Thank you so much, Progress Ohio, for the link to this. I've watched it half a dozen times and laughed my ass off. Just loved the shot of Joshie hunkered down in the limo outside his D.C. fundraiser today, although I guess I have to take their word for it that it's really him. Meanwhile, although he was busted in advance, Mandel shamelessly skipped a work day at the treasurer's office, paid for by us the taxpayers, in order to be at the fundraiser for the Senate job he's really coveting.

In case you are wondering who the American Bridge PAC that put together this video is, here is what they say about themselves:

American Bridge 21st Century is a progressive research and communications organization committed to holding Republicans accountable for their words and actions and helping you ascertain when Republican candidates are pretending to be something they’re not.

How appropriate since Josh Mandel is pretending he is Ohio treasurer, but he is not doing the job. And he is pretending he is qualified to be a U.S. Senator — but he is not. "AWOL" is definitely the best description of Josh "The Empty Suit" Mandel, because in every elected office he has had in his run as a career politician, he has basically been AWOL.

Already people are starting to read the tea leaves about 2014 and who will be running for governor of Ohio.

The only sure thing is that our current governor is a failure. During the campaign, he said he wouldn't run for a second term, and I believe that's true. I honestly don't see increased popularity on the horizon for him and he can make 10 or 15 or 20 times as much going back to Fox "News" and making speeches for big dollars to adoring right-wing groups. He'll try to give away as much taxpayer property as he can to his cronies as quickly as he can and head out the door to greener pastures. I don't see him trying for another term.

That leaves secretary of state Jon Husted, whose tongue is practically hanging out of his mouth salivating over this. (Anyone remember him blasting Maryellen O'Shaughnessy for her alleged ambition for higher office?) He seems to already be angling to put as much space between himself and the toxic Kasich as he can, anticipating like the rest of us, that Kasich won't change his spots and won't get any more popular.

There's stuff like this:

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/01/26/412010/ohios-gop-secretary-o...

Reading the tea leaves and the nearly 500,000 million signatures gathered to place the repeal of voter suppression bill HB 194 on this November's ballot, Husted says the whole thing should be bagged and replaced.

Ohio’s top election official says state lawmakers should repeal and replace a controversial new elections law rather than allowing voters to weigh in on it in November. Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted told a gathering of election officials Wednesday that he believes Ohio should start over on the process after the 2012 presidential election. He made the call despite the legislation containing many of his own ideas.

Today, retiring Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank announced he was endorsing Dennis Kucinich in the 9th district congressional primary over colleague Marcy Kaptur, making him the second high-profile congressional figure to do so.

If Frank, who is leaving congress after more than three decades, feels moved to do this, then whatever. Kucinich probably stood up for some piece of legislation when he really needed him, although in his letter he cites such predictable things as his opposition to the war in Iraq.

Here's his endorsement letter:

http://kucinich.us/congressman-barney-frank-dennis-kucinich-ohio’s-new-ninth

Among other things, he says,

I do not by this mean in any way to denigrate Congresswoman Kaptur. This is not a case where supporters of progressive principles have to choose between two people who both fall short of our ideals. It is, however, in my judgment a situation in which there is one candidate who has brought an extraordinary set of qualities to the House.

What I find more baffling is the endorsement from former Florida congressman Alan Grayson, who sent out an email a couple of weeks ago, not just endorsing Kucinich but soliciting donations for him.

He just sent out another one, even more bizarre than the first. In it, he recites the simplified, mythologized version of Brave Boy Mayor Dennis Kucinich vs. the Big Evil Banks and how Little Dennis saved Muny Light from their clutches.

He says,

There is not one person in a hundred -- Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, male or female, white, black, red or brown -- who would have the courage to do what Dennis Kucinich did. For the good of the people.

Nothing to do with Ohio (unless this is giving some fool like Lynn Wachtmann or Shannon Jones some ideas for new legislation here) but this is too good not to share:

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/oklahoma_goper_propose...

Oklahoma elects some of the most demented, delusional and neanderthal politicians anywhere on earth. Its Senate delegation of Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn once so ran away out of the gate with an Internet poll to find the worst Senate duo that they were actually disqualified. And the state once sent to Congress the legendary Ernest Istook who was asked, while promoting a ban on birth control for minors, if he was concerned about increasing abortions and replied, "No because if teenagers can't get birth control, they'll just stop having sex."

Now this.

And yes, I have confirmed this story did NOT come from The Onion.

Did you read our last post about how our purported state treasurer, Josh "The Empty Suit" Mandel, has missed every single meeting of the board of deposit over which the treasurer is supposed to preside? The right-friendly political website Politico has more. They've learned what Mandel may actually be doing at the time of the board's next scheduled meeting.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/david-catanese/2012/01/mandel-skipping-tre...

Seriously — it's really getting to the point where Mandel should resign as treasurer if he's going to make raising money for his Senate race his top priority — and doing so at the same time he's drawing a paycheck for serving the citizens of Ohio.

http://www.ohio.com/news/break-news/ohio-treasurer-is-a-no-show-at-depos...

According to AP,

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.

The story goes on to say that it's a common practice to send a deputy to the meetings (which his spokesman gives as a excuse for his boss) but "the total absence of Mandel, a first-term Republican, makes him unique among modern-era treasurers."

What's outrageous is that Mandel had/has no qualifications to be treasurer to begin with. He was elected in a campaign based on huge money, exploiting his military service, and lobbing vague, baseless smears at his opponent. And he vowed to serve for four years and be a great treasurer.

If that were true, he should have spent his first year soaking up all the knowledge he could and being as hands-on as possible. The time for sending a deputy to dull board meetings is once you are completely up on how that board functions and are too busy coming up with innovative new plans to use the office to boost the financial strength of taxpayers, small businesses and farmers .... you know, like Rich Cordray.

But I know Rich Cordray, and Josh Mandel, you are no Rich Cordray (to put it mildly!) The spokesman points to the office's "strong financial performance and high credit ratings" as proof Mandel is doing his job, something Mandel has been sending press releases out about, implying he has applied some magic to the treasury. Only he hasn't really improved anything; the office is performing as well and has the same credit ratings it did before Mandel arrived there. It's like it's on autopilot, with competent underlings keeping things going. The office could probably do exactly as well if Mandel weren't even there.

How voters apparently see Josh Mandel: The Man Who Isn't There.

By late December before election year even began, third-party (non-candidate) rightwing groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Karl Rove's outfit American Crossroads, the odious Concerned Women of America, and the 60 Plus Association had already spent almost three million dollars in Ohio attacking Senator Sherrod Brown, based on a whole bunch of bullshit (and that's being polite). The Chamber alone had spent $1.5 million.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/22/sherrod-brown_n_1162819.html

It was the largest amount of such spending anywhere in the country. While all the gushing is going on about Elizabeth "Walks on Water" Warren in Massachusetts, it's clear these groups see Sherrod as the biggest threat to their anti-democratic, favor-the-rich agenda.

Said a Crossroads spokesflunkie,

In an anti-incumbent year, Ohio's incumbent Democrat Senator is voting significantly to the left of his constituency and against a popular and well-funded Republican who is running a first rate campaign. This will be one of the most competitive Senate races of the cycle, no matter how you slice it.

Really? A "popular" Republican who is running a "first rate" campaign? Yes, we all know Josh "The Empty Suit" Mandel is well-funded — he's owned by every special interest you can name. But if he is so "popular" and his campaign is so "first-rate," obviously all the outside spending attacking Sherrod must be propelling Joshie into the lead.

Oh — what's this?

http://www.toledoblade.com/State/2012/01/19/Latest-poll-shows-Brown-with...

"Latest poll shows Brown with big lead over Mandel."

I was starting to wonder if there was going to be a Rootscamp this year, an annual get-together organized by Progress Ohio that brings together progressive activists, organizers, volunteers, bloggers, officeholders, and candidates from all across the state. I've been to every one — I think it's been five now — and really love getting to meet and talk to people from other parts of the state, gaining perspective on how things look from Wood County or Warren County that I would never see up here in Cuyahoga.

The last Rootscamp was immediately after the November 2010 election, not the happiest of occasions. The next one will be Saturday, February 25. Like the last two, it's being held at Ohio Civil Service Employees Association in Westerville (Oh gosh — know who else lives in Westerville? Our gov! Maybe we can all go visit him). That's turned out to be the most comfortable place for the event, with meeting rooms in proximity around a spacious central hall.

Rootscamp has an informal, attendee-driven format. There's a big board in the hall with all the time slots and meeting rooms on it, and anyone can write in a topic for a discussion they'd like to lead. Get there early to grab your favored slot. Topics range from nuts-and-bolts things like how to do social networking for a campaign to more theoretical things like how to respond to the religious right. Members of groups like the Ohio Democratic Women's Caucus do forums introducing people to what they do, and there are usually forums about topics like Planned Parenthood, hunger, the peace movement, and election integrity. Last year, I co-led a discussion on how to get our message out in the face of a media far friendlier to the right. This year, I expect people will be eager to talk about Occupy.

Rootscamp is an all-day event, kicking off at 9:30 a.m. (registration starts at 8:30). It is free and includes lunch, in case John Kasich didn't invite you over to his house for lunch.

So how are y'all feeling about John Kasich's stewardship of the state, now that he's got a year under his belt? Did you just love spending a chunk of last year working to repeal his union-busting SB 5? Are you excited that we now have to work to battle voter suppression bill HB 194, which we successful placed on this November's ballot? Maybe you just LOVE his budget which literally stole money from local governments and school systems in order to bloat state spending by $5 billion — much of that going into the pockets of cronies and donors like White Hat for-profit charter school owner David Brennan? What about all those great abortion bills? Or the bill to expand vouchers to the point where many schools systems could lose all their state funding? And then there's his drive to "privatize" everything that isn't nailed down, public assets that are turning a profit for the taxpayers like the Turnpike, the Lottery, and the state liquor franchise.

Just so much to love!

OK, now that I've got you riled up, how about planning to go to Steubenville on February 7 where Kasich will deliver his state of the state speech at Wells Academy, billed as the highest achieving public school in Ohio (no thanks to Kasich, I'm sure; he's probably working on defunding and dismantling it).

People from across the state are planning to converge in Steubenville for a peaceful demonstration. There are folks in Youngstown, Cleveland, and Columbus organizing buses.

Check this link for info:
http://www.facebook.com/events/173774366059931/

I'm sure Kasich won't say anything too useful, but I am hoping for another ad libbed comedy fest like last year where he babbled about a young girl who asked him not to tax her eggs, asked Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson to go sled riding in the Cleveland stadium and told us he would not sleep in a barn or "wear that silly hat that Voinovich wore, OK?"

"Hey Gingrich, nobody here likes you."

Although she no longer has even a remotely challenging primary now that state senator Nina Turner wisely decided to drop her candidacy and certainly has no challenging general election race, incumbent congresswoman Marcia Fudge (11th district) is running an aggressive reelection race. Yesterday she opened her campaign headquarters at Van Akin Center (at Van Akin and Warrensville) in Shaker Heights with a celebration that attracted a jam-packed house of Democratic activists, elected officials, and candidates.

That included mayors such as Warrensville Heights mayor Brad Sellers, Beachwood mayor Merle Gordon, and Shaker Heights Mayor Earl Leiken, county council member Julian Rogers, Cleveland city council member Jeff Johnson (as well as council members from numerous suburbs), state representative Sandra Williams, and a representative from Senator Sherrod Brown's office. Four of the five candidates for county prosecutor were in the house (Subodh Chandra had his triplets in tow!), and of course, the place was crawling with judicial candidates.

There was also a guest from Texas, state representative Dawnna Dukes of the Austin area, who was in town visiting with Johnson. She told the assembled Ohioans whose districts have been scrambled by Republicans about the dirty tricks Texas Republicans are trying to pull. Texas has gained four congressional districts. Dukes said that 90 % of that population gain has been minorities, but Republicans are trying to claim 3 of the 4 districts for themselves (i.e. white people).

One of the most watched races on March 6 will be the Democratic congressional primary in the new 9th district, where incumbents Marcy Kaptur of Toledo and Dennis Kucinich of Cleveland have been pitted against each other.

As I wrote a couple of posts ago, Kucinich yesterday landed the endorsement of his home county, Cuyahoga, although it was not unanimous by any means. I can't find any evidence that Lucas County, Kaptur's home county, has done its endorsements yet, but it seems wildly unlikely they won't endorse her.

Meanwhile, there's those between counties, all those lakefront communities. Kaptur has been out there pitching all the money and projects she's brought back for them. And it seems to be paying off as several top Lorain officials have endorsed her:

http://www.toledoblade.com/Politics/2012/01/22/Kaptur-collects-endorseme...

The city of Lorain's mayor, treasurer, auditor, law director, and city county all endorsed Kaptur.

Lorain Mayor Chase Ritenauer told the Toledo Blade,

I look at Congresswoman Kaptur as someone who puts pragmatism over politics, someone who puts policy over politics. She understands a lot of the issues that are plaguing cities like Lorain. Her position on the appropriations committee is certainly beneficial. We can be sure that what our views and concerns are they’re certainly going to be passed along to Washington D.C. This woman is going to be a true advocate for the city of Lorain.

It probably didn't hurt that Kaptur took Ritenauer as her guest to the White House Christmas party last month. But then, that's just smart politics.

A protestor at the Occupy the Courts demonstration in Cleveland Friday objects to the money-is-speech and corporation-are-persons Supreme Court decisions that have corrupted U.S. elections.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/21/justice-scalia-on-unlimit_n_122...

Can we impeach some Supreme Court justices please?

U.S. Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia has a simple solution for people who don't like all the political advertisements unleashed by the court's decision two years ago that ended limits on corporate contributions in political campaigns – change the channel or turn off the TV.

Here's what Scalia had to say about people justifiably angry about the hcorporate-groveling, democracy-destroying Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, which permitted unlimited amounts of secretive corporate and billionaire money to flood our elections and distort the whole process.

I don't care who is doing the speech – the more the merrier. People are not stupid. If they don't like it, they'll shut it off

Yeah, we're just so merry now, after being deluged by an almost inescapable barrage of smear- and lie-filled ads. And maybe people aren't stupid but they are — thanks to that ad barrage. And that distorts the results of elections. People vote against their interests often because they are underinformed or misinformed. Money can do that.

More rational justice Stephen Breyer was also at the South Carolina Bar event where Scalia spoke. He said,

There are real problems when people want to spend lots of money on a candidate ... they'll drown out the people who don't have a lot of money."

Lots of Democrats!

The Cuyahoga County Democratic Party executive committee met this morning at the Masonic Temple in Lakewood to vote on congressional candidate endorsements, as well as ratify the county party’s pick of Sandy McNair for reappointment to the Board of Elections and the state party’s top-of-ticket endorsements of President Obama and Vice President Biden and Senator Sherrod Brown. The latter were no-brainers, obviously. As for McNair, he was appointed in 2007 by Jennifer Brunner when, as one of her first acts of Ohio secretary of state, she fired the entire existing dysfunctional board — the one that oversaw the screwed-up 2004 elections. He’s been a good advocate for fair elections and deserved reappointment.

Cuyahoga is now hacked up into four congressional districts. Actually it already contains four districts — two of which (Dennis Kucinich’s and Marcia Fudge’s) are entirely in the county, plus slivers of two others in the southeast and southwest. The slivers are only because in 2000, Cuyahoga’s population too large to be contained in two districts. That’s no longer the case — yet now those two “sliver” districts have invaded a much larger chunk of the county, while the formerly contained districts spill over into … well, let’s not go there. They’re a mess.

The biggest piece of Cuyahoga is district 11, represented by Marcia Fudge. Currently covering almost all of eastern Cuyahoga and a small piece west of the river, it now sprawls to the west, taking over most of the city of Cleveland. It’s still district 11, so a majority of east-side Cleveland and inner-ring residents won’t face too much culture shock — the 11th district community caucus won't have to change its name!

Democrat Charlie Wilson served one term in Congress before being ousted in 2010 by Tea Party Republican Bill Johnson. Wilson is now running to return to Congress in the redrawn district 06, a fairly strongly Republican district. But it does encompass a large swath of southeastern Ohio, an area that has soured on what the state Republicans have been doing faster than almost any other area. So who knows

Apparently, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the group tasked with getting Democrats elected to the House, is feeling optimistic about this race. They've tapped in the Red to Blue 2012 program as one of the 18 top races they'll focus on.

http://www.dccc.org/pages/redtoblue

Here's how they describe the program:

The DCCC’s Red to Blue program highlights top Democratic campaigns across the country, and offers them financial, communications, grassroots, and strategic support. The program will introduce Democratic supporters to new, competitive candidates in order to help expand the fundraising base for these campaigns. This is the earliest the DCCC’s Red to Blue program has been implemented in an election cycle.

More surprisingly, he's one of the congressional candidates listed by Democracy for America to vote for in their "Grassroots All Star" competition."

http://www.grassrootsallstars.com/?t=dfa1

They say,

As the people-powered Political Action Committee with over one million members nationwide, DFA is looking for the candidate with the most grassroots support to win our biggest endorsement of the 2012 election cycle.

Democracy for America was founded by Howard Dean in 2004 "to change our country and the Democratic Party from the bottom up ... to support progressive issues and candidates up and down the ballot.

As many of you are well aware, the Republican-drawn travesty of a congressional map connected Toledo to part of western Cuyahoga County in a long, skinny district along the lake. It also pitted incumbents Marcy Kaptur of Toledo and Dennis Kucinich of Cleveland against each other in what's the new 9th district.

So Kaptur has been spending a lot of time in Cleveland getting to know her new constituents in places like Brooklyn, Parma, Lakewood, Rock River, and Bay Village. Tomorrow morning, prior to the county party's executive committee meeting, she will holding a "Meet Marcy" event at Lakewood coffee house the Root Cafe (a very cool, natural-foods oriented place) at 15118 Detroit Avenue from 8-9:15 a.m.

Her invitation says,

"Dear fellow Democrat,

Please join Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur for a meet-greet this Saturday morning. This will be a chance to meet Marcy in person, and directly ask her any questions you may have, while you eat organic muffins and drink fair-trade coffee. We realize that many Cuyahoga Democrats are just getting to know Marcy, so we wanted to provide you this opportunity to learn about her record and hear how she’ll fight for Cuyahoga County’s needs in Congress."

It's always good to get to know your candidates. I just had dinner with Marcy and I'll have more on that later.

Sherrod Brown rocks Parma.

So I decided to see how the “other half” (of Cuyahoga County) lives. I made a trip to Parma tonight for a Parma Democrats candidates night at a VFW Hall. The room was packed, there was pizza and desserts, and candidates were out in droves, including a senator and two congresspersons.

The group voted on its endorsements at the opening of the meeting, before even hearing the candidates, which I thought was a little odd, especially in the case of the contested county prosecutor race. The county party’s executive committee did not make an endorsement. Since the Parma delegation had voted as a bloc for Jim McDonald at the executive committee endorsement meeting, it’s no surprise they endorsed him tonight. Four of the five candidates were at this meeting, and all the candidates present got to speak, however.

Despite its tendency to work, vote and endorse in lockstep, Parma was split into two congressional districts by the new Republican map. So it had to endorse two congressional candidates. Endorsing Congresswoman Betty Sutton, who’s changed districts to run against freshman Republican Jim Renacci since her old district has been eliminated, was a no-brainer. She spoke to the receptive crowd about her signature bill, Cash for Clunkers, which saved many jobs in this heavily auto-industry dependent town. She may be newly representing the southern section of Parma, but she's fairly well known in Cuyahoga County. In fact, I met her in 2006 when she first ran, at the opening of a coordinated campaign headquarters — in Parma.

We all know about Rick Santorum’s “Google problem.” Search for his name and one of the top results is an unsavory definition of the word “santorum.” (In fact, if you search for “Google problem,” most of the top hits are about him). The new definition came courtesy of columnist Dan Savage who, incensed by Santorum’s ugly, bigoted statements about gay people, solicited his readers to redefine the then-U.S. Senator’s name.

No one has yet redefined Mott Romney’s name to mean “equivocating weasel” or “plastic Ken Doll candidate.” But he may also have a Google problem of a slightly different sort.

As you all know, when you Google something, the search engine suggests a list of aspects of that item you could be searching for. It’s what most people are searching for. Google a pop singer like Rihanna, and you’ll get stuff like “lyrics,” “new album,” and various song titles. Google “Barack Obama,” and the top suggestions are “biography,” “Twitter,” “quotes,” “soundboard,” “approval rating,” and — yup — “birth certificate.” (They’re still getting mileage out of THAT?)

Recently I was wondering where Mitt Romney went to college before going to Harvard Law School. So I Googled him.

The top search suggestion was “dog on roof.”

Uh oh. If this is what’s at the top of people’s minds about Romney, his campaign could be as doomed as Bill “Cat Killer” Frist’s 2008 presidential aspirations.

Just when I think I can’t be any more dumbstruck by the lack of content in Josh “The Empty Suit” Mandel’s U.S. Senate campaign (and by the way, has he ever even officially announced, or is he just going to sort of ooze into the campaign on a mudslide of money?), he tops himself.

http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2011/12/josh_mandel_questions_sh...

In this December 24th story in the Plain Dealer, Mandel attacks Senator Sherrod Brown over his support of environmental regulations Big Coal (one of Josh’s owners) doesn’t like, saying that emissions regulations to protect air quality are “irrational, unnecessary and job-killing.”

The paper also reported:

Despite these two recent episodes, Mandel has remained silent on other issues. …his campaign would not say whether he supported extending the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits that had Congress tied in knots. …

Mandel also would not give his opinion on a foreign trade bill promoted by Brown and supported by small Ohio manufacturers as well as Portman, a former White House trade ambassador.

But here's the kicker:

Asked about these issues, Mandel spokesman Joe Aquilino said that the candidate is not a Washington politician and, "consequently, for the next year we're not going to pretend like he's there and voting on every bill that's introduced or that's on the floor. We'll leave that to Senator Portman, Speaker Boehner**, the Congressional delegation, and Senators like Sherrod Brown who have been in Washington for two decades."

Every the ideological, partisan bully, Governor John Kasich just can't keep himself from beating up on Northeast Ohio for the sin of being too Democratic. It's like he wants to grind the region into dust so that we have a weaker, more impoverished but more Republican state.

It's not enough that he and his minions in the legislature smash the county's congressional representation into four pieces. Now there's this, which reeks of political blackmail:

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2012/01/post_551.html

ODOT is now claiming it doesn't have the money to complete the already underway Inner Belt Bridge project which connects downtown Cleveland to, well, everywhere else in the region.

Anthony Fossaceca, the Democrat running for state representative from the 6th district comprising eastern and southern Cuyahoga suburbs, says, "This is going to be a job killer for sure. Tremont, Ohio City, Gateway, Warehouse District, the new casino, are all facing a serious crisis if we don't resolve this quickly. Worst of all, and barely mentioned, are the safety concerns of extending the life and capacity of this bridge."

The Plain Dealer outlines some of those concerns:

Delaying the second Inner Belt bridge could result in several scenarios.
It could mean continued use of the existing Inner Belt Bridge, which underwent $10 million dollars in repairs in recent years and is three years beyond its designed lifespan. The bridge carries about 120,000 cars daily on Interstate 90 and has a construction similar to the Interstate 35 bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis in 2008.
It could also mean a much longer, two-way use of the new Inner Belt Bridge, under construction now and scheduled to open in 2013.

Word from Supreme Court candidate Bill O'Neill this morning:

BREAKING NEWS. I am told this morning that Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted has issued a directive to all 88 county Boards of Elections to place the name of JUDGE WILLAM MICHAEL O'NEILL on the ballot for Supreme Court of Ohio. Congratulations to Attorney Jennifer Brunner and Attorney Patrick Quinn. You two are awesome!

O'Neill turned in his petitions by the deadline and was told about two weeks ago by Husted's office that although he had turned in 20% more signatures than needed, just over 20% were deemed invalid — seven short of what he needed. O'Neill believed many signatures were being invalidated that were indeed legitimate — and he and his lawyers set about identifying such signatures (They included Jennifer Brunner's husband Rick's.)

This means that O'Neill and Hamilton County municipal judge Fanon Rucker will face each other in the Democratic primary for the chance to meet sitting justice, Republican Robert Cupp, in the general election in November. With greater name recognition from two previous statewide races – and the name being an Irish one — O'Neill has to be seen as the favored candidate to win the primary.

http://www.unitedwisconsin.com/jan17-release

Woo HOOOOO!!!!!! A MILLION signatures filled to recall Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker!!!! That's almost double the amount needed. Another 850,000 were filed to get rid of newscaster-turned-politician lieutenant governor Rebecca Kleefisch, and signatures were filled to recall four Republican state senators, including odious majority leader Scott Fitzgerald. The removal of only one would return the state senate to Democratic control.

Says United Wisconsin,

The signatures represent the largest recall effort in the history of the United States and 185 percent of the signatures needed to trigger a recall of Walker.

Ohio really started something with its incredible and successful effort to repeal SB 5. Now, Wisconsin has gone even bigger, gathering twice as many signatures given the size of its population. Although nearly 1.3 million were collected to repeal SB 5, Ohio has twice Wisconsin's population — so you can see how amazing this effort was. Plus ours was done in the summer, when people are outdoors and weather is better. Wisconsinites did it in the dead of winter.

Now Kasich is going around saying that the repeal of his signature effort SB 5 was all about not preparing people better, and many have suggested that if only he had exempted police and firefighters, there never would have been an outcry and a repeal.

HA!

Walker exempted police and firefighters from his union-crushing measure in Wisconsin, and the blowback was even MORE monumental. I guess a lot of police officers are married to teachers, and a lot of firefighters have social worker parents.

Wow – reposted from DailyKos (www.dailykos.com).

(The sad thing is how little has changed. We still have financially draining war, we refuse to invest in our society and there is still rampent racism. Read the majority of right-wing blogs or the fact that Rick Perry happily had a ranch called Niggerhead and no one on that side thinks anything wrong of it.)

MLKjr...

"Since I am a preacher by calling, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated, as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.

These college kids have more credibility on the Keystone pipeline project than Speaker of the House, Congressman John Boehner (Oh-08), because they have no financial stake in it.

If you know anything about the Keystone XL project — which would build a giant pipeline down from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico to carry oil extracted from Canadian tar sands — you know it's controversial.

The oil lobby, of course, is madly in favor and spending their record profits like mad to persuade the public that it would be beneficial for something besides increasing those profits to even more dizzying heights. They insist it would create a windfall of jobs. Environmentalists are up in arms about the potentially catastrophic damage it could cause to the environment; they say the damage is not worth it for the small number of mostly temporary jobs it might create.

But there's more in this Washington Post story today about the controversy surrounding the project:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/as-deadline-nears-...

Including this::

House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) launched a “countdown clock” that ticks off the time until the permitting deadline expires and posted a video on YouTube that touts the pipeline as a chance to create jobs with private investment. Playing off Obama’s mantra of “We Can’t Wait,” the video flashes phrases across the screen including, “We Can’t Wait for Leadership. We Can’t Wait for Jobs.”

How much has your community lost due to Kasich’s budget cuts? Innovation Ohio has a pretty neat little graph of a map of Ohio. You can scroll over the map and find county by county how much money each has lost. For example, Ashland County has lost $5 million, Montgomery has lost $71 million, Hamilton County has lost $135 million, and Cuyahoga County has lost $229 million. Here’s a link to the map…

http://innovationohio.org/map-of-ohio-budget-cuts

Check it out and find out how much your community has lost.

The winter storm watch was supposed to be lifted at 4 p.m., but that's about when the snow started. That didn't keep a significant number of hardy folks from showing up at the Beachland Ballroom for the Occupy Cleveland benefit concert last night. A batch of singer-songwriters opened the night, followed by bands like Dead Ahead, who had all the hippie girls in long skirts swirlie-dancing by the stage. Katy Whomp Us played a set of bluegrass-y folk rock, and Morticia's Chair closed the night with their goth-flavored rock and diatribes about the stage of the country's political climate from bassist Frank Prpic.

The evening raised almost $1,300 to fuel Occupy Cleveland's activities, which including continuing to staff the tent on Public Square and behind-the-scenes action planning at the group's office in the City Club building.

Here are some photos of the evening:

Someone put a message on the cars parked on Waterloo Road outside the Beachland!

Katy Whomp Us rocks the Ballroom.

Some of the 99%.

Happy dancers occupy the Beachland.