*** Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, a Republican, seems to have some difficulty with facts. Thankfully,
Politifact has set the record straight with a definite declaration of
"Pants on Fire"
for the latest claim by Josh Mandel that Sen. Sherrod Brown sent our jobs to China. Here is how
Politifact explain Sen. Sherrod Brown's voting record:
...Brown is one of the U.S. Senate’s most ardent critics of this country’s foreign trade policies. An Ohio Democrat, he says he supports the ideal of free trade, but adds that poorly drafted trade agreements and weak enforcement of trade rules have let China and other foreign countries step all over American businesses and workers....
...Trade is Brown’s signature issue. He has voted against trade deal after trade deal -- with South Korea, Panama, Colombia, Central America, Mexico and Canada and, most importantly here, China. So anyone who follows Brown had to appreciate a recent political jab by Brown’s Republican opponent in this year’s Senate election, namely, Mandel. Mandel, currently Ohio’s state treasurer, said in a news release on March 1, when he announced he was actively campaigning for the Senate:
"Make no mistake -- Sherrod Brown is one of the main D.C. politicians responsible for Ohio jobs moving to China."
Mandel is wrong, wrong, wrong! It is sad that Josh Mandel doesn't even bother to research what he is talking about in his speeches. He just says what is in front of him without any forethought.
Josh Mandel is an excellent vehicle for empty, right wing, inaccurate, pro-corporate talking points. We've heard them again, and again, and again.
We know Mandel was for SB 5. That alone should end any consideration of him being a viable candidate.
If Josh Mandel spent more time and effort reading and working on his elected position as Treasurer, instead of going to payday lenders conventions in foreign countries, he might be doing better.
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>>> Besides the ongoing battle of the Hatfields and McCoys in the Ohio Republican Party (see previous post below), Gov. John Kasich's right wing thought processes have gotten him into heaps of trouble. Besides SB5, cuts to education, overpaying his personal staff, having the state pay for his extreme security at his private home, flying in state-owned aircraft from one end of the state to the other, Kasich remains in hot water with most of Ohio's electorate.
Cliff Schecter of
BaxterBulletin explains how Republican governors, including Kasich, have made things worse:
....For example, there is Ohio Gov. John Kasich. On the heels of tornadoes’ leveling the village of Moscow, Ohio, destroying homes in up to 100 other towns and killing 3 people, the governor decided to reject any declaration of the area as a federal disaster area, allowing the Buckeye State to be reimbursed for costs associated with helping people bear this disaster.
While Kasich at least partially has relented — under enormous pressure — and finally said he’ll allow federal inspectors to come in and look at the damage, the damage done to him and his brand of Republican politics has already been done. Kasich, after all, is the guy who thought it was a good idea to call a police officer an “idiot” in a speech just around the time he tried to deny police officers, teachers and firefighters the right to collectively bargain.
The result of that maneuver was a resounding defeat for his union-busting measure at the polls in 2009 (by over 60 percent), and his alienation of white-working-class voters who had supported him and other Republicans in the 2010 election.....
Read the rest of the article at
BaxterBulletin and you'll see how Kasich, and the other Koch Brothers inspired Republican governors, have alienated their voters.
***
> There is more on Kasich's motives-----
David Sirota explains what might be behind Kasich's recent suggestions about drilling in the state.
The SunJournal:
....In just the last year, the Environmental Protection Agency and Duke University have both uncovered evidence linking groundwater contamination to the controversial drilling practice known as hydrofracking. The incriminating findings are so clear that according to Pittsburgh's CBS affiliate, fossil fuel firms in Pennsylvania acknowledge that the "natural gas exploration industry is partly responsible for rising levels of contaminants found in area drinking water."
....In Republican-controlled Ohio, where Columbia University scientists say drilling caused recent earthquakes, that means trying to lash oil and gas revenues to the GOP's popular income tax cut orthodoxy. Indeed, this is the obvious objective of Ohio Gov. John Kasich's recent proposal to institute a hydrofracking tax whose "fresh revenue (will) give a personal income tax cut to Ohioans," according to the Cleveland Plain-Dealer.
To understand Kasich's true motive is to appreciate that he is no tax-and-spend liberal or fossil-fuel hater. He's the opposite: an anti-tax crusader who has taken $213,000 in campaign donations from the oil and gas industry, and who has tried to open up state parks to drilling. That record suggests his new tax moves are really designed to help drillers overcome any grassroots opposition — in this case, by tying drilling's expansion to alluring tax-cut policies. In the vernacular of political sloganeering, Kasich is basically saying, "Drilling for Tax Cuts."
After Kasich leaves office, what will the citizens of Ohio have to remind them of his years as governor? That is an easy answer. We'll have chemically-laced, toxic water, a polluted environment, an increased incidence of asthma, cancer, and skin rashes, and a destroyed public school system, among other things.
Phil Trexler