Again?

* This is starting to sound like the same old thing, but unfortunately, it is true. Ohio has more layoffs.
ODJFS has put up the latest planned layoff----Lockheed Martin....506 employees. That brings the announced layoffs in the state to 1,121, and January isn't even over yet.

>>>  People are outraged by what went on in an elementary school in Utah.

Huffington Post:

...Earlier this week, school officials threw out the lunches of up to 40 students at Uintah Elementary School because of unpaid balances on students’ meal accounts, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. After having their lunches discarded, the children were instead given milk and fruit.

According to the outlet, officials intended to withhold lunches from indebted students. However, because district employees did not learn who owed money until after lunch was served, they ended up taking back those lunches from students and throwing them out. 

"So she took my lunch away and said, 'Go get a milk,’” fifth-grader Sophia Isom told Utah outlet KSL-TV of what happened. "I came back and asked, 'What's going on?' Then she handed me an orange. She said, 'You don't have any money in your account so you can't get lunch.’”

The students were denied lunch and humiliated. This is no way to run a school!

*  Tea Party members in Ohio are still pushing for a Right-to-Work law in Ohio (see link). Kasich told Republicans to keep such legislation out of the news during this election year, but Ohioans should not trust what a re-elected Kasich would bring to the working men and women in the state.

*  The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers might have been forgotten by some, but the legal fallout continues.

NY Times:

Judge Approves Lehman Settlement  |  Judge James M. Peck, who will retire at the end of this week, approved a settlement between Lehman Brothers Holdings and Fannie Mae over $18.9 billion in mortgage claims, The Wall Street Journal reports. WALL STREET JOURNAL

Someone You Should Know

Tonight in the State of the Union speech, President Obama spoke about a brave American soldier who was injured during his 10th deployment.

NY Times: (from August 2013)

Three times, mainly by chance and in very different circumstances, Sgt. First Class Cory Remsburg has met President Obama. 

They were introduced near Omaha Beach in France in 2009, when Sergeant Remsburg was part of a select Army Ranger group chosen to re-enact a parachute drop for celebrations of the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings in World War II. The second meeting came less than a year later at a military hospital outside Washington, where Mr. Obama was stunned to see among the wounded troops from Afghanistan a familiar young man — now brain-damaged, a track of fresh stitches across his skull, and partly paralyzed. 

The third time was two weeks ago in a private visit in Phoenix, where Sergeant Remsburg did something that neither Mr. Obama nor military doctors would once have predicted: he stood up and saluted his commander in chief.....

We need to help our veterans get the medical and mental health care that they need.

Facts Matter

* Ohio has more layoffs: http://jfs.ohio.gov/warn/current.stm  Looks like Gov. John Kasich isn't getting the jobs to the state.

•••••••

*** Do you remember these news items? 

ThinkProgress:

OHIO: Gov. John Kasich (R) has proposed cutting 25 percent of schools’ budgets, $1 million from food banks, $12 million from children’s hospitals, and $15.9 million from an adoption program for children with special needs. A Kasich staffer revealed yesterday that these cuts are more about politics then budget-balancing, telling the Cincinnati Dispatch that “even if there weren’t an $8 billion deficit, we’d probably be proposing many of the same things.” The plan includes tax cuts for oil companies, a repeal of the estate tax and an income tax cut for the rich that former Gov. Ted Strickland (D) halted last year because of the state’s fiscal crisis. 


I was also reminded of this post from Plunderbund which has a quote from former U.S. Rep. John Kasich (now Ohio Governor)---

Plunderbund:


...In his book “Stand for Something” Kasich himself said:

“Today, with perspective, pundits look back and suggest that shutting down the government under those circumstances was dumb, but I look back and think it was one of the greatest moments of my career.”

I don't understand how anyone can think that shutting down the government is good. Did you hear me, Ted Cruz????

********

>>> Oh, no! Is there evidence of more pay-to-play in Ohio?


...A Dayton Daily News report (subscription required) looks at Attorney General Mike DeWine’s fundraising activity and law firms that do public work for his office.

Laura Bischoff and Jackie Borchardt – in one of her last projects for the Daily News before joining our team at the Northeast Ohio Media Group – find some interesting links. They also dig into donations to the Ohio Republican Party and to DeWine’s son. 

“Firms that represent and are seeking to represent the state in securities fraud cases and other complex legal matters have given more than $1.3 million since 2010 to the campaign coffers of DeWine,” his son and the state party, the Daily News found....




Hmmm.

........

* One last thing.....
If Republicans are so interested in reducing the reach of government, why are they so concerned about what is going on in a woman's reproductive organs?


From Twitter-

Women Losing Rights

Women in Ohio are losing more reproductive rights because of Gov. John Kasich and the Ohio Republicans. The Sandusky Register has the story.

> New Jersey has more problems with the news that some other things were going on in the administration of Gov. Chris Christie. This time it involves Lt. Gov. Gaudagno and DailyKos has all the details.

> The "polar vortex" is on us again here in Ohio. I'm sick of this winter!!!

End of local control?

The Kasich administration is still pushing the idea of consolidating local government, according to the Columbus Dispatch. Kasich and his people want to combine school districts, fire/police departments, recreation centers, senior facilities, etc., etc., because they apparently will not be increasing funding for local governments/schools, and facilities, etc.

The idea of consolidation takes away local control. Parents would have less of a voice in their schools because districts/schools would be larger, less personal, and unable to respond to the needs of a particular student. This entire idea of consolidation is a way for the Kasich administration to cover up the fact that their tax cuts for the rich are really doing harm to the state and the people.

My advice to local government and school leaders----- don't give into Kasich's bullying!

- - - - - - -

> Do you remember when Gov. John Kasich went to Davos last year?  USA Today describes Davos as a place for the "global elite".  Isn't just like Kasich, a former vice president at Lehman Brothers, to abandon Ohio's working middle class so that he can go hang out with the world's richest people?

> More layoffs are posted at ODJFS warn page.

**** Ohio's Republicans are working very hard to disenfranchise thousands of voters in the state. Jon Husted and Republicans in the General Assembly have pushed legislation that would make it more difficult to vote by requiring voters to show multiple pieces of ID and throwing people off the voting rolls. However, the Democratic candidate for Ohio Attorney General has a proposal to protect voting rights in the state.

Cleveland:

....Democratic challenger David Pepper is accusing Republican incumbent Mike DeWine of not doing enough to protect voting rights. As Ideastream's Nick Castele reports, Pepper is proposing a unit dedicated solely to investigate reports of voter suppression and fraud....

David Pepper sounds like the kind of Attorney General that Ohio needs.

News to Use

We need to dedicate ourselves to the work started by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  For more information on his life, visit the King Center.

* * * * *

Women in Ohio will have people on their sides if they vote for the Democratic ticket of Ed FitzGerald and Sharen Neuhardt, for Governor and Lt. Governor. It is time that the middle class, traditional public schools, women, and the working men and women of Ohio have someone representing them!

After Ed FitzGerald announced his selection of Sharen Neuhardt as his running mate, an Ohio Republican referred to her as a "two-time loser."  Once again we see an example of how the GOP regards women.

Under current Gov. John Kasich, the corporate CEO's benefit from the corporate/business focus of the extreme GOP administration. Real people are losing out because of the corporatist agenda of our governor, a former Lehman Brothers vice president.

-----------

With the continuing water problems in West Virginia, we have to remind ourselves of the many Republicans who've come out to eliminate the EPA.  U.S. Rep. Steve Stivers (OH-15th-R) is one of those people.  Americans have the right to clean air, clean water, and a safe environment. Stivers, Rand Paul, and other Republicans would allow corporations to determine what substances go into our water. That is disgusting!

Ohio in the News

* According to the Huffington Post, J.C. Penney will be closing some of its stores, including one in Wooster, Ohio.

* Various news sources are reporting about Ohio's latest execution. The Seattle Times, Washington Post, The Nation, the Columbus Dispatch, and other media outlets have the story.

•••••••

>>> Ed FitzGerald, Democratic candidate for Ohio Governor, has provided great leadership in cleaning up a backlog of cases in Cuyahoga County.

Cleveland.com:

The county’s backlog of felony warrants dropped and the number of sex offender verifications climbed in 2013, according to a Wednesday news release from Executive Ed FitzGerald. 

More than 90 percent of Cuyahoga County’s sex offenders were verified – proven to live at their registered address by an in-person visit – by law enforcement last year. In 2012, only 70 percent of the county’s sex offenders were verified, according to the release.

The county also made strides in cutting down its backlog of active felony warrants. Officials pared down the list of nearly 12,500 warrants by 22 percent in 2013, the release said....

FitzGerald's leadership and skills as a former FBI agent are definitely what is needed in Ohio. 

_  _  _

*   When contaminated water in West Virginia forced a ban on drinking water for 300,000 residents, people across the country were horrified at John Boehner response.
HuffingtonPost:

"The issue is this: We have enough regulations on the books. And what the administration ought to be doing is actually doing their jobs," Boehner said. "I am entirely confident that there are ample regulations already on the books to protect the health and safety of the American people."

We don't have enough regulations if water can become dangerous because of an company's action.

Kasich was Against It

Ohioans should not forget that Gov. John Kasich was against saving the American auto industry. While Kasich visited the Detroit Auto Show and met with executives of the auto industry, we cannot forget his desire to see the auto industry survive.

Let me refresh your memory.

WashingtonMonthly: 


...Kay at Balloon Juice explained, “I’m pleased that GM is hiring. But, it is deeply offensive to me that former FOX News personality and auto bailout opponent Ohio Governor John Kasich is busy scooping up the political reward for a risk he and the entire lock-step conservative chorus decided it was politically expedient not to take. They bet against the bailout. Now that it’s showing signs of success, they’re showing up to take credit. No risk, all reward.”

Exactly. 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.

Or put another way, GM’s Toledo Powertrain Plant almost certainly wouldn’t exist is Kasich had his way.....

While Kasich goes and begs for jobs, he hopes that the auto industry executives forget that he did not believe in their future and ability to turn things around.

ThinkProgress (12/1/11):

....When first asked about financial aid for the auto industry in 2008, Kasich dismissed the idea, saying, “If they’re not going to be viable, we shouldn’t throw good money after bad.” Asked for his feelings now that the rescue is showing success, Kasich said he is “very pleased” that the Americans have the jobs he originally opposed saving...



Please feel free to pass this information to friends and family.

More Problems for Kasich & GOP

Ohio Gov. John Kasich has promoted the charter schools in the state. As more money is taken from traditional public schools, charter schools and their corporate owners have been hauling in big money. Unfortunately, charter schools in Ohio are failing at an alarming rate, and with that goes our tax money.


Raw Story:

The charter school movement in Ohio has to contend with a rash of failing schools in Columbus. Of the 17 that failed last year — an unprecedented number, according to the Columbus Dispatch — nine only managed to remain open for a few months before failing, leaving students scrambling to find a new school. 

Since 1997, 29 percent of Ohio’s charter schools have closed, the Dispatch reported. The median life of an Ohio charter school is four years. 

A handful of large corporate charter school operators appear to be responsible for wide swaths of the problem. For example, The Talented Tenth Leadership Academy for Boys and the Talented Tenth Leadership Academy for Girls closed in October after inspectors at the schools discovered that students faced unsanitary conditions and poor management. Both schools were operated by the North Central Ohio Educational Service Center.....



Why do you think that traditional public schools do better? The money spent in traditional public school is reviewed in public by school board members, parents, voters who approve/disapprove of school levies, and public results of student achievement. The charter schools, on the other hand, operate under a corporate umbrella, with little financial information flowing to parents and district taxpayers. Charters in Ohio are exempt from many laws that are required in regular public schools.

There are many reasons that charter schools fail. Charter schools are operated by corporations to make profits. How do they make profits from running a school?

-  Teachers are underpaid and often have a long work day in the classroom with before and after child care.

-  Classroom desks and chairs are often large folding tables and over-sized metal folding chairs.

-  Classrooms are often in church basements, in office buildings, or empty storefronts.

-  Computer access is limited.  Physical education goes lacking because facilities and equipment are not available.

-  Classroom teaching materials are usually provided by the corporate entity in the form of reproducible teaching materials. Textbooks, maps, and other materials are rarely used in charters because they are deemed too expensive because they cut into corporate profits.

- Principals and supervisory staff at charters often hold temporary supervisory certificates or are unqualified for their positions with little experience.

- Etc. Etc. Etc.

There are plenty of more reasons why charters are failing in Ohio, but they will continue to be protected by Kasich and the GOP. As long as Kasich and the Ohio GOP benefit from the large campaign contributions made by the corporate owners of the charters, the charters in Ohio will remain free to operate with little supervision.

We cannot forget the fact that Gov. Kasich cut funding to school districts across the state, while some charters appear to be getting even more money.

Citizens Have the Right to Know

* Mother Jones has a very important article about what is going on in Ohio and other states. Gov. John Kasich doesn't come off looking good.

Mother Jones:

...Months after after winning his gubernatorial bid in 2010, Ohio Gov. John Kasich signed his very first bill into law, replacing the state's development department with a 501(c)(3) nonprofit called JobsOhio that would "move at the speed of business."

Critics slam JobsOhio for a lack of transparency. Although nearly all of its revenue comes from state liquor profits, JobsOhio is exempt from public records laws, its annual disclosures to the Ohio Ethics Commission are confidential, and state ethics laws do not apply to it. When Ohio's state auditor, Republican Dave Yost, tried to audit JobsOhio, GOP state lawmakers passed legislation all but blocking his office from fully scrutinizing its books. (Because JobsOhio launched with state-appropriated money, Yost was allowed a single, limited audit, which raised several red flags.) In its first year, JobsOhio also pocketed nearly $7 million from five private donors, but the Ohio supreme court later ruled the group didn't have to release emails or records detailing the sources of those donations.

JobsOhio has faced charges of political favoritism and pay-to-play. Its board of directors, hand-picked by Kasich, includes multiple donors to Kasich's campaigns and employees of Kasich donors. The Ohio Ethics Commission also found that 9 of the 22 JobsOhio officials required to file financial disclosure statements in 2011 and 2012—including six of its nine board members—had potential financial conflicts such as holding financial stakes in companies that had received incentives from JobsOhio. Matt Englehart, a spokesman for JobsOhio, says the group's conflict of interest policies are "effective," that JobsOhio holds board members and staffers to "a high level of ethical conduct," and that the group is "held to a high level of accountability and reporting to what we do."




Kasich and the Republicans don't want Ohioans to pay attention to the donors with jobs, employees of those donors, lobbyists with daughters/sons employed in Ohio government, or relatives of those donors who have jobs. Ohioans have the right to know how our money is being spent by the Kasich administration.

News

* Here is a good thing to help women-----

HuffingtonPost:

Certain medications that are intended to prevent breast cancer will be fully covered under Obamacare, in new guidance set to be issued by the Department of Health and Human Services Thursday morning.

Women at increased risk of breast cancer can receive so-called chemoprevention drugs, including tamoxifen and raloxifene, without a co-pay or other out-of-pocket expense. 

Under Obamacare, most health insurance companies and employer plans must offer certain preventive services at no cost to patients.......

The Affordable Care Act will save women's lives! So why are the Republicans against that?

> City Beat has some news on the dismal Ohio economy:

Ohio's weakening economy could hurt Gov. John Kasich and other Republican incumbents' chances of re-election in 2014, even if they don't deserve the blame for the state of the economy, as some economists claim. For Republican incumbents, the threat is all too real as groups from all sides — left, right and nonpartisan — find the state's economy is failing to live up to the "Ohio miracle" Kasich previously promised. Economists agree state officials often take too much credit for the state of the economy, but political scientists point out that, regardless of who is to blame, the economy is one of the top deciding factors in state elections. For Kasich and other incumbents, it creates a difficult situation: Their influence on the economy might be marginal, but it's all they have to secure re-election......


Face it.  Ohio's economy under Kasich is in the toilet. The dangerous thing is that if Kasich wins re-election, his plan to push for right-to-work legislation will only make the state's employment situation worse.

Brutal Numbers

Central Ohio warmed up today. It was eight degrees above zero, but the wind chill made it feel like -8 degrees.  It was still better than the previous day's wind chill of between -30 and -40 degrees.

*  Cleveland, Ohio, appears to be suffering heavy job losses under Ohio Gov. John Kasich. 

Cleveland:

.....For the seventh straight month, the Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor metro area lost more jobs than any big city metro area in the country, based on year over year comparisons. The local metro area had 8,100 fewer jobs, or a 0.8 percent dip in employment, in November 2013 vs. November 2012. And yet again, Greater Cleveland was the only one of 37 large metros - those with employment levels above 750,000 - to post a decrease in jobs. The report looked at 372 metro areas of varying sizes.....

....George Zeller of Cleveland, an economic research analyst, was among the local experts cringing Tuesday morning.....

.....Although the metro area unemployment figure is limited to Cuyahoga, Lake, Geauga, Medina and Lorain counties, Zeller said it points to how Ohio's labor market is struggling. For example, in November, Ohio lost 12,000 jobs, leading the nation in job loss, according to Labor Department figures. The 0.2 percent decrease meant Ohio led the nation in number and percentage of jobs lost. Ohio's November jobless figure, at 7.4 percent, was higher than the U.S. unemployment rate that was 7.0 percent.....

Yet Gov. John Kasich calls the Ohio economy a "miracle"????  I just hope that the people of Ohio remember how Kasich has failed to deliver the jobs that he promised.

Brrrrrrr!

We are experiencing record wind chill temperatures here in central Ohio. The bone chilling temperatures have forced nearly every school district to cancel classes.

*** When Republicans are complaining about Ohio Gov. John Kasich's budget cuts, people notice.

SpringfieldNewsSun:

Darke County Sheriff Toby Spencer, a Republican, sent a sharply-worded letter to Gov. John Kasich’s top cop, criticizing state funding cuts to local governments as well as the Ohio Highway Patrol’s efforts to curb drug use in high schools....

....Montgomery County Sheriff Phil Plummer, also a Republican, said he supports the patrol’s anti-drug efforts.....

....Plummer acknowledges that county sheriffs have been watching the patrol expand its footprint and personnel in recent years while local governments have sustained big budget cuts...

.....Under the Kasich administration, funding to the Local Government Fund dropped 32 percent between fiscal year 2011 and fiscal year 2014, diverting hundreds of millions of dollars away from local schools, cities and counties......

Cuts to local governments have resulted in layoffs to police and fire departments, and job cuts in school districts.  If citizens complain about the slow response time of fire and police personnel, those calls should be relayed to the governor's office.  Kasich and the GOP have pushed through a 3rd grade reading guarantee at the same time they've cut funding to schools. That makes absolutely no sense. Then again, nothing that comes from Ohio's Republican governor and his GOP twerps makes sense. 

The New Year

Happy New Year!

* Do you think it is a coincidence that Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, Republican, visits the businesses of his campaign contributors?

Josh Mandel, perennial Republicans candidate, visited Pioneer Pipe, according an article from the Marietta Times that was posted at the Treasurer's page.  Open Secrets reports that the chairman of Pioneer Pipe, Dave Archer,  contributed money to Josh Mandel's campaign.

ARCHER, DAVE LOWELL,OH 45744	PIONEER PIPE, INC.	12/31/11	$2,000	Mandel, Josh (R)
ARCHER, DAVE LOWELL,OH 45744	PIONEER PIPE, INC.	5/28/12	$2,000	Mandel, Josh (R)

Is this the way that Mandel pays back his contributors by visiting their businesses? I'm just asking.

Why is Josh Mandel visiting high schools and businesses during the day? Shouldn't he be in the Treasurer's office doing his job?

******

>>> An article in the NewsLeader explains that Ohio isn't doing well under Gov. John Kasich's "trickle down" approach to economic growth. Under Kasich, the rich get richer. Unfortunately, the middle class, the poor, and the unemployed get nothing but crumbs.

In the last year, Ohio lost construction jobs under Kasich.  Realestaterama
has the details.

A total of 10 states plus D.C. shed construction jobs between November 2012 and November 2013, while employment was constant in Delaware. The largest number of losses occurred in Ohio (-5,200, -2.9 percent), followed by Indiana, Alabama (-2,500, -3.2 percent) and North Carolina (-2,500, -1.5 percent). - See more at: http://www.realestaterama.com/2013/12/20/construction-employment-increased-in-39-states-from-a-year-ago-and-in-30-states-from-october-to-november-but-divergent-trends-highlight-fragility-ID023553.html#sthash.r5vUXYVu.dpuf

A total of 10 states plus D.C. shed construction jobs between November 2012 and November 2013, while employment was constant in Delaware. The largest number of losses occurred in Ohio (-5,200, -2.9 percent), followed by Indiana, Alabama (-2,500, -3.2 percent) and North Carolina (-2,500, -1.5 percent). - See more at: http://www.realestaterama.com/2013/12/20/construction-employment-increased-in-39-states-from-a-year-ago-and-in-30-states-from-october-to-november-but-divergent-trends-highlight-fragility-ID023553.html#sthash.r5vUXYVu.dpuf has the details.