Protest the State of the State speech February 7

Submitted by Anastasia Pantsios on Mon, 01/23/2012 - 9:29pm.

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?"

Looking back, there's sad irony to much of what he said. He told us that "The enemy in Ohio right now is joblessness. The enemy in Ohio right now is poverty. And it is up to all of us to work together to defeat that enemy." Yet his legislature spend more time hearing onerous abortion bills that would increase poverty than discussing real job creation measures.

He said that "while I believe we can’t tax our way to prosperity, we can’t cut our way there either." Then he followed up with punitive, jobs and services-destroying cuts to local governments before trying to blackmail local officials with SB 5 as a "tool" to balance their ravaged budgets on the backs of their workers.

He closed with this series of ringing assertions which in retrospect have turned out to be real howlers:

Folks, one of the hardest things for me was to come to this Legislature and at times experience a lot of partisanship. It comes from both sides, okay? The whole country is kind of tired of it. Hey, it’s okay to fight and disagree. I respect you when you fight with me every day, but we’ve got to get up every day and say, there are a couple things we can do together. Are there just a couple of things that we can do to make things a little bit better for the families and the kids? That’s all I ask, okay? That’s all that I ask. And you know what I said at the end of my inaugural address is that it’s exciting to be part of a movement that answers the bell that can strengthen our state. But here was what I thought was the most important thing: We’re not Republicans, we’re not Democrats, we are not Liberals, and we are not Conservatives, we are Ohioans, and together we will climb the mountain and make Ohio great.

Instead he's turned out to be one of the most partisan and divisive governors in our history, ramming through politically motivated legislation with minimal input from the public or the opposing party and ordering people to like it or else.

He did say one true thing: