Monday, April 29, 2013

Expect More DeWine Press Conferences


Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine appears regularly on local TV news.  He seems to have gotten obsessive about trying to get free p.r. with one press conference or another.  He might actually appear on TV more than a Kardashian!

Mike DeWine has made some slip ups and they've been noted by Plunderbund:

....DeWine’s past mistakes are many:
  • His interpretation of state law related to the Highway Patrol put rank and file troopers at risk of litigation and required a new law to fix the problem.
  • His misunderstanding about reporting felonies likely means the three most complicit witnesses in the Steubenville rape will never be charged with a crime.
  • His multiple bad calls on voting rights laws caused DeWine to hire expensive out-of-state lawyers to argue in favor of restricting voting access only to lose multiple appeals on multiple cases.

Mike DeWine has also received criticism for his views on other issues---

> Abortion-
Politifact took Mike DeWine's statement, checked it, and found it "..Mostly False":

...DeWine appeared Feb. 20 on MSNBC’s "The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell" and was asked about Santorum’s assertion that amniocentesis, a prenatal screening test, directly leads to an increase in the number of abortions. Santorum had made the claim earlier that day on the campaign trail in Ohio.

Would DeWine advise Santorum to stop talking about amniocentesis, O’Donnell asked. DeWine responded he would not, adding that Santorum was correct.
"The fact is 90-percent of Down syndrome children were aborted in this country," DeWine responded...


As I've noted, Politifact called DeWine's statement as "..Mostly False".

> Women's Insurance Coverage for Contraception:
MaddowBlog:

...we saw in this Columbus Dispatch report over the weekend (via Taegan Goddard).
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine signed a letter this week to Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of health and human services, urging that an exemption to the coverage mandate extended to certain nonprofit religious organizations be broadened to include private employers who object to contraception for religious reasons.
DeWine said last night that requiring business owners to include prescriptions such as the morning-after pill, which critics say are abortive, as an employee insurance benefit could be a "direct contradiction" to the religious beliefs of some employers.
DeWine, a U.S. senator before his 2006 defeat, argued, "They're being forced to provide insurance coverage that violates their religious beliefs. They're being forced to provide insurance coverage for a form of abortion. To me, it's a religious-freedom issue."


In Mike DeWine's world, the more powerful get to force their beliefs on others.