the unemployment rate was higher than it is today because there also were 61,000 more people in the labor force, statistics from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services show....

Many people have given up looking for a job and those numbers are not reflected in the unemployment rate. Many, many people who've sent out hundreds of resumes, filled out online applications, went to job fairs, and directly applied at the human resources departments of companies, have given up looking for work. Companies don't even show enough courtesy to say thank you for your interest, but they will not hire an applicant.

* As Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner said he would not be going along with the Senate bill on the payroll tax break, he wore his expensive suit, designer shoes, and a suntan he got while playing golf on some private golf club. Oh, John Boehner, you have failed to help Americans.

Boehner and the Republicans have been sitting around doing absolutely nothing. People do not have jobs and the Republicans seem to be okay with that. While they pass bills with words that cut regulations, restrict the office of the Treasury, cut paperwork for bankers, destroy bank reform, pass more bills restricting abortions (even though the bills have previously been on the books), etc., etc., they haven't created any jobs.

Boehner, Cantor, and the House Republicans are a truly disgusting lot. While Paul Ryan sips his expensive wine, in some exclusive restaurant, families are trying to figure out how to put together enough money to keep the heat on in their homes. The Republicans don't care about you- especially if you are poor.

>>>>>> Now for more arrogance, I give you Mitt Romney-----

HuffingtonPost:

....Fox host Chris Wallace pressed Romney on his support for the Ryan budget, suggesting that Ryan's plans to eliminate $700 billion in aid to states, including $127 billion in food stamps, would make Romney vulnerable to Democratic attacks in the general election. Romney said that he would help the poor by growing the economy, and suggested that cutting government benefits for the poor wouldn't cause problems.

"Cutting welfare spending dramatically, I don't think will hurt the poor," Romney said....

(This is from the guy that didn't understand Medicaid and Medicare.)

Romney wouldn't be hurt. Are we seeing Romney's "Western White House" design? Consider his plans in California, SignonSanDiego:

...Romney has filed an application with the city to bulldoze his 3,009-square-foot, single-story home at 311 Dunemere Dr. and replace it with a two-story, 11,062-square-foot structure. No date has been set to consider the proposed coastal development and site development permits, which must be approved by the city.

The former governor of Massachusetts purchased the home three years ago. According to a description from the listing agent, the Spanish-style residence at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac is sophisticated and understated in its décor, “offering complete privacy and unsurpassed elegance.”

People that are poor and having difficulty feeding their families are not thinking about "elegance."

Sky King???

2011-12-18T23:02:00.000-05:00

* Gov. John Kasich may have left his Wall Street job to become governor, but he still enjoys some high-flying perks of the rich life. With state funded planes at his disposal, Kasich has used the planes as though they were taxis.

Dispatch:

...However, as governor, Kasich flew on state aircraft 46 times from Jan. 10 through August of this year at a cost to taxpayers of $60,320.50, according to the latest-available records provided to The Dispatch. In all of last year, Strickland used the state’s planes 17 times at a cost of $27.188.22....

...The state planes are also available to Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, who has flown on four separate occasions this year. While the total cost of those flights was not immediately available, records and Kasich’s office confirmed that Taylor was either picked up or dropped off at the Akron-Canton Airport for three of the trips. That airport is about 6 miles from her home in Uniontown....

Let me remind you that the above mentioned report on Kasich's flying only pertains to those flight up to August. He has continued to fly in the months since.

Kasich is flying on our tax money. It is a luxury to fly into an Ohio city for a meeting, but it is not a necessity. Taylor should not be using state planes at all. With Kasich's budget cutbacks for schools, care for the elderly, programs for the homeless and poor, there is no need for the Governor of Ohio to be using an expensive means of travel when others are going without food, shelter, and jobs. The only people that seem to be making out are the corporations that are getting Kasich's corporate welfare and the staff members who work with Kasich and do political work on state time. Where are the jobs?

Appalling

2011-12-15T15:28:00.000-05:00

* An article at the NYTimes might raise suspicion about how charter schools operate and try to influence the public and lawmakers. It seems that more people are realizing that these charter/virtual schools only benefit the owners and investors. Children are the real losers because teachers are overloaded with students and children rarely make progress. Here is an excerpt from the article at NYTimes:

...Former State Representative Stephen Dyer became suspicious when members of the benignly named organization My School, My Choice paraded through his northeastern Ohio district carrying signs attacking him: “Why Won’t Rep. Stephen Dyer let parents choose the best education for their kids?”

The protest was prompted by questions Mr. Dyer had raised over the state’s financing formula for charter and online schools. The group describes itself as a coalition of parents, teachers and employees of the schools. But Mr. Dyer said that his wife questioned the people carrying the signs and found out they were paid temp agency workers...

If paid temp workers were used to protest against Stephen Dyer, were temp workers used on any other demonstrations? How much were these "demonstrators" paid? Did the charter school group use state money to pay for the "demonstrators" who appeared downtown Columbus in 2009? Do the pro-charter school organizations regularly hire temp agency workers for demonstrators???? Are they misusing state money?

>>> An editorial at Ohio.com wonders why Republican Josh Mandel, current Ohio Treasurer, doesn't have time to meet with the Akron Press Club.
Ohio.com:

Josh Mandel took several months beyond the required deadline to file his financial disclosure statement as a candidate for the U.S. Senate. He now has taken roughly as long to say no to the Akron Press Club, declining an invitation that Republicans and Democrats long have accepted, a chance to talk about his candidacy and take questions from people in the audience.

The refusal is cheeky given recent events in the emerging campaign, the state treasurer for 11 months challenging Sherrod Brown, the Democratic incumbent. Mandel has been hurling wild charges, most recently accusing Brown of siding with “fringe elements” (the Athens County commissioners?) in wanting to take care concerning oil and gas drilling in the Wayne National Forest.....

...The refusal is all the more galling in light of the Mandel schedule. The past six months he has been raising campaign money in Honolulu, San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Washington. No time for a luncheon talk at the Press Club in Akron?

Mandel has no time to work with local press, but he is willing to go anywhere to collect campaign money from big machers and right wing blowhards who want nothing more than to destroy Social Security, Medicare, and the middle class.

Ohio Republicans Push An Unfunded, Right Wing, Mandate

2011-12-13T23:58:00.000-05:00

* Ohio's Republicans are pushing their right wing agenda regarding the teaching of history in schools. The Republicans and Gov. Kasich have already taken away money for schools so they could give more to charters and corporations. Now teachers will be forced to teach "originalism" for history.

Dispatch:

....Legislators engaged in an extensive debate today over a bill that would require students in grades 4-12 to be taught the original texts of the Declaration of Independence, Northwest Ordinance and the U.S. and state constitutions. Starting in high school, more social-studies time would be dedicated to American history and government classes, which would have to include study of the documents.

It also would require that, by July 1, 2014, at least 25 percent of questions on new end-of-course exams for American history and government relate to the founding documents. The State Board of Education would be ordered to develop the new standards by July 1, 2012.....

.....“ By teaching the Constitution without teaching the whole truth, this is where we come into problems,”n said Rep. Clayton Luckie, D-Dayton. “Three-fifths of a human being; women not able to vote. ... You teach it all. When you leave parts out, you let individuals put their own thoughts into that and twist why things happened in our history.”

Pushing this type of study, will help Republicans eliminate why certain groups were given rights. Does this mean that there will be no discussion of Women's Rights, Civil Rights, Child Labor, integration, voters rights, etc.?

Alternet suggests that this type of instruction is being supported by right wingers:

....Originalist constitutional theory developed during the Reagan years as a critique of activist judges. Its theorists argued that a jurisprudence focused on the original intent of the Founders would serve as a means of limiting the discretion of judges. This theory proved controversial from the start and was subjected to a number of withering criticisms. One of the many problems with the theory stemmed from its shaky historical foundations. Simply put, the Founders did not speak with a single voice on most constitutional questions......

......“New Originalism” has grown over the last decade, largely spurred by right-wing scholars, judges, and generous support from the Federalist Society, the wealthy conservative legal group that has become a farm team for conservative judges and academics. In contrast to traditional originalism, new originalism emerged at a time when the Supreme Court was dominated by a conservative majority, as it is today. The goal of new originalism is not to constrain judges, but to empower them to further the agenda of conservatives. (A few liberals have embraced a version of this theory, hoping to use it to revive and expand aspects of the Fourteenth Amendment, but this is a small minority within the originalist movement.) For right-wing scholars and judges, new originalism serves as a type of constitutional camouflage. It allows “conservatives” to create their own living constitution and advance a form of judicial activism, while claiming to be simply engaged in an act of constitutional redemption....

Are Republicans trying to push their propaganda on our school children? You betcha! They are trying to make our children into little right wingers who want to adhere to only those laws in the original documents. This is also discussed in an article by conservative Steven Hayward, "After Reagan: Five Challenges for 21st Century Conservatives." Once again, we are confronted with the right wing agenda and an unfunded mandate.

Now You Know

2011-12-13T10:33:00.000-05:00

>>>> If you are interested in the dirty details of how John Boehner and the Republicans drew their redistricting lines in Ohio, you must check out the DrawthelineMidwest Transparency Report for enough pdf material to keep you busy for the day:

Released December 12, 2011

• Transparency Report

• Appendix I – page 1 – 40 pdf

(Key players, time line, OCAR, Secrecy)

• Appendix II – page 41 – 85 pdf

(Mann/DiRossi contracts, Boehner, Nat. Rep. Comm)

• Appendix III – page 86 – 133 pdf

(Cong. Map negotiations, fundraising, political index)

• Appendix IV – page 134 – 174 pdf

(Record requests, transcripts, rules, editorials)

Click for the News Release

Three important emails

• Ohio Senate President Tom Niehaus’ email to Tom Whatman, Team Boehner, and Ray DiRossi, Secretary Apportionment Board about how important Speaker Boehner is in this process.
• Speaker Batchelder’s Chief of Staff & Secretaries of the Apportionment Board Ray DiRossi & Heather Mann’s email exchange about Campaign Finance & Redistricting.

• How the Timken plant was added to U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci’s district.......

The DaytonDailyNews has this about the report:

....Spokesmen for Boehner, Ohio House Speaker William Batchelder, R-Medina and Senate President Tom Niehaus, R-New Richmond, denied the charges made by the Ohio Campaign for Accountable Redistricting in its report, “The Elephant in the Room.”

The report, based on emails and other documents obtained through a public records request, said the Republicans gained maximum political advantage for themselves in drawing the 99 new Ohio House and the 33 new Ohio Senate districts.

The Campaign for Accountable Redistricting is a 25-member coalition including the League of Women Voters of Ohio and Ohio Citizen Action. The report gave the Ohio GOP leaders a D- grade for shutting the public out of the process of redrawing the lines for Ohio’s congressional districts......

Of course, they'll deny it, but the truth is staring at them in the face. Don't you wonder how many women and minorities were involved in the Republican process?

******

* Democrats have been successfully recruiting new candidates for office in Ohio. After the Kasich administration and the Ohio GOP went after the middle class workers in the state through SB 5, the coalition that defeated the measure has found such enthusiasm in their ranks that they've been able to recruit new candidates to run against the Republicans and their anti-worker/pro-corporate agenda. The MansfieldNewsJournal has the details.

_______

*** Ohio Republicans have announced their list of candidates for the Ohio House (see Capital Blog) and voters are making lists. Why? There are some elected officials in that GOP bunch that need to retire because they spent a lot of time supporting and kneeling at the Kasich altar. Lots of people in District 21 are hoping to support a Democratic candidate to oppose Mike Duffey, of Worthington. (Note: Kasich helped Duffey campaign, according to this photo.) Duffey's embrace of SB 5 shocked many people who thought they knew him. Here is an article from SNPonline (from 4/5/11):

...The latest vote by the 21st District representative backed the controversial Senate Bill 5,signed Thursday, March 31 by Gov. John Kasich. The bill limits collective bargaining rights initiated in 1983 for the state's 360,000 public employees, as well as requiring them to pay at least 15 percent of their health-care costs....

....Still, Duffey said he is not worried about the ramifications to his political career that could result from the bill....

"I have always talked about jobs being my focus," he said. "That's always been the main concern in my district."

Have you seen any jobs that have been created by Mike Duffey?????? Right.

Too Many Hands in the Soup?

2011-12-12T20:19:00.000-05:00

* The deep dark secrets behind the new congressional districts in Ohio are finally coming out, and it doesn't look pretty. While they were out of the public eye in their publicly funded "bunker" for three months, the Republicans catered to the wishes of their contributors.

Dispatch:

Public documents released Monday by Ohio voter advocates show representatives of U.S. House Speaker John Boehner and operatives at the National Republican Congressional Committee were central in drawing the state’s disputed congressional map.

Documents obtained through a public records request by the Ohio Campaign for Accountable Redistricting show Tom Whatman, executive director of a congressional campaign effort called Team Boehner, legislative leaders, mapmaking consultants and the National Republican Congressional Committee participating in the process.

The correspondence includes a pledge by GOP Senate President Tom Niehaus to deliver “a map that Speaker Boehner fully supports.”....

....As the unveiling of the Republicans’ congressional map neared, Whatman was averaging a request a day, including a suggested boundary change affecting the Canton-based Timken Co., led by a prolific Republican political donor.....

Isn't it just like the Republicans to try to please their big wealthy corporate contributors. They've got to keep their fat cats happy. I'm glad someone has been able to shed some light on this gerrymandering controversy. Since Boehner had his hands in this, we know it won't really promote fairness or help average Ohioans.

Where are the jobs, Republicans????

2011-12-12T11:38:00.000-05:00

* Republican Rep. Steve Stivers (OH-15) says he is creating jobs. I don't know about you, but I live in Ohio's 15th congressional district, and I don't see any new jobs. If you look at a list of "Key Votes" as listed at Votesmart.org that Stivers has voted on, you see a list of bills that do away with regulations that protect people and the environment:

(This is just a short list.)

Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2011
Establishes Additional Requirements for Regulatory Agencies

Repeals Country of Origin Limits for Green Cards Issued to Immigrants
National Labor Relations Board Prohibitions
Prohibits the National Labor Relations Board from Requiring Employers to Relocate Jobs
Repealing Provisions Limiting Funding For Endangered Species Act

Repealing Energy Efficiency Standards for Incandescent Light Bulbs

Someone needs to ask Stivers how many jobs he and his Republican colleagues have created with the repeal of regulations. Those who live in Ohio's 15th district should call Stivers local office and ask how many jobs he has created. Where are the jobs, Steve Stivers: Hilliard, Ohio office------(614) 771-4968.

***********

* How is Ohio doing under the guidance of Republican Gov. John Kasich? Not so good. A story in the Examiner shows Kasich's job numbers don't jive with those posted at the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services (ODJFS).

Examiner:

...The most recent report from ODJFS on Ohio's unemployment numbers shows the number of workers unemployed in Ohio in October was 526,000, down from 534,000 in September. The number of unemployed has decreased by 45,000 in the past 12 months from 571,000. The October unemployment rate for Ohio was down from 9.7 percent in October 2010.....

...Another data-driven source, Economic Modeling Specialists, Inc., a company that provides high-quality employment data and economic analysis via web tools and custom reports to Ohio and other states and to chambers of commerce, economic development agencies and workforce efforts arising from the Workforce Investment Act, says Kasich's Ohio doesn't fare better than 39th in what the data-collection company calls its 2011 Job Growth Competitive Effect by State report.......

.....While Gov. Kasich tells Ohioans he's just getting started, capital hill wonks in Columbus say Ohio, under Strickland, was growing jobs faster than the rate people were reentering the labor market. Kasich has seen the state's unemployment rate tick up three-tenths of a percent from where Strickland left it when he left office on the eve of Kasich's swearing-in ceremonies.....

In a post at IRA.com, the U.S. Department of Labor reports that Ohio continues to see an uptick in unemployment claims:

....For the states that experienced the greatest increase in claims for benefits; Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Indiana and Ohio led the pack. Comments from these five states were fairly consistent – construction industry layoffs as winter approaches generated the most terminations.....

You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts. Kasich is doing nothing to help our people. Those being helped are corporations, CEO's, and Kasich's lobbyist buddies.

-------------

**** Ohio Treasure Josh "I want a new job" Mandel is too, too, too busy to go before the press to answer questions. Mandel, a Republican that was bored with his job as Ohio Treasurer after a few weeks, has been so busy flying all over the country collecting campaign contributions that he is unwilling to answer a few questions from the Akron Press Club. Apparently, Mandel has refused to answer any questions about

(1) trade with China,

(2) the expansion of tax cuts for the middle class,

(3) why he accepted campaign contributions from a Nazi reenactor (see ClevelandJewishNews),

(4) why he took other suspicious campaign contributions,

(5) why he thinks that drilling in state and federal parkland/forests is good for us when the U.S. EPA shows fracking contributes to groundwater contamination (see Bloomberg), etc., etc.

It seems that the only thing Mandel can do is smear his opponent. Does Mandel have any firm beliefs about anything? Since he supported the Paul Ryan budget to end Medicare, does he think it is okay to deny health services to the elderly? Is it possible that Mandel is just waiting for someone to tell him what to think?

Tea Party Propaganda

2011-12-11T14:45:00.000-05:00

Plunderbund has some incredible news about a meeting of the Buckeye Association of School Administrators (BASA) that is planned this week, December 13-14. The list of speakers, as reported by Plunderbund, is like a Tea Party round up of their biggest honchos.

Plunderbund:

....As you can see from the BASA agenda, the discussion will be Tea, Tea, and more Tea, with bottomless glasses of Charter School Flavor Aid.

And our state superintendent will be right in the middle of it all, promoting his own Tea Party agenda....

Is the Tea Party taking over the Ohio Department of Education?

Friday Evening......

2011-12-09T19:19:00.000-05:00

* If you have a parent or loved one in a nursing home, you might want to pay extra attention to the care that they are receiving.

ThinkProgress:

Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s “new way” of creating jobs has left something to be desired — namely, jobs. Kasich has killed projects that promised to create jobs in favor of policies that are sure to stunt job creation. Now with a state facing an overall loss of 400,000 jobs and an unemployment rate of 9 percent, Kasich’s decision to slash state funding for Medicaid left 2,800 Ohioans who help the elderly and disabled out of a job:

A separate survey of 385 Ohio nursing homes found that 2,800 jobs had been eliminated between July 1 and Sept. 1 — or soon would be — following a 6 percent budget cut to the state’s Medicaid program, the tax-funded health-insurance program for the poor and disabled.

Kasich’s cuts result from his desire to “rebalance” the amount of funding spent on Ohio seniors and the disabled. Hoping to shift towards “in-home care,” state officials say the nursing-home job loss is “not surprising.” But, as FamiliesUSA notes, funding Medicaid is a sure-fire way to ensure economic growth and job creation.....

How would you know if your loved one is not getting the proper care because of Kasich's cuts? Here are some suggestions:

Is he/she clean? Has he/she been washed, and changed? Are bed sheets clean or soiled? Has he/she received all medication at the proper times? Has he/she been fed? Has he/she been left in the same position/chair for many hours? How many nurses are covering the patients? If at all possible, visit at different times during the day to check on your loved one.

If you see anything out of the ordinary, contact the head nurse and the director. Don't hesitate in calling/notifying the Ohio Department of Health (1-800-342-0553 or e-mail: HCComplaints@odh.ohio.gov). If you are not satisfied with the response you receive, contact your member of the Ohio Senate or Ohio House. Let the governor's office know if you feel that the care your loved one is receiving is inadequate or unsafe.

Please make sure that you document any incidents or problems (take notes, pictures, take names of people on duty).

>>>>> The Brad Blog has an update on the Ohio Republican voter suppression law:

Congrats to all voters of Ohio for successfully pushing back against the GOP's efforts to keep you from voting in next year's Presidential election! It's another win for democracy, and another loss for the Buckeye State's Republican Gov. John Kasich (following on the recent landslide loss of his anti-union bill at the polls last month.)

Today, Secretary of State John Husted (R), officially certified that opponents of HB194 --- the anti-voting bill that would have shortened early voting hours and imposed other big government restrictions on the exercise of the franchise in Ohio --- will be placed on the ballot for voter referendum in 2012. Thus, the act, passed by the GOP legislature and signed by Kasich earlier this year, is officially suspended for now.....

.....According to Fair Elections Ohio's announcement of the official signature certifications this afternoon, opponents of the voter suppression law gathered "307,358 valid signatures, over 75,000 more than were needed."

The coalition worked together for this success. Great job!

Child Labor

2011-12-08T17:13:00.000-05:00

* Newt Gingrich is an idiot!
Raw Story :

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said Thursday that it was good life experience for children as young as five or six to have a job.

For more than a week, the candidate has been talking about the virtues of child labor, calling current restrictions “truly stupid.”

.....At a meeting with Donald Trump this week, Gingrich announced that the business mogul had agreed to hire 10 poor children as apprentices....

Gingrich, Trump, and anyone that agrees that children should have jobs are insane. There are laws that say that children under a certain age cannot be employed around dangerous machines or in hazardous situations. Why do you think that child labor laws exist? Back in the olden days, children worked in factories for extremely low wages instead of going to school. I realize that fat cats like Gingrich and Trump might want a lower, uneducated class of people, but the rest of the country would be against it.

We know that Republicans are against things like regulations, minimum wage, job safety, equal opportunity, and other things that have helped create the middle class. (Here in Ohio, John Kasich and his GOPers tried to outlaw collective bargaining for public employees!!! The Republicans lost.)

U.S. Department of Labor:

The Department of Labor is the sole federal agency that monitors child labor and enforces child labor laws. The most sweeping federal law that restricts the employment and abuse of child workers is the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Child labor provisions under FLSA are designed to protect the educational opportunities of youth and prohibit their employment in jobs that are detrimental to their health and safety. FLSA restricts the hours that youth under 16 years of age can work and lists hazardous occupations too dangerous for young workers to perform. Enforcement of the FLSA's child labor provisions is handled by the Department's Wage and Hour Division.....

Established law (the Fair Labor Standards Act) and the upholding of that law by the U.S. Supreme Court, makes child labor illegal.

We are not living in a Charles Dickens novel. Children should be in school so that they are prepared to live in an ever changing world.

* Why are the Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives going after Attorney General Eric Holder? Shouldn't they be holding hearings on the cheating and dirty practices of bankers? I guess if the Republicans went after the bankers, that might dry up their campaign contributions. The "Fast and Furious" activity started under the Bush administration. When will the Republicans start questioning members of the Bush administration?

Some Numbers...

2011-12-08T08:52:00.000-05:00

The race to the bottom????

BradentonHerald:

Gov. Rick Scott's approval rating slip to 33 percent, down from 36 percent last month, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll this morning....

...Here are the numbers:

DEC. 8:
Scott: 33 percent approve, 52 percent disapprove, 15 percent don't know.
Kasich: 38, 50, 12.
Corbett: 47, 34, 19.

Nov. 10:
Scott: 36 percent approve, 50 percent disapprove, 14 percent don't know.
Kasich: 36, 51, 12.
Corbett: 46, 31, 23.

As yet, no one has placed any of these unpopular governors on Ebay. I'd like to know the names of the people that responded that they "don't know" because there must be a lot of stuff they don't know.

>>> There will be some new candidate on the ballot in Ohio. WNCT:

Ohio Democrats have taken the rare step of putting up a candidate for every Ohio House district in 2012, even those that vote reliably Republican....

......State Rep. Debbie Phillips, co-chair of the House Democratic Caucus Campaign, said Ohioans were fired up over the union-limiting bill as well as budget cuts to schools. Maureen Reedy, the 2002 Ohio Teacher in the Year, is among teachers, other public employees, veterans and local government officials who are running.....

We've got to get the anti-public school Republicans out of the Ohio General Assembly.

**** Lobbyists are pouring money into the campaign of Republican Rep. Stivers (OH-15), according to an article, SIFMA: A Lobbying Powerhouse, posted at Bondbuyer. Too bad Stivers and his ilk aren't listening to their constituents! Lobbyists must love former lobbyists.

More Ohio Politics....

2011-12-07T13:41:00.000-05:00

* Banks and insurance companies probably should get rid of their lobbyists because Republican Rep. Steve Stivers (OH-15th) is protecting and assisting their industries.

Insurancenewsnet:

Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, has introduced legislation (H.R. 3559) to "prohibit the Federal Insurance Office of the Department of the Treasury and other financial regulators from collecting data directly from an insurance company."

The bill was introduced on Dec. 5.

The legislation was referred to the House Financial Services and Agriculture Committees.....

In other news, Stivers has a Democratic opponent. WOUB:

Athens City Law Director Pat Lang is going to take a shot at Washington.

Lang announced on his facebook page today that he filed petitions this morning to run for Ohio's 15th congressional district.

The district is currently represented by Republican Steve Stivers......

>>> Former Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy was correct during the last campaign when she warned us how Stivers would be operating in Congress. Luckily, Kilroy is running again, but this time in the newly created 3rd district in Ohio (see ONN).

* Did you really want to know how well Gov. Kasich's lobbyist friends are doing? Plunderbund has all the dirty details about Kasich's BFFs/lobbyists Donald Thibaut and Robert Klaffky, who just happen to be getting deals for companies they represent:

....When Ohio recently sold off a prison to a private operator, the contract went to CCA – one of Thibaut’s clients.

When Kasich made plans to privatize the lottery, he made sure his two best friends got lobbying contracts with the two biggest players. Thibaut got GTECH – the company that actually wrote the original, severely-flawed lottery privatization language that would have exempted them from state taxes.

The other lobbying contract, for Intralot, went to Kasich’s other long-time friend Robert Klaffky. While we don’t have specific numbers, it’s fair to say the lobbyists for this deal – which is still potentially in the works – are pulling down tons of cash on both sides....

Be sure to read all the background at Plunderbund on the Kasich-Thibaut-Klaffky connection and how that figures into the Ohio GOP infighting. In the end, the people of Ohio lose, while Kasich and his fat cat buddies make out like bandits.

****** The extreme right wing of the Republican Party marched out their heartbeat bill today in the Ohio Senate. The bill is viewed as so extreeeeeeeeeeeeme that it has caused a rift in the Ohio anti-choice groups. When will Republicans mind their own business about a woman's uterus? Just as they invade our privacy, I think we should start asking Republican elected males if they use Viagra and other male enhancement drugs. If they are so interested in our reproductive organs, we should find out about their practices.

This heartbeat bill will be challenged by the ACLU, according to news reports (Bucyrustelegraph, Reuters, etc.).

The Ohio Democratic Party has come out strong against this right wing heartbeat bill.
OhioDems:

....To contact members of the committee, call the Ohio State Senate Switchboad at 1-800-282-0253. Start with the Chair and continue down the list!

The Republican members of the Senate Health, Human Services and Aging committee are:

Scott Oelslager, Chair
Dave Burke, Vice Chair
Troy Balderson
Shannon Jones
Kris Jordan
Peggy Lehner

Here are some suggestions to get you started:

The bill criminalizes a woman’s right to choose – before most women even know they’re pregnant.

The bill makes NO exceptions for cases of rape, incest, or when the health of the mother is at risk.

This bill puts Ohio women’s health at risk.

If this bill passes, Ohio will have the most extreme anti-choice legislation in the country.

This bill is so extreme, even Ohio Right to Life won’t endorse it.

The bill is unconstitutional. It could drag Ohio into costly federal lawsuits at a time when our state is already facing budget deficits.

Instead of focusing on social issues to divide Ohioans, Republicans should work to create jobs and rebuild our economy.....

Give them a call, especially ---- Kris Jordan.

Republican Craziness

2011-12-06T10:36:00.000-05:00

>>>> Why do Republicans think that they must have an audience with Donald Trump? Donald Trump? Give me a break!

**** Are the conservative right wingers in the Republican Party really going for Newt Gingrich? Is it possible that Republicans just cannot stomach the flip flops of Mitt Romney? I'd still never vote for Romney because of the dog on the roof event (Time).

There are several websites that have sprung out of the Romney dog on the roof incident:

http://www.dogsagainstromney.com/
http://www.dogsagainstromney.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/DogsAgainstRomney
http://twitter.com/grrr_romney

If you are interested in a "Dog Lovers Against Romney" bumper sticker, you should visit CafePress.

The LA Times has more information about how Mitt Romney made his millions at Bain Capital by buying companies and firing employees.
Here is a small excerpt from the LA Times article:

...Meanwhile, Bain and other investors received management fees from GSI and a $65-million dividend in the first years after the acquisition, according to interviews with company employees.

In 1999, as economic challenges mounted, GSI sought a federal loan guarantee intended to help steel companies compete internationally. The loan deal was approved, but in 2001, before it could be used, the company went bankrupt, two years after Romney left Bain.

More than 700 workers were fired, losing not only their jobs but health insurance, severance and a chunk of their pension benefits. GSI retirees also lost their health insurance and other benefits. Bain partners received about $50 million on their initial investment, a 100% gain....

Imagine that. Romney and his investors made millions while others lost jobs. Even Bloomberg had a little something about Romney's Bain Capital job elimination routine:

....At Dade Behring Inc., a medical-testing company based in Deerfield, Illinois, Bain cut at least 1,600 jobs during a series of acquisitions before the firm entered into bankruptcy in 2002. Romney foreshadowed those cuts in a speech to employees shortly after Bain acquired the firm.

DDi Corp., an electronics company in Anaheim, California, filed for bankruptcy in 2003 after Bain sold shares in the company generating at least $85.5 million and billed $10 million in management fees....

Where is the job creation?

>>>> The infighting going on within the Ohio Republican Party will continue. Since Gov. John Kasich and Speaker of the Ohio House William Batchelder assembling their own roster of candidates to run against current Republican officeholders backed by Ohio Republican Chair Kevin DeWine (see the Dispatch). I hope that the Ohio GOP continues to act like playground bullies. Those people who call themselves Ohio Republicans must be so proud of the dysfunction within their own party. Keep it classy, Ohio GOP!

Spending Your Money

2011-12-05T20:46:00.000-05:00

* InnovationOhio has some numbers that show that Gov. John Kasich is spending far too much money on his corporate giveaways:

Governor Kasich made a personal appearance at Monday’s meeting of the Ohio Tax Credit Authority to tout a record-breaking achievement: 30 deals approved at a single meeting. We wondered: how does the current pace of tax credit-based deal-making compare to the efforts of the Ohio Department of Development prior to the creation of JobsOhio?

What we found was that, aside from the increased number of deals approved this month, the Kasich administration’s other primary claim to fame is that they have greatly increased the amount that was spent on tax incentives — issuing over $301 million in corporate tax breaks for first eleven months of calendar year 2011, compared to $155 to 213 million for the three previous calendar years, according to the state’s Tax Incentives Reporting database.

What did the administration get for that additional spending? It turns out, JobsOhio delivers a lot less bang for the buck than the Department of Development acting alone. Looking at the first 11 months of 2011 for which data is available (and eliminating the double-counting of jobs for which multiple types of tax credits were awarded to a single employer), the awards approved by the Tax Credit Authority so far in 2011 have valued each job created or retained at $6,112 each. This compares to an average tax credit of $4,721 per job over the three previous calendar years. In other words, thanks to JobsOhio, taxpayers are now subsidizing employers to the tune of an additional $1,400 per job......

Isn't it amazing how quickly Kasich is throwing away our money? Just as he did at Lehman Brothers, Kasich seems to be having fun with other people's money.

**** More companies are involved in layoffs in Ohio. ODJFS has the details:

12/2/2011- Agilysys, Inc- Solon (Cuyahoga)- Number Affected 70

12/1/2011- ESAB Welding & Cutting Products-Ashtabula (Ashtabula)- Number Affected 30

It just keeps going.

>>>> Oh, my. The soap opera surrounding the battling in the Ohio GOP is getting more interesting. Earlier it was just Kasich and Kevin DeWine. With Kasich, Kevin DeWine, Speaker of the Ohio House Batchelder, a new person has added to the dysfunctional Ohio Republican family........Kay Ayres, Vice Chair of the party.

Dispatch:

Kay Ayres, vice chairwoman of the Ohio Republican Party, today beseeched Gov. John Kasich to instruct his political allies to “stand down” in their efforts to oust state GOP Chairman Kevin DeWine, saying the bid is splitting the party when it needs to be unified going into the 2012 elections.

In a strongly worded letter to Kasich and the other 65 members of the Ohio GOP’s central committee, Ayres said she was heartbroken that the governor and his allies are trying to depose DeWine little more than a year after he led the party to a massive victory in statewide elections.

“The tumult in the Republican ranks has me very concerned,” Ayres wrote to Kasich. “Quite frankly, I fear for the long-term stability of the Ohio Republican Party and the divide which could well result in the re-election of Barack Obama in 2012 and your defeat in 2014....

This was bound to happen. There are so many pompous, large egos in the Ohio Republican Party, I find it incredible that they can all fit within this state.

_____

*** If you'd like to sign a petition to stop the Republican gerrymandering in the state, check out locations through the OhioDems website.

>>> How many trip has Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel made to Washington, DC to meet with lobbyists. You Tube has a video of another one of Mandel's DC trips:

The Feud Continues in the Ohio GOP

2011-12-05T10:38:00.000-05:00

Now I see why many people have referred to Gov. John Kasich as "King John" in their articles/posts. Kasich is doing his best to consolidate his power by trying to dump the Chair of the Ohio GOP, Kevin DeWine. With various newspapers noting the help of Speaker of the Ohio House William Batchelder, Kasich is working behind the scenes to get Kevin DeWine out of office. Hotlineoncall has noticed the squabble:

...7) There is an intra-party battle going on in Ohio, where GOP Gov. John Kasich and state House Speaker William Batchelder are trying to dump state GOP chair Kevin DeWine...

Some Republican legislators are probably afraid to get in the way of the dispute.

* The shale drilling people want a deal on the roads they will destroy?

Dispatch:

Ohio’s shale-drilling boom might beat a path to economic prosperity, but township trustees and county engineers across the state worry that it also will beat down their roads.

Everyone agrees that the trucks that energy companies will use to haul heavy drilling rigs to remote well sites and haul away millions of gallons of “fracking” wastewater could wear down country roads and bridges. What they don’t agree on is who should pay for any repairs.

Officials with the governor’s office and the Ohio Department of Transportation say they’re holding meetings with energy companies and local officials to get them to agree on a payment plan....

Cities and counties have already had their budgets cut by the Kasich administration. It seems ridiculous that local governments would have to bear any cost to repairing roads and highways. Personally, I think that these drilling companies should have to pay a monthly fee to use the roads. That money would then go to those cities and counties for road repairs. Our tax money should not subsidize this corporate activity in any manner.

* Word is that many people in the Cleveland area do not like the campaign of Republican Josh Mandel. While Mandel slings lies and mud at his opponents, he has released little about what he stands for in the political arena. We do know that he has taken a campaign contribution from a Nazi reenactor, supports the Paul Ryan plan to destroy Medicare, and wants to allow drilling in our state and federal parks. Other than those few items, Mandel has revealed very little about his goals. If a man is known by the friends that he keeps, standing with the likes of a Jim DeMint and Nazi reenactors should not calm our fears.

Battle in the Ohio GOP?

2011-12-04T00:30:00.000-05:00

* What? Don't tell me there are more squabbles within the Ohio Republican Party!!!! It has long been rumored that Ohio Republican Chairperson Kevin DeWine was asked to resign soon after John Kasich became governor. DeWine has held onto his job but people are curious as to how long that will last.

ClevelandPlainDealer:

Infighting among Ohio Republicans has reached a new level as House Speaker William G. Batchelder accused state GOP Chairman Kevin DeWine of undermining the party and of publicly blasting Gov. John Kasich.

In a memo sent to the House Republican Caucus, Batchelder lists specific complaints about DeWine's leadership.....

......Among other grievances, the speaker said DeWine refused to allocate party resources to House Republicans -- a claim Kasich supporters have made privately regarding the chairman's role in the gubernatorial race last year....

ONN reported on the email sent to Batchelder from Kevin DeWine.:

...In it, DeWine said that he was "shocked and dismayed" that Batchelder has called for his resignation.

DeWine also suggests Batchelder is being "manipulated" by those close to Gov. John Kasich....

....DeWine also said that Kasich's political team is "motivated by ego, power, or profit."....

Keep an eye on what happens next.

What jobs bills?

2011-12-02T20:09:00.000-05:00

* The twitter page of Republican Rep. Steve Stivers has a few things that makes me question his interpretation of what "jobs" bills really are:

http://twitter.com/#!/RepSteveStivers

FinancialCmte Financial Services

by RepSteveStivers

#FF @FinancialCmte Sponsors of HR 2779, a #bipartisan bill to reign in #DoddFrank #regs - @RepSteveStivers @RepDold

7 hours ago

RepSteveStivers Steve Stivers

Nov #jobs report by the @USDOL tells me the Senate must take action & pass our House-passed jobs bills-put our unemployed Americans to work

7 hours ago

RepSteveStivers Steve Stivers

In case you missed it, we passed more #jobs bills out of @FinancialCmte yesterday financialservices.house.gov/News/DocumentS…

1 Dec

The Republican agenda of wiping out regulations because they say it kills jobs is a bunch of hogwash. These regulations that they are attempting to destroy are important to protect the well-being of human beings, our water, air, and environment. See the ProPublica article for more information: Do Regulations Really Kill Jobs Overall? Not So Much

The fact that Stivers and his corporate sponsors continue to try to tear apart the Dodd-Frank Law shows us that Stivers would prefer banks to make risky deals while using and possibly losing our money. Stivers was once a bank lobbyist, but unfortunately, he thinks he still is protecting bankers from governmental regulations. As a state senator, he also voted against consumer protection law. Stivers definitely continues to support the wealthy 1%.

That second Stivers tweet from above that mentions the U.S. Department of Labor is open to interpretation. No one has proven that any of the Republican passed bills would create one job, and the U.S. Department of Labor has not claimed that the Senate should pass any Republican legislation. Stivers is just interpreting news through his own skewed right wing agenda.

_____

* According to news reports, Gov. John Kasich has offered Sears $400 million in tax incentives to move their headquarters from Chicago to Ohio. Considering what is happening to big box stores, why would such a huge amount of money be offered to an industry that is losing its foothold in the marketplace?

An LATimes article (6/23/11) reports how Best Buy and other stores are reducing their presence in traditional buildings:

When it comes to retailing, big is not so beautiful anymore.

Weak sales, online competition and changing consumer habits have big-box chains looking to downsize. Best Buy Co. is the latest merchant shedding space, in an initiative that stands out in both size and scope.....

..."Big-box has already seen its heyday," said Brad Thomas, a retail analyst with Keyblanc Capital Markets. "Retailers just don't need as much space as they once did. Across the retail industry there is an effort to reduce the size of your stores as retail and purchases increasingly occur online rather than through brick-and-mortar stores."...

Will there be a Sears company in 10 years?

Another Dumb Quote from Gingrich

2011-12-02T09:49:00.000-05:00

* Newt Gingrich is a buffoon, and clearly someone that wants to have an elite class being served by destitute, poor, children. Is Gingrich trying to bring to life the characters in Oliver Twist?

DailyMail:

Republican presidential frontrunner Newt Gingrich believes poor kids have no work ethic -- unless it comes to doing something illegal.....

...'Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and nobody around them who works,' Mr Gingrich told fundraisers Thursday night at a dinner outside Des Moines, Iowa.

'So they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of "I do this and you give me cash"... unless it's illegal.'

I wonder why Gingrich thinks that ~~slavery~~ child labor is a good thing. Where does he get his information.....Fox News?

* Many citizens are concerned about the Republican demand for more funding for charter schools. While performance at a majority of the charter schools can be described as less than acceptable, Republican demands for increased aid to the charters is, in my personal opinion, unwarranted. The Toledo Blade has an editorial about the need for "...the same standards to charter schools that it does to traditional public schools..."

ToledoBlade:

Expanding educational choice in Ohio by increasing state aid to charter schools and voucher programs -- often at the expense of traditional public schools -- is a priority of Gov. John Kasich's administration and many state lawmakers. But if higher subsidies for such options, especially for-profit schools, are not accompanied by tougher standards for oversight and transparency, both students and taxpayers could be harmed rather than helped....

...Meanwhile, horror stories about mismanaged charter schools continue to emerge. A new state audit of a for-profit charter school in Cleveland that closed in 2009 identifies $2.8 million in public money that reportedly was misspent or remains missing. State Auditor Dave Yost seeks more than $266,000 in repayments from the school's founder and sponsor.

The audit says school officials failed to produce even the most basic records of its daily operations. It's hard to imagine that the state Department of Education would have permitted a traditional public school to operate with such impunity.....

A brief look at the performance records at the Ohio Department of Education that compares public schools with charter schools indicates that charter schools are unable to meet or exceed the test results of public schools. Why do charter schools need more money when they clearly are not supplying needed curriculum or paying their employees properly? The only beneficiaries of more funding for charter schools are the owners of charter schools. Charter schools should be called what they are--- corporate profit schools.

Was Kasich paid for his results at Lehman?

2011-12-01T19:20:00.000-05:00

*** Gov. John Kasich has another dumb idea.

Newsmax:

Doctors should be rewarded for their results and not by the number of people they treat, Ohio Gov. John Kasich tells Newsmax.TV.

“How many people can you get through the door is not the way we ought to be doing it,” Kasich said during the exclusive interview. “We ought to be paying people on the basis of the fact that you get better outcomes if people are healthier.....

I'm sure that Oncologists and those physicians that treat people with terminal diseases would be against such a proposal. I wonder what the Ohio State Medical Association Political Action Committee (OSMAPAC) thinks about Kasich's idea since they are such big supporters of Republicans. Once again, Gov. Kasich has demonstrated that he knows nothing about patient care. We'll just add this to the list of things that Kasich is ignorant about: public education, collective bargaining, his approval rating, and, (since he doesn't read Ohio newspapers) the lives and struggles of the people in Ohio.

* Despite what the Republican Governor of Ohio says, there were more layoffs in Ohio in November 2011.

Business Courier:

After falling sharply in October, planned layoffs in Ohio rose in November.

Ohio employers announced 381 job cuts in November, up from 172 in October.....

Kasich continues to make up his own job numbers.

>>>>> Republican Josh Mandel and his supporters are drawing a lot of negative attention for doctoring pictures of Sen. Sherrod Brown.

PlainDealer:

First comes the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ad with a picture of a U.S. senator badly in need of a shave. Except representatives of the senator, Democrat Sherrod Brown of Ohio, say the Chamber of Commerce manipulated an Associated Press photo that showed a clean-shaven senator, doctoring it to made him look shifty.....

...You can see the comparison below, or watch the ad. The three-day shadow on Brown's face is prompting lots of indignation from the Ohio Democratic Party and Brown backers. The Brown campaign calls it "a dirty trick."

The Brown campaign, of course, is so outraged over this that it made an offer today to supporters: Contribute $25 or more to Brown's reelection campaign "and we'll send you a REAL photo of Sherrod, with a personalized autograph, so you KNOW it's authentic."

The Ohio Democratic Party has a response for the Mandel slime machine:

Nonpartisan Fact-Check Organizations Continue To Repeatedly Debunk False Mandel Attacks, TV-Ads Against Sherrod Brown

COLUMBUS, OHIO – With Ohio’s part-time Treasurer struggling to last more than a week without being forced to address a new legal or ethical violation, Josh Mandel and outside groups are launching numerous false and misleading attacks against Senator Sherrod Brown. Apparently not content with simply distorting Sherrod’s record, they’ve even taken to distorting his picture.

Below is a side by side of the original Associated Press photo and one recently altered in the latest false attack ad launched to prop up Josh Mandel. Yes—a beard was added in.

But whether the ads echo Josh Mandel’s support for a plan to end Medicare as we know it, or his refusal to sign onto a plan that would lower the deficit by ending massive tax breaks for Big Oil, they all have one thing in common. The attacks are false, misleading and have been blasted by non-partisan, independent fact-check organizations as “ridiculous,” and “inaccurate.”

Josh Mandel is the candidate for the 1%, not for the 99%.

Tom?

2011-12-01T13:23:00.001-05:00

* Ohio's teen birth rate has gone down.

MSNBC:

The state's birth rate among teenagers has dropped to at least a 21-year low, a trend that experts say reflects less sex and more contraceptives.

Health experts say the declines also suggest that young people are responding to influences such as fear of sexually transmitted diseases and economic anxieties about becoming a parent when money is tight and jobs are scarce, The Dayton Daily News (http://bit.ly/t7WVrm) reported Wednesday.

Preliminary data show that the state's teen birth rate declined for the third straight year, while the national teen birth rate dropped to an all-time low, the newspaper reported.....

There is another reason------ Former Gov. Ted Strickland.

TedStrickland.com:

....Supported Comprehensive Sex Education, Rejected Federal Funds Tied to Abstinence-Only Education. Governor Strickland consistently turned down federal funding to support abstinence-only sex education. Strickland opted instead for comprehensive, age-appropriate sex education that includes health and safety information in addition to teaching about abstinence. [HB 119, 6/30/2007; Columbus Dispatch, 7/1/2007; HB 1, 7/17/2009; Columbus Dispatch, 7/18/2009]....

Don't expect Kasich to give any credit to Stickland.

*** Another corporate giveaway? According to an article in the DailyHerald, Sears is looking at possibly moving their headquarters from Chicago to Columbus, Ohio, because of state tax incentives of $400 million:

...The AP story is apparently based on this Columbus Dispatch story reporting the same thing and Ohio Gov. Tom Kasich's reaction to it.

That number has been around for a little while, though. As we reported, in early November, a Sears executive told a House committee about a $400 million offer....

Tom Kasich???

Chicago has mass transit and even railroad access for people and freight (see Amtrak map). Columbus, unfortunately, has some bus transportation, but no rail service (Kasich was against the introduction of passenger rail in Ohio, and the state lost the huge grant money.) Four hundred million dollars probably sounds good to Sears. Are they willing to trade in their heritage and history in Chicago for some fast money?

Save the Buckeye Tree!

2011-11-30T12:06:00.000-05:00

>>>>> Why am I not surprised???? Gov. John Kasich admits that he doesn't read any Ohio newspapers (PlainDealer). Does that surprise you? Kasich is just not into the small lives of the small people of Ohio. We are nothing to him, and he has no interest in what happens here.

The Business-Journal is reporting that Kasich has hired KPMG to look into selling/leasing the Ohio Turnpike:

U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan and other Democratic members of Ohio's congressional delegation are again criticizing plans by Gov. John Kasich to explore a potential lease of the Ohio Turnpike.

The renewed criticism comes in response to Ohio officials' selection of KPMG LLP for a federally subsidized state contract to study changes to the turnpike, including potential privatization of the toll road....

...KPMG, a unit of Switzerland-based KPMG International, which has a presence in more than 150 countries, belongs to the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals and was selected as one of the "World's Best Outsourcing Advisors" this year, the Democrats note. KPMG has until July 1 to make its recommendations to the state on privatization and other options....

As Plunderbund pointed out yesterday, KPMG will get a substantial amount of money from Ohio-------$1.5 million. I wonder if KPMG had any business ties to Kasich while he was with Lehman Brothers. Is anyone checking this?

* Did you know that the anti-environmental Republicans who don't believe in global warming are actually killing Buckeye trees?

ThinkProgress:

This Saturday’s Crankshaft cartoon took on global warming, noting that climate change is threatening Ohio’s iconic buckeye trees, the namesake of the Ohio State Buckeyes. “Once it starts to affect football, they’ll get moving on climate change,” one character says:

As greenhouse pollution from oil and coal continues to build, the Ohio buckeye (Aesculus glabra) is on its way out of the Buckeye State. Between 1990 and 2006, United States hardiness zones shifted northward, putting Ohio closer to the southern end of buckeye viability. That trend will accelerate. A 2007 study by Daniel W. McKenney and other forest scientists of the effect of climate pollution increases on 130 tree species projects major changes in North American tree populations, as practically all of the southern and western United States grow too warm and arid for nearly all species. The Ohio buckeye’s range, now centered on Ohio and Indiana, is projected to shrink and shift drastically under business-as-usual....

Republican Rep. Steve Stivers (OH-15th) and his small-minded, anti-environmental regulation buddies, are killing Buckeye trees!!!! Save the Buckeye tree! Vote Democratic!

*** Stivers also was mentioned in an article at American Banker. As a former bank lobbyist, Stivers always appears to go out of his way to push for things that large banks want, like less regulations, and less transparency. Even though he said in his campaign that he would bring jobs to the state, nothing has materialized except for his "job fair" that was a major photo op/campaign event for Stivers. In the article linked below, Stivers is pushing for legislation that protects consumers from risky bank maneuvers.

American Banker:

Three Republican-sponsored bills that would amend the derivatives provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act are scheduled for a committee vote in the House on Wednesday.

If the measures become law, they would require regulators to rethink their approach to some of the thorny questions that have arisen during the implementation of the 2010 law's new derivatives rules.....

...A second bill, sponsored by Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, would exempt swaps traded between different affiliates within the same financial institution from some of the requirements imposed by Dodd-Frank....

The Stivers re-election campaign should produce signs that say "Protect the Bankers---NOT people." With Rep. Barney Frank retiring, we'll need someone else to step up and protect us from this greedy bankers. We know it won't be Stivers. According to OpenSecrets, Stivers has received over $284,000 in campaign contributions from the banking industry.

Which groups are paying for Kasich?

2011-11-29T19:49:00.000-05:00

* More bad economic news for Ohio: Chiquita Brands International is moving their headquarters to North Carolina, according to the Washington Post. Rubbermaid is closing the massive distribution center it has in Wooster, Ohio (BeaconJournal).

Why didn't Kasich fight for these companies?

Did you know that some well-known groups have been spending huge amounts of money to promote fracking in Ohio.
Truth-Out:

....Common Cause reports that fracking companies spent $2.8 million in political contributions to Ohio parties and candidates since 2001. Republican Gov. John Kasich tops the list and has received $213,519 in campaign contributions from the industry.

Additional analysis of campaign records by Truthout reveals that wealthy executives of companies connected to the natural gas industry, including billionaires William "Bill" Koch and David Koch of Koch brothers fame, funneled an additional $127,268 in personal donations through a political action committee (PAC) to support Kasich's election in 2010.....

.....he RGA and its Ohio PAC spent $11 million supporting Kasich's 2010 campaign and swooped into Ohio again to defend Senate Bill 5, an anti-collective-bargaining bill championed by Kasich and repealed by Ohio voters on November 8. The RGA set up a front group to hide its finances during the campaign leading up to the referendum on Senate Bill 5. A recent investigation by Truthout revealed that the RGA had raised nearly $5 million from private healthcare, corrections and education firms to support Kasich in 2010 before returning to Ohio in 2011 to protect its investment.....

Information like this makes Kasich even more disgusting. With money from the Koch Brothers and other fracking proponents, Kasich has been able to be propped up by these big shots.

Keep Your Eyes on Kasich

2011-11-28T10:59:00.000-05:00

We've had a busy, busy week. With Thanksgiving dinner preparation, the holiday meal, the clean up, and shopping, we've had little down time here in central Ohio. You always know people are spending money when Sawmill Road becomes a parking lot.

* People might not be watching what is going on in the Kasich administration, but you cannot keep your eyes off of that Republican controlled state government.

A story in the Youngstown Vindicator indicates that Gov. John Kasich might indulge in some payback to certain areas of the state.
Vindy:

State Rep. Robert F. Hagan, a Democrat from Youngstown, says he expects Kasich to use the construction budget as a way to punish those communities that didn’t support Senate Bill 5, the controversial collective-bargaining law for public workers that voters overturned this month.....

...Hagan says he remembers when the Ohio House, Ohio Senate and governor each controlled $100 million for community projects and wonders if the governor will just take control of it all this time.

Kasich will argue that there’s no money for construction projects, but that’s because tax breaks to corporations took the money away, Hagan said....

In the article, Hagan described Kasich this way, "....He’s shown vindictiveness...." Exactly. Kasich is known as a bitter, vindictive person to those he deems his enemies. Those of us that know a little more about Kasich's record are well aware of these characteristics. Opponents of SB5 and of Kasich's agenda should remember this---- Kasich will consider this part of his agenda (SB5 and anti-collective bargaining legislation) as not being finished. The guy does not like to lose. Even though most of us know that he has a big chip on his shoulder, that chip just got bigger. Unfortunately, we have at least three more years of this anti-worker, anti-public school, pro-corporate agenda.

>>>> Save the trees!!!!

In his effort to destroy our state parks and environment by knocking down regulations and pushing fracking, it appears that Gov. Kasich has other plans.

The Athens News:

Ohio Gov. John Kasich plans to log our state parks. In this forestry region, he has initially targeted four parks: Lake Hope, Forked Run, Tar Hollow and Scioto Trail. Logging is planned for some two-thirds of the land area of Lake Hope State Park, as well as about half of Forked Run. This is according to the state's own plans for the parks.

The hillside overlooking the entryway to Tar Hollow is going to be logged; it's a done deal. I was told it would not be visible from the road, but looking at the map, it was clear that it will be a clearly visible eyesore.

Lake Hope State Park is popular with Athens-area residents. This wild jewel set amidst Ohio's second-largest state forest features recreational resources that include an extensive mountain-biking trail system. The planned cutting zones there (Zones C and D) are in the mountain-bike trail areas. The trails could be made un-ridable with Kasich's plans.....

More details can be found at The Athens News on Kasich's logging plans.

*** Does anyone know why Andy Teater's name does not show up on the State Treasurer's list of terminated employees? Teater once worked in the Ohio Dept. of Public Safety but was allegedly terminated in 2010 after an investigation. He still keeps his job on the Hilliard School Board, and although terminated, he allegedly works as a consultant for some highway contractors. Why was he terminated from the state? Do you think that the people in Hilliard might want to know?

End to Medicare???? Republicans Want It

2011-11-22T21:28:00.000-05:00

Do you know why nothing got done in the "super committee" in Congress? Republicans on the committee tried to end Medicare. TalkingPointsMemo has the details.

> Boehner had this to say, according to SFGate:

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner said he is open to discussing an extension of the expiring payroll tax cut with the Obama administration.

"We told the president in September that we stand ready to have an honest and fruitful discussion with him regarding the payroll tax extension, and that invitation stands," the Ohio Republican said in a statement today....

Boehner is full of it. I don't trust Boehner because his goals include protecting the wealthy and staying in power. As long as Boehner is the Speaker of the House, nothing will get done. The so-called "jobs" bills passed by the House of Representatives are nothing more than tax cuts for the wealthy, and ending environmental and banking regulations. Ending regulations, especially in the area of banking, will bring us back to the autumn of 2008 when Lehman Brothers and Wall Street collapsed.

>>>> Lying Mitt Romney? Yep. Romney thinks it is okay to lie.

WashingtonPost:

As you know, the Romney campaign is airing an ad in New Hampshire that plucks Obama’s words out of context in a comically dishonest way. Obama is shown seeming to acknowledge that talking about the economy is a political loser for him, when in reality, he was quoting a John McCain adviser making that claim. The ad is now being widely pilloried as false....

....The Romney camp is explicitly saying it’s totally fair game to take an opponent’s words out of context in a way that completely changes their meaning, simply because the actual words in question did come out of the speaker’s mouth. As many have noted today, the Romney ad’s decontextualizing of Obama’s words is so egregious that it amounts to a lie. Yet here a Romney adviser is claiming that this is fair game, because he said those words.

Today Think Progress released a new video lampooning the Romney ad with footage of Romney himself torn out of context. It shows Romney saying things like “we should just raise everybody’s taxes,” and “there’s nothing unique about the United States.” Obviously Romney was really saying the opposite of those things. But as Think Progress notes, those depictions are “accurate, according to the Romney standard of accuracy.”

Here is that ad put out by Think Progress:
YouTube

***** More layoff are coming in Ohio!

1. DaytonDailyNews:

...Ovonic has told state government that it does not know whether the layoffs will be temporary or permanent. It will lay off 77 employees for at least six months beginning in March, an employee of the Springboro company has written state government in a WARN (Worker Adjustment Retraining Notification) notice.....

2. TheAdvertiser-Tribune:

Come next year, more than 50 employees of Tiffin Developmental Center could be laid off.

Friday morning, TDC employees were told they would be facing layoffs by Feb. 17 - with most cuts coming Jan. 6.

A representative of the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities said Friday the cut would be about 49 employees, but as many as 52 positions could be on the chopping block....

3. Bizjournals: (h/t dailyjobcuts.com)

Cincinnati Bell Inc. plans to close its Dayton-area office before year's end, the Dayton Business Journal reports.

The number of employees who will be affected by closing the office on Prestige Place in Miamisburg is unknown, the newspaper reports, but the shuttering is expected as early as December.

Cincinnati Bell (NYSE: CBB) had 174 employees and 74,000 customers in Dayton in 2010, making it the second-largest telecommunications provider for the area, the newspaper reports.....

More Baloney....

2011-11-21T10:17:00.000-05:00

Republican Josh Mandel must have a fable factory within his campaign to make up lies, and tall tales. Politifact called Mandel's latest statements about Sen. Sherrod Brown in the PANTS ON FIRE category.

Politifact:

...Mandel specifically focused on reports of distasteful demonstrations that Republicans have sought to make representative of the entire movement.

Brown is "out there egging on a lot of these protesters who are spitting on policemen and going to the bathroom on policemen’s cars at these protests on Wall Street and other places," he said....

....But we didn’t, because no such evidence exists.....

Don't you think that Sen. Sherrod Brown has something else to do? Politifact found no evidence of Mandel's statements about Sen. Brown. Once again we see that Josh Mandel is a liar. Did Josh Mandel attend the Tommy Flannagan school for pathological liars?

*** It appears that Gov. John Kasich hopes that you don't remember that he was against President Obama's auto bailouts. Now, Kasich just wants to steal the limelight.

Stowsentry:

Columbus -- Democratic state legislative leaders criticized Gov. John Kasich and Republican GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney for not supporting federal support for automotive companies but trying to take credit for jobs those companies are now creating.

Minority Leader Capri Cafaro, D-Hubbard, and Rep. Matt Szollosi, D-Toledo, said it was President Barack Obama and other Democrats who spearheaded the preservation and advancement of the country's automobile industry -- at a time when Republicans were opposed to the bailout plan.

"Democratic leaders had the foresight to invest in American workers, regardless of the political ramifications" Szollosi said, adding later, "It's easy for the governor to take his taxpayer-funded plane around the state for photo opps."

Kasich is like the guy that shows at the celebration but did none of the work to achieve success.

Here is even more on Kasich....
WKYC:

....Sears Holding Corp. said last month it was looking at possibly relocating to Columbus or Austin, Texas, though it was still talking with Illinois officials about staying put.

The Columbus Dispatch reports Ohio Gov. John Kasich spoke earlier this week with Sears CEO Louis D'Ambrosio. Kasich said Thursday that the Sears chief described Ohio's pitch as stunning and creative.

Still, Kasich says he doubts the company will leave the Chicago suburbs.....

Stunning? Creative? When one says that something is "stunning," it doesn't always mean something positive. It could mean, according to Merriam-Webster, "causing astonishment or disbelief <stunning news>...."

The size of Kasich's ego is stunning. It is astonishing that the rest of the population can fit into the state of Ohio.

Tax the Rich!

2011-11-19T22:11:00.000-05:00

* The pepper spraying of peaceful students at UC Davis is disgusting. It looks like investigations will be started. For more info, see HuffingtonPost.

* To those involved in the Occupy movements across the country: Continue the fight for justice and fairness!

* Do you remember the early days in the Kasich administration? Business Week (2/1/11) noted that the JobsOhio legislation was sponsored by Worthington Republican, Mike Duffey:

....The bill calls for JobsOhio to do much of its work in private. Certain records would be exempt from disclosure under Ohio public records law. The panel would have four public meetings a year but could have closed-doors talks about its negotiations with businesses.

Its members would be appointed by the governor to serve four-year terms. They wouldn't be paid but would be reimbursed for expenses.....

Aren't you still bothered by this JobsOhio entity that is funded by your tax dollars, but works behind closed doors?

* Wow. Did you know that the Bush administration funded a research project that involved Solyndra? In an article from March 26, 2008, information is provided by Optics.org:

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has earmarked up to $13.7 million over the next three years for the eleven selected research projects, while agreed cost sharing with the universities and industry partners should boost the total investment across all the projects to $17.4 million. "These projects will help meet President Bush's goal of making clean and renewable solar power commercially viable by 2015," said Alexander Karsner of the DOE....

....Other projects funded by the DOE are:

.....• University of Florida with Global Solar Energy, International Solar Electric Technology, Nanosolar and Solyndra: Routes for rapid synthesis of CIGS absorbers....

The Bush administration also had invited Solyndra and other companies to participate in federal program, as noted on 10/08/2007 at Ens-Newswire:

The federal government is supporting clean energy projects using innovative technologies with a loan guarantee program finalized Thursday by the Department of Energy. The program is based on the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman has invited 16 project sponsors, who submitted pre-applications last fall, to submit full applications for loan guarantees.....

....Solyndra, Inc. - California Manufacture of efficient thin-film photovoltaic modules....

Yet Republicans like Joe Barton want to blame everything on the Obama administration.

Gerrymandering?

2011-11-19T09:46:00.001-05:00

* Third Eye Blind has released a song, If There Ever Was A Time, through their Facebook page. The song is about the Occupy Wall Street Movement. According to Raw Story, Third Eye Blind, has encouraged people to share the song. It is also available on YouTube:

Surprise! The Wall Street millionaires are getting help to fight back the 99%.

MSNBC:

A well-known Washington lobbying firm with links to the financial industry has proposed an $850,000 plan to take on Occupy Wall Street and politicians who might express sympathy for the protests, according to a memo obtained by the MSNBC program “Up w/ Chris Hayes.”

The proposal was written on the letterhead of the lobbying firm Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford and addressed to one of CLGC’s clients, the American Bankers Association.

CLGC’s memo proposes that the ABA pay CLGC $850,000 to conduct “opposition research” on Occupy Wall Street in order to construct “negative narratives” about the protests and allied politicians. The memo also asserts that Democratic victories in 2012 would be detrimental for Wall Street and targets specific races in which it says Wall Street would benefit by electing Republicans instead....

The rich have to hire lobbyists to fight off the 99%?????? That is pretty amazing.

>>>>> The gerrymandering done by the Ohio Republicans in order to create new maps for redistricting, is drawing a lot of attention. After further study, many people have noticed that one particular Republican will benefit from the new lines.

CantonRep.:

When Republicans in the Ohio General Assembly approved new congressional districts in September, the new map not only split Stark County into three districts, it also established district lines in unexpected places in southwest Canton....

....It’s not a coincidence that three Timken plants, part of Timken headquarters and its Timken technology center in Jackson Township, are in the 16th District.

Ohio House Republican spokesman Mike Dittoe said in an email: “The new map simply reflects the desire to continue to have the Timken facilities, a landmark staple of the 16th Congressional District in Northeast Ohio since at least the 1960s, continue (to) be represented by the 16th Congressional District. ... Rep. Renacci is also a member of the Congressional Steel Caucus; so it also makes sense to have the Timken facilities represented by someone who serves in that caucus.”

The Republicans have to protect the Timken people. Open Secrets reports that people associated with Timken Co. have contributed $124,000 to Republican candidates in the election cycles of 2008, 2010, and 2012, and just over $5000 to Democratic candidates.

Don't Bother

2011-11-18T17:37:00.000-05:00

Republican member of the Ohio House Mike Duffey, who continues to enthusiastically support Gov. John Kasich and SB5/Issue 2, has an E-Invite out for a fundraiser at the Sharon Township Memorial Hall on 11/29/11, from 6-8 pm. Don't spend the money to support his campaign. Instead, we should all work together to vote him out of office.

Duffey has stooped to complete laziness with this entry on his Facebook page:

Mike Duffey asked: Submit your ideas for bills I might sponsor in the legislature here and let your peers vote on them....

Share · November 14 at 6:07pm ·

Isn't he getting paid to come up with legislation? Why should constituents do his work?

Vote Smart has Duffey's voting record which includes his vote in support of restrictions on abortions, SB 5, reducing school funding, etc. Obviously, Duffey does not support the same ideals and goals of his constituents, and has taken a far right turn.

Jobs in Ohio?

2011-11-18T09:51:00.000-05:00

* Ohio's unemployment rate for October 2011 is now 9.0%, according to a report issued at the ODJFS. In the previous month, the unemployment rate was 9.1%.

* In the plan being proposed by Gov. John Kasich to lease/sell the Ohio Turnpike, no mention has been made of whether the state would also sell off/lease the fiber optic or communication lines that run under the turnpike. Would someone else get that money other than the state? Apparently, the money from those lines is quite high.

* ONNtv has captured some remarks from Gov. Kasich:

"Look, I have a very good relationship with operating engineers. I mean when I'm at these plants, the UAW is there, yesterday it was the United Steelworkers. I mean, I come from a labor background. I'm always willing to listen," said Kasich.....

"I'll meet with any of the labor folks. Frankly they would be surprised how comfortable I am with them. Because that's where I come from, not from the white collar CEO, but from a background that's blue collar and labor," said Kasich.

Have any of the unions received an invitation from the governor? Kasich's choice of words is odd when he said that unions "....would be surprised how comfortable I am with them..." Why? Then again, why would the unions want to meet with him? He called union members thugs, he disparaged their work, their dedication, and lied repeatedly about their wages and benefits. I'd like to see an open, televised meeting, if he ever issues an invitation to anyone.

Thank President Obama!

2011-11-16T21:59:00.000-05:00

New York Times:

Chrysler said Wednesday that it would add 1,100 jobs at a sport utility vehicle plant here as it spends $1.7 billion developing new models for its Jeep brand.

The new jobs, to be filled in 2013, amount to more than half of the 2,100 that Chrysler committed to creating under the four-year labor agreement that its unionized workers ratified in October.....

If President Obama hadn't bailed out GM and Chrysler, those companies would not exist today.

Here is a little reminder from the Washington Monthly (May 10, 2011):

....Republicans hate Obama’s rescue of the American automotive industry, but love taking credit now that it’s a sterling success.....

....Kasich, like other Ohio Republicans, including House Speaker John Boehner, decried Obama’s rescue of the American automotive industry. The president said it would work, Kasich said it would not. Obama was right; Kasich was wrong....

Gov. John Kasich was against the bailouts but today is trying to take some credit for the jobs. By the way, those auto jobs are union jobs. What does the anti-union Kasich think about that?

In other Ohio job news:

(1) A company that has been in business for 65 years will be closing, and 23 people will be jobless (see Toledo Blade and Daily Job Cuts).

(2) The Rite Aid in Mayfield Heights is closing (see Patch and Daily Job Cuts).

.....................................

***** Could Republican Rep. Steve Stivers be in trouble with voters?

ThinkProgress has the results of some recent polling by Hart Research to see how people felt about "....votes to block the cleanup of toxic pollution from incinerators and industrial boilers (HR 2250)...." (Those who voted "...to block the cleanup..." included Steve Stivers.)

ThinkProgress:

Swing voter support for Steve Stivers dropped by a stunning 15 points between the pre-ad and post-ad polls, cutting his advantage over an unnamed opponent from a twenty point lead to a five point lead. At the same time, the percent of undecided voters increased by 15 points during the same period, landing at 53% undecided after the ad.
Most swing voters – 53% say that knowing their Representative had voted to weaken clean air standards would cause them to feel less favorable toward the Rep – and 27% say this would make them feel much less favorable.
Swing voters’ negative feelings toward Stivers went up by 6 points between pre- and post-ad polls. Of those voters who definitely recalled the ad, 28% viewed Stivers negatively....

Stivers continues to vote for bills that protect bankers and major polluters. The people in the 15th district should demand that he start working for people --- not corporations.

Defeated Kasich Alters Agenda

2011-11-16T10:01:00.000-05:00

*** With his job approval rating in the toilet, Ohio Gov. John Kasich has changed his mind about some items on his agenda.

Insurancenewsnet:

At the end of a speech Tuesday in Lorain, Gov. John Kasich made a passing reference to his stinging defeat at the polls last week when voters overwhelmingly killed Senate Bill 5....

...No longer apparently on the front burner is major reform of Ohio's workers' compensation system, one of the things he named as a top priority upon taking office early this year.

Among the ideas discussed was the injection of a private insurance element to compete with the state-run insurance fund for injured workers.....

Insurance executives around Ohio will be weeping into their martinis.

**** Have you and your spouse been married a long time? Gov. John Kasich is looking for you!
Coshoctontribune:

Long-married couples involved in their community have a chance to be recognized by the annual Joined Hearts in Giving.

Nominations are being accepted by the Ohio Department of Aging through Nov. 30.

Joined Hearts honors Ohio couples who have been married for at least 40 years and share a commitment not only to each other, but also to their community through volunteerism.

Couples chosen will be honored at a special reception hosted by the department and Ohio first lady Karen Waldbillig Kasich in observance of Valentine's Day....

If you are one of the finalist couples selected, please wear your "No on Issue 2" button, and "Ted" buttons to the ceremony.

Ready, Set, Go...

2011-11-15T21:02:00.000-05:00

Vice President Joe Biden was in Ohio today.
ABC News:

Vice President Joe Biden today officially kicked off the Obama re-election campaign in Ohio, rallying with Cleveland-area firefighters who last week helped to lead a successful repeal of the state’s controversial new collective bargaining rights law.

“Folks, you fired the first shot. It’s not about Barack Obama. It’s not about Joe Biden. It’s about whether middle-class people are going to be put back in the saddle again – because you are the people who make this country move,” Biden told the crowd of 500 in a Euclid firehouse, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer....

...Since April, when Obama announced his bid for a second term, more than 6,000 Ohio volunteers have enlisted to support Obama, organizing more than 3,700 events across the state, according to the campaign.....

Well done!

*** The Ohio Republicans are moving forward with a bill which will take even more money from Ohio's public school districts. Plunderbund has all the dirty details on House Bill 136 which, according to Plunderbund, ----

...To clarify, that means that the amount of tuition a student will receive through the HB 136 PACT voucher program is between $2,282 and $4,563. The student’s home school district, however, will ALWAYS be hit with a $5703.90 deduction in funding for each student awarded a voucher. The remaining amount, a minimum of $1,140.90, will then be “retained by the state” instead of being returned to the district.

This is merely one more backhanded attempt by the legislature is using to try and de-fund public schools in Ohio.....

Read the complete post over at Plunderbund. I wonder how much property taxes would go up with this Republican plan to steal money from public school.

>>>> If you are a Republican and thinking about Newt Gingrich as the party's nominee, you might want to read the PoliticalGuide article about Newt. You might also want to read some articles from the NY Times from 1995-97 on the various ethics problems Gingrich had in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Keeping Watch

2011-11-15T10:43:00.000-05:00

* Republican Rep. Steve Stivers (OH-15th) has been busy trying to promote drilling off our shores. Stivers and his anti-environment Republicans are trying to overturn the moratorium put in place by President Obama after the oil spill disaster in the gulf. Switchboard at the NRDC has details.

Stivers has not been doing that well in getting his sponsored bills into law. Of his sponsored bills, none have become law.
Opencongress:
5 Sponsored Bills (Ranks of 440) 0 Made Into Law (Ranks of 440)

That is pretty dismal. Where are the jobs Stivers promised?

>>>>> The Dispatch is reporting that today, Noon, free cake at the 150th celebration of the Statehouse in Columbus. Be there.

* Ohioans must realize that just as we might be happy about repealing SB 5/Issue 2, it is not over. Even as I type this, there are people within the Kasich administration and the state legislature that are crafting legislation to push similar, smaller bills that would limit the rights of public employees. The Republicans feel that SB 5 was too big, and so they will "take care" of one group of public employees at a time, or a certain benefit (pensions) or aspect of a public employee's job. More bills will emerge after the holidays.

Just as the Ohio Republicans crafted their anti-collective bargaining bill in secret, they are doing the same regarding the sale/lease of the Ohio Turnpike. Although citizens might not know it, there are meetings being held to set up a structure to sale/lease the state toll road. Once again, we are seeing an example of the lack of transparency in the Kasich administration.

*****Time Magazine takes another look at SB 5/Issue 2:

...Kasich rankled voters by delivering strident denunciation of public workers that convinced many that the real purpose of the legislation was not economic reform but union busting...

...Democrats are also trying to hang SB5 around the necks of the Republican presidential candidates who supported it. There are signs the gambit could work: approximately half of voters surveyed in the AFL-CIO poll said they’d be less likely to vote for Mitt Romney because of his support for the bill. The legislation will be woven into one of the Democratic Party’s thematic arguments for 2012: that the GOP has collectively embraced extreme policy that protects the rich while punishing the middle class. The defeat of Issue 2, AFSCME President Gerald McEntee declared in the wake of the vote, “delivered a clear message to corporate-backed politicians across the country that we will no longer stay silent as Wall Street tries to steal the American Dream. This was a brazen attempt to silence the voice of the 99%.”

We Are Ohio awakened a strong, powerful voice--- the middle class.

Sloppy or Arrogant

2011-11-14T11:33:00.000-05:00

>>> What is it about Republican Josh Mandel that just seems so sloppy? With word that his big database of public employees salaries included inaccuracies and omissions, everything he does seems to be lacking in providing accurate information. For months, he did not file his pfd (personal financial disclosure), as required by law for federal candidates. He appeared to know little about SB 5, except to mimic the Republican talking points. Are his failures to follow rules/laws and indication of his sloppiness or his arrogance? Now, there is another bit of information missing from his campaign reports.

OhioDems:

Ohio’s ethically challenged Treasurer Josh Mandel has violated FEC law yet again, this time due to hundreds of omissions on his Q3 report. In the “disbursements” section of every FEC report, each individual disbursement has a line where candidates are legally required to fill out the “purpose” of said disbursement. Josh Mandel’s Q3 report reveals that he’s neglected to list the purpose of his disbursement nearly 300 times.

Below is an example of Josh Mandel leaving the legally required “purpose” entry blank. Remember, this happens nearly 300 times in his Q3 report.

While it’s hardly a secret that Josh Mandel sees no problem whatsoever with breaking the law (Watch him do it here, here, here, and here) the Ohio Democratic Party is sensitive to the fact that someone who claims to be in charge of watching the state’s tax dollars may have trouble reading and filling out basic campaign finance documents (Remember his 6 month law breaking refusal to file his PFD?)....

If Josh Mandel wants to be taken seriously as a candidate for U.S. Senate, he needs to
(1) follow the law in filing his reports,

(2) explain why he wants to privatize social security, medicare, and support Republican Rep. Paul Ryan's Ayn Rand inspired budget,

(3) stop acting like he is running for a middle school student council election and do his due diligence!

-----------------------------

*** If you've been to an Ohio State football game this year or watched any television, then you know that we are being bombarded with the brainwashing sponsored by oil/gas/energy concerns. At the football games, the names of energy companies flash on the horizontal screens at the bottom of "C" deck, and even the cheerleaders throw OSU t-shirts into the stands with the names of energy companies emblazoned on them as a sponsor.

Local TV stations have been playing ads sponsored by energy companies in which a diverse group of smiling "workers" show how pleased they are to work for a corporation that might be polluting our air, drinking, water, and environment. How could anyone suspect the corporation they work for of doing anything wrong???

With news that Gov. John Kasich is reaping campaign benefits from these energy producers, Ohioans should not be surprised.

Bizjournals:

....The report also indicated that nearly $750 million was spent nationally by oil and gas producers on lobbying during the same period, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich took in $213,519 in contributions from the oil and gas industry, the most of any Ohio politician, according to the report. Former Gov. Ted Strickland took in $87,450 and Secretary of State Jon Husted, from Kettering, took in $84,750.

Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols was quoted as saying gas drilling is expected to create 200,000 jobs over the next four years but that Kasich also warned oil and gas producers that they will need to adhere to Ohio's environmental rules.

Yeah, right. Kasich and the Republicans will do all they can to knock down, obliterate, and destroy any regulations that stand in their way. Republicans are, as you know, allergic to regulations that protect our lives and environment.

*** Hey! Would someone please stop running those ads featuring birther, Pat Boone?

Ooooooops!

2011-11-13T15:54:00.000-05:00

Spell check? The good people over at Plunderbund have found a big mistake on an email sent out from the Ohio Auditor Dave Yost's campaign website on the occasion of Veterans' Day.

Here is the screenshot Plunderbund provided:

As you guessed, they must not be using spell check. If they had, they would have noticed that "heros" is spelled "heroes" and "Superhoes" is not something I'm familiar with at all. "Superhoes" might actually be "superheroes" considering the fact that the email was sent our to honor veterans. Whether or not Dave Yost sent this message out himself is immaterial, because the website is his, with his name emblazoned across the top. Ultimately, he is responsible because he should approve every message that goes out of his site.

**** Republican presidential want to bomb Iran (see Philly.com).

* Glory be! Mitt Romney's business background shows that he bought up companies, took out money, and then put the companies out of business, and people out of work. Check out the NYTimes for the ugly details of Romney's "business" knowledge.

>>> Now that the Ohio Republicans failed in pushing their SB 5 agenda, do you think that they'll actually spend time listening to people? Don't hold your breath.

They Are Protecting the 1%

2011-11-11T21:34:00.000-05:00

In honor of Veterans Day, Republican Sen. Jim DeMint voted against a bill that would give a tax break to companies that hired veterans. Ed Schultz just mentioned that there are 900,000 unemployed veterans today. At least veterans know that DeMint is doing nothing to help them. This vote is just another vote by DeMint in which he has demonstrated his lack of support for our vets.

Votesmart has some of the list of DeMint "NO" votes on veterans issues. Why does DeMint hate veterans, yet he protects the 1%?

_ _ _ _ _

>>>> The Huffington Post had the results of a Hart Research Poll which shows a split in the Ohio Republican Party. If you have a little time, check out the questions and answers from the poll. Kasich is in big, big, trouble because any support he had is quickly eroding.

_____________

* * * Who is getting the blame for the loss of funding for cities and counties?
Masonbuzz:

...The Enquirer’s Steve Kemme and Amanda Seitz reports that Issue 2′s defeat hasn’t induced panic among other local communities that might gained some financial benefits from its passage.

Communities are far more worried about the loss of Ohio’s estate tax revenue in 2013 and the continued reduction of the state-provided Local Government Fund. Both of these cuts were supported by Republican Gov. John Kasich and the GOP-controlled General Assembly, the same ones who offered Senate Bill 5 as an antidote to local governments’ money woes.

Ohio’s $55.8 billion budget, signed by Kasich in July, slashes the Local Government Fund almost in half over the next two years. That fund provided $665 million for local governments this year. The state budget also eliminates the estate tax, 80 percent of which has gone to local governments....

Kasich talked about a fair share, but there was no fair share. He went after the middle class workers in the state. Kasich and the Ohio Republicans slashed budgets, but they didn't cut their own salaries, and they continue to freely give away tax breaks to corporations. In an article in the Dispatch on 5/25/2011, Kasich said he wanted to give banks tax breaks:

John Kasich used to be a banker. Now, Ohio's Republican governor is studying a possible tax cut for the state's financial institutions.

Banks, savings and loans and most other Ohio financial institutions still pay a corporate franchise tax, a 13-mill tax based on net worth. Kasich, a former executive at Lehman Brothers, suggested yesterday that altering the tax could reduce costs for banks and generate more loans.

"I mean, taxing people on the basis of net worth instead of net income is something that's not all that appealing to me," Kasich told about 300 bank executives at the Ohio Bankers' Day Conference at the Crowne Plaza Columbus North....

Isn't that just what we need? With bankers making obscene profits and bonuses, John Kasich wants to reward them by giving them tax breaks!!!! Kasich supports the 1%. What about the rest of the people? Where is his concern for school children, the elderly, the poor, and neighborhoods that lost funding?

Stivers: Protecting the 1%

2011-11-11T09:56:00.000-05:00

Why would anyone be against rules that protect consumers? I guess if you think banks should be allowed to risk consumer money, make deals in backrooms away from regulations, and gamble with junk investments, you must be one of the Republicans in Congress trying to overturn Dodd-Frank.

An article from 2010 by Stuart Gittleman in Complinet, explains what Dodd-Frank will do:

....Dodd, who chairs the Banking Committee and is not running for reelection next month, told attendees at the New York University School of Law fourth annual global economic policy forum that TARP helped save the global financial system from itself. He expects that the laws he helped steer to passage this July, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, will help keep the system away from the abyss, he added.

NYU professor William Allen introduced Dodd, saying the three legs of the Dodd-Frank Act are regulating systemic risk; reining in and bringing transparency to the shadow banking system of hedge funds, swaps and derivatives; and protecting consumers. Allen, a former Delaware chancellor, said the third leg may be the most politically challenging.....

In an article in the Washington Times, Republican Rep. Steve Stivers (OH-15), states his opinion on why Dodd-Frank regulations are bad for business. Stivers, who even voted against consumer protection while in the state senate and pushed back on consumer protections as a Bank One lobbyist, appears to have the repeal of the Dodd-Frank Act has his central goal in life.

Personally, I'm tired of elected officials that continue to go to bat to protect the profits of banks, while they tear down regulations that protect consumers. This is an outrage! Stivers and others were sent to Congress to represent people - not corporations, and certainly not the 1%. Since I did not vote for Stivers, I'm really not sure why people voted for him. He certainly has not delivered on creating jobs. His weak "job fair" was a staged photo op for him and we've not heard how many of the applicants got jobs. Most of those companies appearing at the Stivers job fair had been campaign contributors.

Stivers moved his congressional office out of Columbus and into Hilliard. By moving his office away from the most densely populated area of Ohio's 15th congressional district, he has stayed clear of hearing the plight of college students and average Ohioans. He seems able to use the backdrop of college students when it fits his needs, but has done nothing to create jobs for college grads and unemployed Ohioans. Overturning banking regulations does not create jobs--- it emboldens bankers to take further risks.

_ _ _ _ _ _

The Dispatch article reporting that some right wing tea party groups want to make a push for Ohio to become a right-to -work state make people believe that some Republicans still have not gotten the message. Right-to-work states generally have higher job accidents/fatalities, low wages, and fewer worker protections.

Dispatch:

...The coalition formed to make Ohio the 23rd, Ohioans for Workplace Freedom, includes Chris Littleton, president of the Ohio Liberty Council; Maurice Thompson, executive director of the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law; and former state Rep. Bryan Williams of Akron, director of government affairs for the Associated Builders and Contractors of Ohio.

Littleton and Thompson were two of the masterminds behind the health-care amendment that passed with almost 66 percent of the vote. All three men said passage of Issue 3 was triggered by Ohioans’ strong support for individual freedoms — strong enough, they say, to trump the apparent support for current union rules shown by the landslide defeat of Issue 2....

How would being a right-to-work state help Ohioans? Have you seen homes being built in the area? Who is doing the brick work, carpentry, drywall, and roofing? They are not workers from central Ohio. The workers that some of the builders bring in are paid so low that some of the workers stay in the homes to sleep. What wages are paid to these workers that even some builders find unsatisfactory? How much more money do builders and contractors need for profits that they (some) import workers, and pay them low wages?

Here We Go Again

2011-11-10T20:23:00.000-05:00

* Ohio's Republicans and their corporate supporters are not giving up on attacking Ohio's middle class workers. Sure, Gov. Kasich, Shannon Jones, William Batchelder, and the rest of the Republicans lost a big one when SB 5 was repealed by 61% of Ohio's voters. Now they will try another way to punish the hardworking men and women of Ohio by using their buddies/surrogates.

Dispatch:

Although Senate Bill 5 is still smoldering after going down in flames on Tuesday, tea party activists announced their intentions today to place a constitutional amendment before voters next year that would make Ohio a right-to-work state.

The amendment, to be titled the “Workplace Freedom Amendment,” comes from individuals who crafted and placed Ohio’s health-care amendment that passed overwhelmingly through Issue 3. But Ohioans just held a referendum on public employee collective bargaining and union rules, and the state’s current system was upheld when Issue 2 was crushed 61 percent to 39 percent.....

.....“Just two days ago, Ohioans spoke with one clear and emphatic voice, and voted by an overwhelming margin to support our everyday heroes and their right to collectively bargain,” said Melissa Fazekas, spokeswoman for We Are Ohio, the labor coalition that raised more than $30 million to defeat Issue 2. “Yet, today their voices are already being ignored, even after Governor Kasich and legislative leaders have promised to listen and reflect on Tuesday’s vote....

A man listed in the article and promoter of the amendment, Bryan Williams, is a registered lobbyist for the Associated Builders and Contractors of Ohio, and they were donors to the Building A Better Ohio. He is a former elected official. A similar move was tried in the 1950's when Republicans tried to push for right-to-work legislation, but it was shot down. Right-to-work states have higher work fatalities and low wages.

Don't sign a petition entitled "Workplace Freedom Amendment" if it is presented to you.

Well done!

2011-11-09T10:07:00.000-05:00

* Congratulations to the good people involved in We Are Ohio, and every firefighter, teacher, police officer, nurse, and public employee that worked to repeals SB 5 (Issue 2). Thank you to Ohio's voters for repealing SB 5. Your hard work to protect the rights of Ohio's middle class was a success. However, as jubilant that we all are today, there are a few things we must remember:

1. Gov. Kasich is still governor for another three years. He will show his resentment and bitterness until he is out of office.

2. Republicans have no history of supporting labor. No one should believe they ever will. Use this as a teachable moment. Tell your children what happened, how the good people of Ohio helped you, and explain to them why unions and the middle class are important to our country.

3. Kasich and the Ohio Republicans will consider public employees the thorns in their sides, and they will try a similar tactic like SB 5 again. Speaker of the Ohio House William Batchelder said they'd try again--- in 2012 (see Washington Post).

4. The Republicans, the Koch Brothers, Americans for Prosperity, charter school owners/promoters, corporations, Tea Partiers, and right wingers still consider public employees their enemies. (Keep in mind--- Josh Mandel supported SB 5. Mitt Romney flip-flopped on it.) Be alert. Stay informed. Read something other than the local newspaper, since they all supported Kasich.

5. Never surrender your rights to those who wish to profit off of your hard work. Keep in mind the words of the famous American philosopher, Yogi Berra:

" It ain't over 'til it's over. "

* * *

Note: Don't worry about Issue 3 losing, because that will be settled by the federal courts.

Thank you, Ohio!

2011-11-08T22:06:00.000-05:00

Thank you, Ohio, for voting NO on Issue 2! Thank you for standing up for the middle class, and the good people in your community!

Thank Them-- Vote NO on Issue 2

2011-11-08T10:48:00.001-05:00

*** Update: 5:00pm. Think Progress has a picture of Gov. John Kasich sporting a shirt from an exclusive, private, male-only country club:

Today, Ohioans will decide on Issue 2, a referendum on GOP Gov. John Kasich’s deeply unpopular anti-labor law Senate Bill 5. In its print-version of a story on how voters “are set to roundly reject” his “signature achievement, Politico included a picture of the beleaguered Kasich stumping for his law at a Building A Better Ohio meeting. What’s striking about this image, however, is his shirt. It appears that Kasich decided to step out at a public event in a polo shirt bearing the logo of the Pine Valley Golf Club — an invitation-only, male-only country club.

Described as one of the “most exclusive” clubs in the world, Pine Valley Golf Club in Camden, New Jersey is “male-only membership” that is offered “by invitation from the board of directors only.” The membership list is “a closely guarded secret” and women wishing to play the course are permitted only on Sunday afternoons.....

(You can see the picture at Think Progress.)

As he goes up against middle class workers in Ohio, Kasich wears a shirt that clearly says, "I think I'm better than you."

Vote NO on Issue 2.

------------------

In a very odd way, voting NO on Ohio's Issue 2 is a way of saying "Thank You" to those in your community that have worked to make your life good and safe. Issue 2 would create chaos and danger in our neighborhoods, hospitals, and schools.

* Having the best qualified teachers in our public school classrooms is a benefit to our children and our communities. Experienced teachers provide their knowledge, familiarity with curriculum, skills to motivate children, proper degrees and certificates in education, the ability to deal with all learning levels and situations, and the common sense to know what works in the classroom. Why would you take away the input of knowledgeable, experienced teachers and replace that with the decisions made by a partisan bureaucrat who hates teachers and public education?

Thank your teachers, past and present, and vote NO on Issue 2.

* Several years ago, we had a fire in our neighborhood. It was amazing to see the bravery and skills of our local, professional firefighters. They worked rapidly, and efficiently to get the fire out. Of course, it had a lot to do with the fact that they were outfitted in modern fire safety gear, professionally trained, and properly staffed at their firehouse. They respond to health emergencies quickly with care and professionalism. Living close to a firehouse has provided us with insight into their daily lives and emergency runs, and the fact that they put their lives on the line every single day at work.

Stand up, and thank our firefighters, show them you respect them, and vote NO on Issue 2.

* Whether it be on the highway or in the neighborhood, our police officers risk their lives in keeping us safe. In an road accident, they are the first to arrive and assess the situation. When a crime is occurring, you know that your 911 call will have your local police officers respond immediately. Staffing is so very important for our officers and our own safety. In an emergency, we don't want to wait for twenty or thirty minutes for assistance because someone, other than police officers, decided that only one or two officers could maintain order and safety.

Let your police officers know that you appreciate their hard work, vote NO on Issue 2.

* If you've ever been a patient in the hospital or have had a loved one in the hospital, you've watched nurses at work. Nurses see us all in our most difficult of life's situations, and yet, because of their training and experience, they are able to respond quicklyand calmly to our needs. In an emergency, the last thing you want to hear from someone is that there are not enough nurses on duty to respond to your rapid heart rate, bleeding ulcer, or birth of your child. How many nurses does it take to staff an emergency room? Today, that decision is handled by other nursing staff. Issue 2 would allow someone else, not a nurse, to set staffing levels, and would prevent nurses from speaking up about problems.

Thank a nurse for helping you and your loved ones. Show you care, and vote NO on 2.

* Our public employees have been under an incredible amount of pressure recently. They've been forced to take several weeks of furlough days without pay. With the new administration in power, they've also experienced a huge amount of stress because they never know if their position will be eliminated. Despite what some have indicated in their database of public employees salaries (Josh Mandel's flawed, inaccurate, mistake-filled website-see NewsNet 5, Plunderbund, News-Herald), public employees are not overpaid.

Support our men and women in public service, and vote NO on Issue 2.

For all these people and your community, vote NO on Issue 2.

We don't want some Wall Street vice president/Fox News talking head to tell us what we need. We know what we want and need-----

Vote NO on Issue 2.

Get Out the Vote, Ohio: NO on 2

2011-11-07T23:16:00.000-05:00

With the polls opening on Tuesday at 6:30 am, Ohio voters have a lot on the line regarding our safety, security, our values, and our way of life. If you've voted by absentee ballot, I hope that you've returned your ballot. However, if you will vote on Tuesday, get to your polling place, and be prepared: (1) bring your picture ID, (2) look for illegal campaign pamphlets in the lobby (toss them in the trash), and (3) vote NO on Issues 1, 2, 3.

If you need some additional guidance, check out the good people over at We Are Ohio.

Apparently, the friends of the governor have brought in some sleazy groups to mislead voters. Plunderbund has the details about a particular mailer sent to voters that clearly lies about what is happening in Ohio. Haven't we just had enough of these right wing liars?

* It was great to see Ed Schultz in Ohio this evening on MSNBC. He will be in Ohio again tomorrow with his show on at 7pm and 11pm.

>>>>>> Send a message to Kasich, Batchelder, and the rest of the Ohio Republicans, and...

Vote NO on Issue 2.

NO NO NO

Vote NO on 2!!!!

2011-11-07T10:19:00.001-05:00

* In the November 14, 2011 issue of The Nation, Melissa Fazekas, of We Are Ohio, has a great quote concerning Issue 2 (SB 5): "The question comes down to whom do you trust?..........Real people who are our friends, family and neighbors, or deceptive and misleading ad funded by anonymous corporate donors?..."

Melissa Fazekas hit the nail on the head. Do you trust John Kasich, a talk show host on Fox News, and former Lehman Brothers Vice President , that helped our public employee retirement systems lose hundreds of millions of dollars? Truthfully, you need to look for honesty, and guidance to those people in our community, "....our friends, family, and neighbors..." who work as firefighters, police, teachers, nurses, and public employees, who share your life and goals.

If you are looking for some outside views of Kasich's war on the middle class, check out these links: DailyKos, Huffington Post, Malcontends, Findlaydem, and RawStory.

In case you are interested, our family cancelled our subscription to the Dispatch several weeks ago.

VOTE NO ON ISSUE 2.

Vote No on Issues 1, 2, and 3.

(NOTE: A word to the wise---- When you go into your polling place, make sure that there are no pamphlets/political handouts in the lobby. Take a quick look around. If you see anything, toss them in the trash. I've seem some right wing religious groups sprinkle their candidate/issue leaflets in polling areas.)

.................................

Does anyone else find it creepy that Republicans Josh Mandel and John Boehner refuse to give up campaign contributions from a former Republican candidate, Rich Iott? Iott, also spends time dressing up as a Nazi re-enactor.

DaytonDailyNews:

At least two Democrat-leaning political organizations are calling for Ohio Treasurer and U.S. Senate candidate Josh Mandel to return a $1,000 contribution he received from a former Republican congressional candidate who was involved in a Nazi re-enactment group.

Specifically, both ProgressOhio and the National Jewish Democratic Council want Mandel, a Republican, to donate the contribution from Rich Iott, a former Toledo-area congressional candidate, to a charity such as the Wiesenthal Center, the Southern Poverty Law Center or “other appropriate charities.”

Mandel, who is Jewish, received the contribution Sept. 5.....

How can they accept his money? Yuck. I also find it disturbing that Iott listed his occupation on a campaign contribution in the following manner, and available at OpenSecrets:

IOTT, RICHARD MR
MONCLOVA,OH 43542 STATE OF OHIO/SOLDIER

Send a Message to Kasich

2011-11-06T23:44:00.000-05:00

* Other people have noticed the hypocrisy coming from the Ohio Republicans on Issue 2 (SB5). Even the Washington Post took notice of how the Republicans have pushed for cuts for everyone but themselves.
WashingtonPost:

...GOP state Rep. Lou Blessing — a prominent Republican voice in this fight, as the Speaker Pro Tempore of the Ohio House of Representatives — made the claim during an interview with Ohio public radio, audio of which is right here. Pressed on why he and some other GOPers wouldn’t agree to labor’s insistence that legislators also accept a pay cut, he said:

“Because it’s not merited. I earn my pay. I think that was just political baloney. So they can say in an ad, `Gee , you know, they didn’t support a pay cut.’ Well, no, I don’t support a pay cut. Republicans earn their money. Apparently Democrats don’t. They feel they should be paid less. That may be true. Maybe we’ll just cut the Democrats’ pay.”

Blessing also argues that public employees wouldn’t necessarily see a pay cut as the result of the rollback of bargaining rights. But PolitiFact recently concluded that it was very likely that the rollback would lead to pay sacrifices....

While Gov. Kasich has paid his staff salaries that far exceeded those in the previous administration, you wonder if Kasich and his GOP buddies are just living in a bubble, without any connection to real people.

An opinion piece in the Lantern explains how professors would be hurt and college students would lose out if Issue 2 passed.

The Lantern:

....Senate Bill 5/ Issue 2 is not about saving the budget. If that was the case taxes would be raised on the wealthy and on all of us. If Kasich was concerned about our financial problems, he would bring regulations back that prevent corporations from greed. This isn't about the budget … it's about politics and making sure that Democrats do not have a chance in future elections.

Governor Kasich is waging partisan warfare on the party that will go after him when he runs for re-election and his doing so is putting our state in peril. Issue 2 is bad for students, it's bad for teachers, and it's bad for firefighters and police and nurses. The only people that Issue 2 is good for are the rich and their bought-and-paid-for politicians like Governor Kasich.

Just say NO to Issue 2.

NO to 2, and NO to Kasich.

Stivers Likes His Contributors' Burgers

2011-11-05T00:18:00.000-04:00

* Republican Rep. Steve Stivers (OH-15) is doing nothing to create jobs, but he did get his name in the Washington Post for his tribute to White Castle.

WashingtonPost:

....Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio) on Tuesday honored White Castle with a congressional tribute to the “tasty little burgers” and the company that serves them (which is, of course, based in his home district). “White Castle is truly an American original and is inspiring because it is a story about the successs of the American Dream,” Stivers enthused in the tribute, which he submitted for the congressional record.

A spokeswoman notes that Stivers’s interest in the company isn’t just as the boosterish hometown congressman. “He’s a big fan,” she says, noting that her boss also celebrated the chain’s anniversary by flipping burgers at a local outlet....

Of course, Stivers is a "big fan" of White Castle! They're his campaign contributors!!!!
According to OpenSecrets, those associated with White Castle contributed the following funds to the Stivers campaign: $11,100. The Ingram family supports Republicans and the rest of the Ohio Republicans also enjoy their campaign contributions.

How many real jobs has Steve Stivers created in Ohio's 15th district? Anyone? Anyone?

----------------

**** Cleveland Browns fans lost any bit of respect they may have had for Gov. John Kasich.
The Washington Monthly provides the ugly details.

VOTE NO ON ISSUE 2.

Know Your Friends

2011-11-04T19:57:00.000-04:00

* Do you think that some people should actually spend a little time within the state to learn what is really going on here? Josh Mandel, Republican, and current Ohio Treasurer, appears to be an uninformed voter. He has spent so much time jetting around from Hawaii, to Las Vegas, Washington, D.C., and visiting every county Republican barbecue as he tries to raise money for a run for the Senate.

Think Progress had a piece about what Mandel "knows" (and I use that word loosely) about SB 5, but first here is Mandel on YouTube:

ThinkProgress:

...In what must come as a surprise to Mandel, Ohio’s teachers, police, firefighters, and even veterans feel slighted — not respected — by this bill. SB5 strips unions of the right to negotiate wages, eliminates pay increases, and completely bans the right to strike. As public officials and unions both note, teachers and safety forces have already made substantial sacrifices — including zero pay raises and paying more for health insurance — to accommodate the tough economy....

Mandel's explanation seems like a bunch of baloney, like the kid who gives a book report, but didn't read the book. Mandel is hoping to run as the Republican candidate for U.S. Senator, but if this is his level of understanding about an important issue, he should at least try to act and sound like he knows something.

Firefighters, police officers, teachers, nurses, and all public employees, take note: Josh Mandel is clueless about your concerns.

**** Here is another reason to vote NO on Issue 2: Sarah Palin is for it, according to FoxToledo.

>>> Finally, an article in the News-Messenger indicates that Republican Speaker of the Ohio House, William Batchelder, may try again if SB 5 doesn't go their way.

No on Issue 1.

No on Issue 2.

No on Issue 3.

Elmwood and William Foster Elementary	8:10 a.m. – 1:40 p.m.
Morning Kindergarten & Preschool	8:10 a.m. – 10:50a.m.
Afternoon Kindergarten & Preschool	11:00 a.m. – 1:40 p.m.

Maple Leaf Intermediate	7:40 a.m. - 1:10 p.m.

Middle School	7:45 a.m. – 1:15 p.m.

High School	7:42 a.m. - 1:40 p.m.

Ohio 15th District

Kasich & Co. and Your Money

Republican Disasters

Where in the world is Josh Mandel?

Are Republicans sick of themselves????

Arrogance?

You Didn't Get An Invitation???

Saturday Afternoon in Central Ohio.....

Layoffs, Bullying, and Republicans

Don't Say I Didn't Tell You....

Want to Help President Obama?

Public Education in Ohio...

Is your tax rate higher than Romney's???

Things Not Going as Planned?

Which one would you choose????

Dr. King's Work

The Public is Against It

Anti-Bailout Kasich Now Supports Automakers

Notes----

More Layoffs and Kasich's Friend

Layoffs in Ohio, Despite Kasich

Playing "Keep Away"

There he goes again...

Kasich---Not on the Good List

Stivers Staying Out of Columbus---Again

Fracking and Earthquakes in Ohio

Do Ohioans have a short memory?

Kasich: Lame Duck???

Poll

How would you judge Gov. Kasich's first year in office?

In the news.....

Earthquake in Ohio?

More Ohio Job Losses...

Good News for Central Ohio

How did Stivers vote???

Looking Back

Truth?

After the holidays.....

Thank you, President Obama!

The Good, The Bad, and the Really Shameful

This is Kasich's job creation?????

Don't Blame Me---I didn't vote for these GOPers!

Keeping Watch

Republicans Just Don't Get It

Sky King???

Appalling

Ohio Republicans Push An Unfunded, Right Wing, Mandate

Now You Know

• Transparency Report

• Appendix I – page 1 – 40 pdf

• Appendix II – page 41 – 85 pdf

• Appendix III – page 86 – 133 pdf

• Appendix IV – page 134 – 174 pdf

Click for the News Release

Three important emails

Too Many Hands in the Soup?

Where are the jobs, Republicans????

Tea Party Propaganda

Friday Evening......

Child Labor

Some Numbers...

More Ohio Politics....

Republican Craziness

Spending Your Money

The Feud Continues in the Ohio GOP

Battle in the Ohio GOP?

What jobs bills?

Another Dumb Quote from Gingrich

Was Kasich paid for his results at Lehman?

Tom?

Save the Buckeye Tree!

Which groups are paying for Kasich?

Keep Your Eyes on Kasich

End to Medicare???? Republicans Want It

More Baloney....

Tax the Rich!

Gerrymandering?

Don't Bother

Mike Duffey asked: Submit your ideas for bills I might sponsor in the legislature here and let your peers vote on them....

Jobs in Ohio?