Today we learned a lot about Republican Josh Mandel, Ohio's absent Treasurer in his debate with Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.
1. Josh Mandel cannot answer a question directly or honestly.
2. Josh Mandel continues to repeat the same false talking points provided to him by right wingers, and those debunked by fact checkers.
3. Josh Mandel doesn't trust women to make their own decisions about their health.
4. Josh Mandel would have voted AGAINSTthe auto rescue plan that saved 800,000+ auto related Ohio jobs.
5. Josh Mandel cannot be trusted because he hired unqualified friends and their family members from AEPI and AEPhi to work for Treasurer's office.
6. Josh Mandel has gone missing from work. Instead of going to work, he has gone to fundraisers in the Bahamas, Pittsburgh, Kentucky, Utah, Texas, California, Florida, New York, and campaigned instead of protecting Ohio's money.
7. Josh Mandel is against providing more money for public education. He wants to give more money and power to charter schools.
We DON'T need Josh Mandel in Washington, DC. Mandel is just not ready for primetime.
U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown has received the endorsement of former Senator, astronaut, and American hero, John Glenn----
>>>> C-Span is due to cover the U.S. Senate debate today from Cleveland at 12:30pm today. Sen. Sherrod Brown will debate his Republican challenger.
**** I read that Republican Mike Huckabee thought Vice President Joe Biden's debate performance was over the top. Really?
Mike Huckabee said that when he was in college he occasionally cooked squirrel in his popcorn popper (http://tinyurl.com/9bks7cu). I never take political advice from people that think cooking a squirrel qualifies them as a gourmand.
Bay Buchanan, right wing Republican, said the following about Vice President Joe Biden's debate responses,from RawStory:
“I haven’t talked to a woman who’s looked at that debate and not just responded and said that was just awful and obnoxious.”
Exactly where did Buchanan interview/talk with these women.....in the restroom at Republican headquarters? Every woman I've communicated with just absolutely loved Joe Biden's answers from the debate.
+ Joe Biden believes in the rights of women to make their own gynecological decisions.
- Paul Ryan does not.
+ Joe Biden believes that women have the right to have equal pay for equal work.
- Paul Ryan does not.
+ Joe Biden has supported our military and our veterans.
- Paul Ryan does not.
The
House Budget Committee, chaired by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), has told a
veterans' group it is studying a plan to save $6 billion annually in
VA health care costs by cancelling enrollment of any veteran who
doesn't have a service-related medical condition and is not poor.
Committee
Republicans, searching for ways to curb federal deficits and rein in
galloping VA costs, are targeting 1.3 million veterans who claim
priority group 7 or 8 status and have access to VA care.....
This is similar to a plan by Mitt Romney to privatize veterans health care.
Romney-Ryan are just wrong for veterans, women, children, and human beings (and family pets, like Seamus, that Romney put on the roof of his car).
...Romney has stockpiled as much as $87 million in his IRA – even though
contributions to such retirement accounts are limited to just $30,000 a
year. "Congress never intended IRAs to be used to accumulate that kind
of wealth," says Wilkins. To get around the limits, Romney appears to
have directed his IRA to invest in a special class of Bain stock. By
assigning an artificially low value to the shares, Bain ensured that any
returns would be wildly inflated – as much as 30 times the initial
investment. By buying rigged stock with his limited IRA dollars, Romney
got to reap the bonanza tax-free....
A poll has some news about the race for U.S. Senate in Ohio--- Wall Street Journal:
...A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News/Marist Poll shows Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) with a 52%-41% lead over Republican candidate Josh Mandel. Mr. Brown has held a consistent lead, and the new poll suggests it is not narrowing.....
After interviewing the Senator, E.J. Dionne provides his take on what Sen. Sherrod Brown is up against in his campaign for re-election. Dionne notes that over $20 million is coming from conservatives to defeat Sen. Sherrod Brown. HeraldNews:
...Ryan, Brown said, has “dressed up trickle-down economics and wrapped it
in an Ayn Rand novel.” The vice president, Brown added, should highlight
the Republicans’ desire to privatize both Medicare and Social Security,
reflected in Ryan’s own record and Republicans’ attempts to do so
whenever they thought they had the votes. “It’s clear they want to go
there,” Brown said....
...There may be an answer in the furious efforts of the conservative
billionaires to unseat Sherrod Brown. He asks the obvious questions:
“Why this money? Who are these people? Why are they spending it in
Ohio?”
As it happens, the same folks are also trying to beat Obama. It would
behoove the president (and Biden, too) to join Brown in reminding voters
that this election will determine whose interests will be represented
after the ballots are counted — and whose will be ignored....
==========
Vice President Joe Biden stated last night that the Republicans have never liked Medicare and Social Security and the Romney Ryan ticket is working to dismantle both programs. Here are the questions all Americans must ask themselves:
- Can you live without Medicare and Social Security?
- Can your elderly parents, relatives, neighbors live without Medicare and Social Security?
- Can your elderly parents remain in a nursing home if Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are no longer available?
- Can your disabled relative live without Medicaid?
The clincher for last night's debate goes to Vice President Biden and his remarks about women's rights and access to abortion.
Now with regard to the way in which the—we differ, my
friend says that he—well I guess he accepts Governor Romney’s position
now, because in the past he has argued that there was—there’s rape and
forcible rape. He’s argued that in the case of rape or incest, it was
still—it would be a crime to engage in having an abortion. I just
fundamentally disagree with my friend.
Biden is no radical on abortion.
He began by talking about his acceptance, on a personal level, of the
Catholic Church's teaching that human life begins at conception:
But I refuse to impose it on equally devout Christians
and Muslims and Jews, and I just refuse to impose that on others, unlike
my friend here, the—the congressman. I—I do not believe that we have a
right to tell other people that—women they can’t control their body.
It’s a decision between them and their doctor. In my view and the
Supreme Court, I’m not going to interfere with that.
Joe Biden and Barack Obama get it. Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney just don't get it and women should not support them. I want to move forward with Obama-Biden, not back with the Republicans.
Thank you, Vice President Joe Biden, for your outstanding performance in tonight's debate!!!!
Tonight's debate showed a strong contrast between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan. Joe Biden was strong, knew his facts, stood up for our middle class, and clearly won the debate.
Paul Ryan said he supported the troops, but he has a record of voting against health care for our veterans. Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney want to send our troops into war in Iran and Syria, even though they have no experience with war, the military, or the pain of the aftermath of war.
Ed Schulz said that Joe Biden's presentation on foreign policy showed his strengths and complete understanding of what is going on in the world. Paul Ryan--- not so much.
...MANDEL’S PRESS PROBLEM — It’s not unusual for
Republicans to be wary of the press, but Josh Mandel’s relationship with
Ohio media outlets is so bad that it’s marring his own comeback
narrative. Mandel tangled with a Canton, Ohio, radio show host Thursday,
refusing to answer questions about hiring campaign aides and political
confidants to staff the state Treasurer’s office. For most of the
combative 3-minute back and forth
Mandel chose to talk over queries about staffing decisions and
salaries, accusing the host of being a pawn of Democratic Sen. Sherrod
Brown’s campaign. “Just answer the question,” host Ron Ponder implores
before lecturing the candidate and cutting the line. “Don’t come on and
just use this radio program as a foil to get out your campaign material.
Hang up on this dude, man.” Mandel could have calmly defended the
salaries and work of his staffers, but the Marine instead went into
attack mode, which rarely comes off well on talk radio.
Josh Mandel will not answer your questions. How will he answer the moderator at the debate with Sen. Sherrod Brown?
Besides losing it with a radio host in Ohio, Josh Mandel has been noticed by others. Charles P. Pierce of Esquire weighs in on Republican Josh Mandel.
One of the little miracles of this election season is that
Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, an unrepentant and unreconstructed liberal,
is on his way to winning re-election easily despite having had been
carpet-bombed by Karl Rove and the rest of the corporate flying monkeys.
This has a lot to do with Brown's natural abilities as a politician. It
also has a lot to do with the fact that his opponent, state treasurer
Josh Mandel, is about eight bulbs short of an intellectual chandelier.
If he's not instigating hooleys in elevators, he's astonishing newspaper editorial boards with the sheer magnitude of his obvious incompetence:
Josh
Mandel has become a Saturday Night Live skit. Asked whether he would
abandon statements deemed "pants on fire" by the respected Politifact
column of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Republican candidate for the
U.S. Senate has said he will not — without a trace of embarrassment,
even telling reporters at one point that it is their job to "do the
grunt work." Mandel trades in hyperbole, hurling such words as
"ridiculous," "outrageous," "radical," "over our dead bodies." During a
session with reporters and editors of the Columbus Dispatch last week,
the state treasurer (for all of 20 months) labeled his opponent
"un-American," and Sherrod Brown, the Democratic incumbent, was sitting
in the room. Will Ferrell would be hard pressed to play the part better.
The dismaying thing is, Mandel is serious.
Josh Mandel's campaign has been one in which he has--
a.) pushed away the middle class,
b.) supported Paul Ryan's voucher plan for Medicare for retired grandmas and grandpas,
c.) trampled on the rights of women in the doctor's office and the workplace,
d.) supported SB5 that took away the rights of teachers, fire fighters, police officers,
e.) and disrespected the hardworking men and women who've dedicated their working lives to putting together American cars.
Josh Mandel has embraced the far right policies and campaign contributions of FreedomWorks, Americans for (their own) Prosperity, Jim DeMint, Republican tea party groups, and others. They are his puppetmasters and they've paid for his support if he is elected to the Senate (heaven forbid!).
> Ladies,
• Mitt Romney is like the guy that makes all kinds of promises to you, and then denies it the next day.
• Mitt Romney is like the guy that says he is happy that you got a better score on a test, then goes around telling people that you probably cheated.
• Mitt Romney is like the guy that says he'll never leave you, until the day he does.
You know exactly what I mean.
At one point, Mitt Romney said he was going to "get rid of Planned Parenthood..." Then he said he had no agenda for women's reproductive rights, until someone from the Republican Party said he did. Then, today, Mitt Romney had something else to say---
ABC News: A little more than 24 hours after he told an Iowa newspaper that
abortion legislation would not be part of his agenda if elected, Mitt
Romney told reporters today that he would “immediately” move to defund
Planned Parenthood.
“I’ve said time and time again, I’m a pro-life candidate,” Romney
told reporters during a stop at a restaurant in Ohio today. “I’ll be a
pro-life president. The actions I’ll take immediately are to remove
funding for Planned Parenthood. It will not be part of my budget...
You just never know what side of an issue Mitt Romney will be on at any given time. He can be for something, and then against it. Mitt Romney's flip flops involve our lives and those of our families. You just can't trust Mitt Romney.
---------------------
Jezebel has listed the 18 flip flops of Mitt Romney on abortion---> Jezebel.
* * * * *
> Mitt Romney, the product of fancy schmancy private schools where only the upper crust were admitted, has revealed his plans for public education.
We have watched the president for four years. There is
almost nothing he has done that has helped get people to work or to
increased incomes. I hope you understand that. And his current plan,
he's described it. He wants another stimulus. Those stimulus dollars go
overwhelmingly to government. Government plays an important role but
that's not going to help farms right here and get people to work. He
wants to hire more school teachers. We all like school teachers. It’s a
wonderful thing. Typically, school teachers are hired by states and
localities, not by the federal government. But hiring school teachers is
not going to raise the growth of the U.S. economy over the next
three-to-four years.
Romney and his Republican Party support charter schools, especially those owned by their corporate friends. They'd rather give our tax money to those corporately owned charter schools so that their pals can profit off of the education of our children.
Corporately owned charter schools are concerned with profits. Period. They don't care about the success of the students, the poor quality of the classrooms, books, materials, and difficult working conditions for students. Romney, John Kasich, and the Republicans don't like public school teachers. Why? Public school teachers are mostly women. Republicans dislike outspoken women and women that belong to teachers unions. It is the double whammy.
Here in Ohio, Republican Josh Mandel, Ohio's absent Treasurer, has received huge contributions from members of the Brennan family, owners of White Hat Management. Josh Mandel has received contributions from the Brennan family for this campaign and some of his previous campaigns. It is no surprise that Mandel is a big supporter of charter schools.
*** While Republican Josh Mandel poo-poos the auto bailout plan, the jobs of Ohio's auto workers, the communities that have bounced back with the returning jobs, Gov. John Kasich tries to take credit for Ohio's job growth (of course, Kasich was against saving Ohio auto jobs through Obama's rescue plan).
...The Obama administration takes a longer and wider view in a bailout that
began under former President George Bush, more than two years before
Kasich became governor. In a three-year period starting in June 2009 --
when GM and Chrysler were emerging from bankruptcy -- it reports a gain
of 17,400 industry jobs. Those numbers include auto parts stores and
dealerships....
Josh Mandel's attitude toward auto workers, middle class workers (teachers, police officers, fire fighters,nurses, women, and families) shows his disdain for the working people of Ohio who pay his salary. While he has been jetting across the country, sipping champagne with deep-pocketed right wing donors, he has left his Treasurer's office in the hands of his unqualified cronies. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.
* Republican candidate, Josh Mandel, Ohio's absent Treasurer, claims that Sen. Sherrod Brown missed 350 votes. Josh Mandel failed to mention that this was 350 out of 10,000 votes. Oooooooops!
....Mandel’s campaign obtained its statistics from the GovTrack website.
The news release also mentioned a fact missing from the ad that puts
the missed votes in better perspective - they occurred over a period of
more than 19 years, starting when Brown entered the U.S. House of
Representatives in January 1993. A visit to the GovTrack website
indicates there have been more than 10,000 recorded votes in that
period.
The largest number of Brown’s missed votes - 83 - occurred in 2000. He
missed 13.7 percent of that year’s votes after suffering broken ribs and
vertebrae in a car accident in Knox County....
....Since he joined the U.S. Senate in 2007, GovTrack indicates that Brown
has missed 21 out of 1779 votes - a 98.8 percent attendance record. This
year, he hasn’t missed any votes. In 2011, he missed three. In 2010, he
didn’t miss any....
Politifact rates Josh Mandel's claim as "Mostly False."
Ohioans would loooooooooooooooooove to see Josh Mandel's attendance record in the Treasurer's office. Some reports put Mandel working as much as 10 hours per month in the Columbus Treasurer's office.
The Republicans in Ohio are trying to prevent early voting on the weekend before election day. Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted continues his mission to disenfranchise minority voters by blocking their chance to vote.
Ohio's election chief on Tuesday appealed a ruling
that reinstates the final three early voting days in the battleground
state, calling a decision last week by a federal appeals court "an
unprecedented intrusion" into how states run elections.
Secretary of State Jon Husted
asked the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether the state Legislature or
federal courts should set Ohio election laws....
,,,Obama's fellow Democrats criticized Husted for fostering voter
confusion. State Sen. Nina Turner of Cleveland said Husted could set
uniform statewide hours on the final three days before the election if
that is his goal.....
President Obama was at the Ohio State University to a large crowd of supporters, some of which went to vote immediately after the rally.
Republican Josh Mandel, a candidate for Senate from Ohio, has demonstrated his immaturity, and his inability to connect with many Ohio voters, especially middle class workers.
The Republican nominee for Ohio's U.S. Senate seat, state Treasurer
Josh Mandel, expanded his criticism of the auto bailout, telling a
newspaper editorial board that anyone who supported it should be
"ashamed."
The remarks came during a testy meeting last month between the
35-year-old Republican and journalists from the Youngstown Vindicator to
decide the paper's endorsement. Captured on video,
the panel -- which included editorial page editor Dennis Mangan,
editorial writer Bertram de Souza and political columnist David Skolnick
-- pressed Mandel on whether he supported the auto bailout. But Mandel
continually attempted to shift the discussion and tie the auto bailout
to the loss of pensions for workers at Delphi, a parts supplier for
General Motors....
Josh Mandel has just slapped the face of every person that supported the American auto industry, each autoworker, and those that help manufacture part for the American cars.
>>> Flip a coin! Which Mitt Romney will show up today?
(a) the Romney that will outlaw abortions, even in case of rape or incest.
(b) the Romney that doesn't even have abortion on his agenda.
Mitt Romney has flip flopped so much it is hard to know where he stands on any issue.
Despite being called a "liberal" by Josh Mandel and Republicans, the Vindicator explains what "liberal" has meant to Ohio: ....Mandel seems to think his trump card in this race is claiming that
Sherrod Brown is “too liberal” for a state like Ohio. Is Brown liberal?
In most matters, no doubt.
But to the extent that liberal means
standing firm against China’s rapacious trade policies, we can live with
Brown’s liberalism. To the extent that he has consistently supported
General Motors for the jobs it brings to this Valley, we can live with
his liberalism. And to the extent that he recognizes that while the
budget must be balanced, it shouldn’t be on the backs of Medicare
recipients, we can live with his liberalism....
....The Vindicator endorses the re-election of Sen. Sherrod Brown.
Sen. Sherrod Brown has supported and respected the rights of workers, job safety, education, assisted veterans and their families, helped with new transportation safety laws, protected Social Security and Medicare, helped pass legislation to do away with pre-existing conditions, worked to increase Pell grants, pushed to keep student loans at lower rates, protected women's reproductive rights, voted for equal pay for equal work, etc., etc. We need Sherrod Brown back in the Senate.
*** Can you imagine how many new jobs there would be if the President's jobs bills would have been passed? Despite Republican plot of blocking any job creation, 5.2 million jobs have been created under President Obama's administration.
President Obama will be coming to The Oval, at The Ohio State University, on Tuesday. To get a ticket, check the Barack Obama website or visit your local Obama neighborhood office. Be there!
• Mitt Romney wants to cut funds to education K-12 and higher ed to fund his tax cuts to higher income people. Under Romney you can say good-bye to Pell Grants, science research, etc. Romney feels sooooooooooooooooo bad for those poor millionaires, the so-called "job creators" that continue to NOT create jobs with their lower tax rates.
* I hope someone asks Romney his views on Planned Parenthood, birth control, and women's rights. Does he adhere to the Mormon Church organization rule that women with small children should not work outside the home? As a bishop in his church, does he continue to advocate this policy? Would he push this idea on the country as a whole?
>>> Ohio voters should not be confused about the claims made by Republican tea party pupil, Josh Mandel. When Josh Mandel was in the Ohio General Assembly, he co-sponsored 2 bills - neither of which got out of committee. Period. His legislative accomplishment claims can be summed up in one word---- mythical. When he was voting, Mandel voted to reduce women's access to birth control, against adding autism to health insurance coverage, and against making cockfighting a felony. Josh Mandel has spent more time out of the Treasurer's office than in it. Mandel's pro-cockfighting agenda and Mitt Romney's dog on the top of his car make me absolutely sick.
*** Josh Mandel still wants to privatize Social Security and supports vouchers for Medicare---
• Josh Mandel supports the "Paul Ryan Budget" which AARP says would more than double out-of-pocket costs for seniors on Medicare. Mandel would repeal requirements that insurance companies refund money to us that they don't use on coverage and allow 97,000 Ohioans under the age of 26 to stay on their parents insurance. (Politico: 3/20/12, NYTimes: 3/22/12, AARP: 4/6/11, Healthcare.gov)
Josh Mandel did not support the loan program President Obama introduced that saved the American auto industry----
• Josh Mandel opposed the auto industry rescue package, calling Sherrod Brown's vote that saved Ohio jobs "un-American". Mandel even said that Sherrod Brown was "responsible for Ohio jobs moving to China," a claim the Plain Dealer called "ridiculous," "dead wrong" and "audacious." (Columbus Dispatch: 5/15/12, Sun News: 8/31/12, Columbus Dispatch: 8/25/12)
-- Josh Mandel supported SB 5 and did not knowhow much money was in Ohio's pension funds for which he was the "custodian" (from OhioCapital Blog on YouTube):
>>>>Here in Ohio's House District 21, voters are aware that Republican Mike Duffey supported Kasich's cuts of $2.9 billion to Ohio's schools, which means that teachers lost jobs, and made property owners pay more on property taxes.
The only help we can get in District 21 is with the election of Democrat Donna O'Connor. Donna O'Connor have promised to oppose cuts to education because it hurts our school children, our schools, our communities, and puts an unfair burden on citizens.
*******
Jack Welch's remarks about the new lower unemployment numbers were disgusting. Shame. Jack Welch is out of touch.
The Toledo Blade has endorsed the re-election of Sen. Sherrod Brown: During his freshman term, Senator Brown has cast a number of vital
votes for this state and the country. They include his support of the
Affordable Care Act, the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, and economic
stimulus legislation.
No vote was more crucial to Ohio than Mr. Brown’s advocacy in 2009 of
the federal rescue of Chrysler and General Motors in the depths of the
Great Recession. When private financing was not available to help the
struggling U.S. automakers, the tax-subsidized bailout enabled both
companies to emerge from bankruptcy.....
....Mr. Brown is the first Ohioan to serve on the Senate Agriculture
Committee in 40 years — a post that has allowed him to advance the
state’s extensive farm interests. He has usefully promoted Ohio’s
economic recovery by supporting a revival of traditional manufacturing
and infrastructure investment, as well as training for workers in
emerging industries such as alternative energy.....
Sen. Sherrod Brown has displayed his dedication to every Ohioan, and has worked to help those in the military, our veterans, and their families. Military families know that they can count on Sherrod Brown. Brown has worked on special programs for training returning vets.
Sen. Brown worked at keeping interest rates low on college loans, and voted for the pay equity legislation. By re-electing Sen. Sherrod Brown, we give President Obama the help he needs to get his legislation passed.
On the other hand, Republican Josh Mandel has proven that his ambition is his driving force. Mandel's dishonesty in his campaign ads/literature/speeches, his lack of attention to his current job as Treasurer, and his willingness to allow himself to be manipulated by deep-pocketed, far right extremists, is very upsetting to a majority of Ohioans.
President Obama will be at The Ohio State University this weeek!!!!!!
President Obama saved the American auto companies with his structured loan plan. Ohio has hundreds of thousands of jobs in auto manufacturing and related fields. According to the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services, the unemployment rate was 7.2% in August (September rates will not be released for a couple of weeks).
If you are looking for a job, you might want to look at the list below:
GM: General Search Page
(1) There are 37 job openings for GM in Ohio:
16 in Lordstown, 9 in Parma, 6 in Defiance, 6 in Toledo
(2) There are 570 job openings for GM in Michigan
(3) There are 29 job openings for in New York, 13 in New York City.
I'll let you explore the rest at the general search page for GM.
Just remember--- Mitt Romney said, "Let Detroit go bankrupt."
AK Steel, which benefited from the stimulus program, has job openings posted at their career opportunities page.
Check out some of these other companies that have openings: Ashland Chemical
AK Steel, which benefited from the stimulus program, has job openings posted at their career opportunities page.
The jobs are coming back. Dust off your resume, improve it, if necessary, and start applying for jobs. Under President Obama 5.2 million jobs have been created. If only the Republicans had cooperated and passed the various jobs bill, more people would be working.
There has been a drop in the unemployment rate 7.8% and 114,000 new jobs added.
The New York Times has the details.
If we really and truly support President Obama, we need to give him a Democratic majority in the House and the Senate. Vote for Democrats to let the President know---we've got his back!!!!
> The Sun News has endorsed the re-election of Sen. Sherrod Brown.
*Did you know that despite Mitt Romney claims on the debating stage, Romney plans to cut education? Jay Bookman of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has just some of the Romney lies from the debate:
....So I thought I’d start digging a little to get at the truth: Which
man was correct. To start, I turned to Mitt Romney’s website, in which
he outlines in broad detail his plans to cut federal spending. There we find two steps , published below in bold, that Romney promises to implement immediately upon taking office:
“– Send Congress a bill on Day One that cuts non-security discretionary spending by 5 percent across the board.”
(Education is considered non-security discretionary spending. If we
take him at his word, this is a Romney promise to immediately slash
education spending across the board by 5 percent.)
– “Pass the House Republican Budget proposal, rolling back
President Obama’s government expansion by capping non-security
discretionary spending below 2008 levels.” (Rolling back
non-security discretionary spending to the level of five years earlier
would require significant cuts in education. And rather than exempt
education from such cuts, House Republicans appear to target that area,
particularly “education funding and grants that go to people going to
college,” as Romney put it.)....
Romney will lie to the entire country just to get elected. Romney says he believes in America but has his money in the Cayman Islands, Ireland, etc.
>>>> Will people in Connecticut vote for anti-birth control Linda McMahon? The Connecticut Mirror questions why Republican Linda McMahon won't answer questions about important issues.
>>>> Save Big Bird, Elmo, and the gang at Sesame Street---Vote for President Obama.
(Will you be able to look your child in the eyes and say that you contributed to the death of Big Bird?)
Asked a half dozen times using different scenarios, Ohio Treasurer
Josh Mandel, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, wouldn’t give
a yes-or-no answer as to whether he supports the $82 billion federal
government bailout of the American auto industry.
During a Wednesday editorial board meeting with The Vindicator, Mandel was repeatedly asked the question....
....At the end of his interview, Mandel was asked about an incident Friday
involving a person, working for the American Bridge 21st Century
political action committee, videotaping him in an elevator. The video
shows Mandel approaching the political tracker. A reporter for The
Dispatch newspaper in Columbus was in the elevator and reported that
Mandel also grabbed a monopod attached to the video camera....
Josh Mandel is just wrong for Ohio.
> President Obama has worked for the middle class, respects the rights of women, and has promoted equality in our country. I'll be voting for President Obama, Sen. Sherrod Brown, and Democrats.
* Ohioans are very upset that tea party Republican and current Ohio Treasurer, Josh Mandel missed the first 14 meetings of the Board of Deposit. After a lot of publicity, Josh Mandel actually attended meeting number 15! As of today, Josh Mandel has attended 7 out of 21 Board of Deposit meetings. These meetings decide how the state money would be invested, and apparently we've found out that Josh Mandel just doesn't care.
Now, it has been discovered that Republican Josh Mandel, the Ohio Treasurer, skipped out on other meetings as well.
Salon: ....But it’s not just meetings of the Board of Deposit that Mandel has
skipped. The Ohio state treasurer serves on an additional seven boards
or commissions, according to his office’s annual report,
for which Mandel’s attendance record has not been scrutinized thus far.
The eight boards have met a total of 48 times since Mandel took office,
and he hadn’t attended a single meeting of any of them until
catching heat for skipping the Board of Deposit meetings, according to
information obtained through open records requests by the liberal
research group American Bridge and provided to Salon. Mandel still
hasn’t attended any of the other boards’ meetings, and his seven
appearances at the Board of Deposit — all since the controversy began —
remain the only times he’s attended any of the meetings. In his first 14
months in office, his attendance record was zero.
In addition to
the State Board of Deposit, Mandel lists as his “additional duties” the
Ohio Public Facilities Commission, the Sinking Fund Commission, the
Agricultural Financing Commission, Financial Planning and Supervision
Commission, Mine Subsidence Underwriting Board, Ohio Student Tuition
Recovery Authority, and Petroleum Underground Storage Tank Release
Compensation Board.
Since Mandel took office in January 2011, the
Public Facilities Commission has held 11 meetings and Mandel has
attended not one of them, sending his general counsel as a
representative instead, according to minutes obtained through an open
records request. The Mine Subsidence Underwriting Board has held four
board meetings, and in each case Mandel sent a representative, according
to minutes. The Ohio Student Tuition Recovery Authority has held three
meetings since Mandel took office. Mandel’s representative, his director
of revenue management, missed the first meeting and attended the latter
two, according to minutes. Of the nine meetings since January 2011 of
the Petroleum Underground Storage Tank Release Compensation Board, a
Mandel representative has attended five board meetings and been absent
for four, according to the public meeting schedule.....
What would happen to you if you failed to attend work? Would you lose your job? It is incredibly apparent that Josh Mandel cannot even handle his duties as Ohio Treasurer. How in the world does he think he should be a U.S. Senator? Is there anyway to remove him from his current office for dereliction of his duties? Josh Mandel has be AWOL.
*Did Tea Party Republican Josh Mandel bring up some old issues about Sen. Sherrod Brown in order to get out from under his own huge problems? Josh Mandel did not pay taxes for his campaign employees, and Salon noted:
As the presidential candidates make tax policy personal, the same
thing is happening in Ohio, where Sen. Sherrod Brown’s campaign is
accusing his Republican challenger, Josh Mandel, of bilking the same
state treasury he runs. As Mandel ran for state treasurer in 2010, he
classified at least nine of his senior staffers as independent
contractors instead of full-time employees, according to campaign
finance disclosures reviewed by Salon, which allowed him to forgo paying
some taxes to the state and the IRS.
Classifying workers as
contractors instead of employees gives employers more flexibility and
lower costs, as there’s no legal requirement for them to provide health
benefits or withhold payroll (Social Security) and Medicare taxes.
Contractors are supposed to have their own businesses and provide
discrete skills, but that norm is often abused by employers who fill
positions at lower costs that should be occupied by full-time employees.
Employment law prohibits misclassification, and employers who engage in
it with “no reasonable basis for doing so … may be held liable for employment taxes for that worker,” according to the IRS....
Is Josh Mandel liable for over $70,000 in back taxes for these misclassified employees? Mandel is the Ohio Treasurer and he should know the rules about this stuff. If Josh Mandel spent more time actually doing his job as Ohio Treasurer, he would have found out about rules, paying taxes, etc.
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The Daily Beast took a look at the Republican candidate, Josh Mandel, Ohio's absent Treasurer:
..In his campaign for Senate, Mandel keeps slipping in the polls despite
nearly $18 million support from groups like the Chamber of Commerce and
Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, in addition to enjoying a home-court
advantage. In statewide polls, Mandel is losing 53 percent to 41 percent
to the incumbent Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown. Yet the starkest contrast
comes from his base-to-be, Jews who might be willing to vote for one of
their own: in polls conducted by Cleveland Jewish News (CJN) of its readership, Brown now leads those polls 81 percent to 18 percent, up from 76 percent in May...
....Jewish voters seemed most concerned with Mandel’s growing reputation for
sleazy campaign tactics. With a record of eight “Pants on Fire” ratings
from PolitiFact Ohio (for statements “both false and patently
ridiculous”), a columnist at the Columbus Dispatch termed
Mandel “the candidate of the big lie, continually making statements and
airing ads that stretch the truth or are patently untrue.” ....Yet even Mandel’s supporters say that on Israel, Brown’s record is near
impeccable and the issue is essentially neutralized, particularly in
light of Brown’s endorsement from former AIPAC President and Cleveland
businessman Tim Wuliger. Meanwhile, Brown shored up Jewish surrogates
and endorsements based on his history with Northeast Ohio’s Jewish
community....
Sen. Sherrod Brown has demonstrated his concern for every person and his respect and dedication to helping the middle class. Josh Mandel's right wing conservative agenda has turned off more people, even those that know him best.
While I'm at it.....
If you were caught with expired plates and issued a ticket, wouldn't you go and get the new plates or updated tag for your license within a couple of days? Would you delay it a week or more and then find yourself getting another ticket for the same offense? I'm just saying.....
Here is a video from FoxYoungstown with U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown and U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan in Warren, Ohio:
We see evidence of John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Steve Stivers and the Republicans in the House of Representatives holding up legislation that would create more jobs. Shame.
Last night, my husband and I were trying to guess what kind of "zingers" that Mitt Romney might have prepared for the debates. Will he use a joke from Jack Benny or some line from from Bob Hope?
* A new poll in Ohio has some numbers in the election for U.S. Senate.
BostonHerald: A new newspaper poll shows that Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown has opened up a 10-point lead over Republican challenger Josh Mandel.
The poll published Monday by The Columbus Dispatch shows the
first-term Democratic senator leading Mandel, the state treasurer, by 49
percent to 39 percent. In the first Dispatch poll Aug. 26, the two were
tied at 44 percent...
Josh Mandel, a tea party Republican, has received massive contributions from PACs run by Sen. Jim DeMint, Karl Rove, Americans for (their own) Prosperity, and FreedomWorks. Ohio air waves have been hit with ads from outside groups trying to promote the far right through Mandel.
>>>> Isn't it odd that Republican Rep. Steve Stivers was talking about jobs when he has done little to create them. The AthensNews reports that Stivers was in Athens County visiting local Republicans. Stivers and other Republicans have stated that they've passed "jobs bills" in the House of Representatives. However, just because they call these pieces of legislation "jobs bills," doesn't mean they create jobs.
..."A lot of these things are laughable in terms of a jobs plan that
would produce noticeable improvements across the country in the
availability of employment in the next four or five years," said Gary
Burtless, a senior economist at Brookings. "Even in the long run, if
they have any effect all, it would be extremely marginal, relative to
the jobs deficit we currently have."
Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody's Analytics, agreed that the
bills would have almost no effect on job creation in the short term,
though he was slightly more optimistic about their long-term prospects....
.....Even one of the more popular bills in the mix -- a small business tax
cut -- won't do much for job creation, some of the economists said. They
argued that it's not that businesses need more money for hiring, but
that they need a sufficient demand for their products....
What kinds of legislation has the Republican House of Representatives passed? This illustration from the Nation clearly shows where Boehner, Stivers, Cantor, and the rest of the GOP have spent their time. The Nation:
• A new poll by the Columbus Dispatch has some surprising information:
From Day One, Mitt Romney’s bid for the presidency has rested on the
belief that his ability to turn around faltering businesses would
translate into turning around the country.....
....A new Dispatch Poll shows him trailing President Barack Obama in bellwether Ohio by 9 points, 51 percent to 42 percent....
A closer look at the statistics from the Dispatch poll shows President Obama with strong support from women.
>>> Another article in the Dispatch is about Republican candidate Josh Mandel, who is being supported by right wing money from PACs. Mandel is the anti-middle class, anti-female rights, anti-public schools, anti-low interest loans for college students, that is running against Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown. Josh Mandel is currently Ohio Treasurer and has actually attended 7 out of 21 Board of Deposits meeting since he took office in January 2011.
* Why is Republican Rep. Steve Stivers have such a fluffy, non-issue campaign ad? Does he want us to forget that he voted for the Paul Ryan budget on March 29, 2012? (See roll call here) Does Steve Stivers recall that the Paul Ryan budget bill would give vouchers to Medicare recipients? Does Stivers even care what a voucher program would do to our senior citizens?
