*NIna Turner talks to a reporter at her sleepover outside the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections the night before the start of early voting*

She's really laying out her case to be the next secretary of state.

http://innovationohio.org/2013/01/29/senator-turner-introduces-voter-pro...

Today, drawing a sharp contrast between the presidential elections held in 2008 and 2012, Ohio State Senator Nina Turner (D-Cleveland) unveiled the Voter Protection Act, new legislation aimed at reforming the way elections are conducted in Ohio. It represents the first piece of legislation to be rolled out by either party in the 130th General Assembly.

She even beat out the first crazy abortion bill from some wingnut Republican. That's speedy for you!

Areas covered in her bill are:
promoting voter registration
protecting early voting hours
preventing long lines on election day
advancing the sophistication of the absentee voting process
clarifying provisional voting
modernizing Ohio’s election laws

Obviously, in a state senate gerrymandered to be 2/3rds Republican, this isn't going anywhere. They'll probably mutter something about "voter fraud" or "ACORN! ACORN!" under their breath while shoving it under the table. But as the centerpiece for a SoS campaign, it could be a winner.

For Secretary of State, that is.

Today she sent out a fundraising email for the Ohio Democratic Party that sounded all the themes Democrats need to bring to the campaign to take the secretary of state office away from Jon Husted next year.

She writes,

Anastasia,

President Obama has just barely been sworn in for his 2nd term, and Republicans are already scheming changes to state laws to steal the election in 2016. And this latest conservative plot has an Ohio tie; former Secretary of State Ken Blackwell is pushing it nationally.

After losing big in 2012, Republicans have now hatched a plan that would award presidential Electoral College votes by congressional district. If their plan had been in place last year, today Mitt Romney would be President.

We need your help now to ensure the Republican plan to rig the next Presidential Election doesn't get off the ground. Commit $8 to the Ohio Democratic Party’s Election Watch Fund to ensure we protect fair elections.

You know how they gerrymandered the Congressional maps in Ohio and across the country? It allowed them to seize the majority in the U.S. House, even though Democrats won the popular vote. Now, they want to do the same thing to the presidency by tying the Electoral College votes to their rigged congressional maps. This is a direct assault on our democratic process.

And the scariest part, current Secretary of State Husted is already on record talking about how this plan to game the Electoral College could make “all of our elections problems go away.” Husted is dead wrong and he knows this is just a plan to hijack democracy.

You remember 2004: long lines, faulty voting machines, confusion, controversy --and Bush won Ohio because our voters were delayed or turned away. We have to keep Ken Blackwell and his understudy Jon Husted as far away from Ohio’s elections as possible, so please give $8 or more. Thank you for all that you do.

Yours in the fight,

On Friday, I wrote about the latest scheme the Republican Party is pushing in light of the failure of its voter suppression attempts last year. This scheme would award electoral votes by congressional districts — but only in certain heavily gerrymandered (to favor the GOP) swing states. This would have made Mitt Romney president now, despite losing by a ten times greater margin than George Bush lost to Al Gore in 2000.

Guess who is helping lead this effort for the GOP? I guess it's always good to go with proven experience. And when it comes to proven ability to corrupt an election, undermine its legitimacy, and thwart the will of the voters, few have the credentials of this man:

Yup — it's former Ohio secretary of voter suppress ... I mean STATE ... J. Kenneth Blackwell. Bet you haven't thought about HIM in a while! (Not so coincidentally, if you Google him, the first option that comes up in connection with his name is "voter suppression.")

According to The Atlantic

Republican legislators in several states have begun pushing to apportion electoral-college votes by congressional district, a move that has Democrats up in arms. ... But now a Republican operative has a plan to take the idea national.

Jordan Gehrke, a D.C.-based strategist who's worked on presidential and Senate campaigns, is teaming up with Ken Blackwell, a former Ohio Republican secretary of state, to raise money for an effort to propose similar electoral reforms in states across the country, he told me this week.

We first heard about the Republican Party's (or maybe the Koch brothers' or ALEC's — it's hard to tell where these bad ideas are born) scheme for rigging presidential elections in Ohio when it slipped out of Jon Husted's mouth at a forum held immediately after the election last November.

He mentioned the possibility of a new way of allocating electoral college votes. Rather than giving them to the winner of the popular vote in the state, he said, maybe they could be allocated to the winner of each congressional district.

Needless to say, with Ohio gerrymandered to give Republicans 12 winning districts and Democrats only four, this would have given Mitt Romney — who lost the popular vote in Ohio — a majority of the state's vote. The scheme was also being discussed in Pennsylvania. If only a handful of other gerrymandered swing states joined them, Romney would have been president, despite losing the popular vote by nearly five million votes (By comparison, George Bush lost to Al Gore in 2000 by only about 10% of that margin).

But when Husted's remarks surfaced and got some negative attention, he quickly backtracked and said he wasn't actually saying this SHOULD be done, just throwing out some random ideas. Sure, whatever. He made two things clear: this idea WAS being bandied around Republican circles, and it IS toxic.

This week the idea reared its head in Virginia when it was introduced into the legislature. Virginia's another state that President Obama carried in the last two elections, thanks to the rapid bluing of its northern section. This week, some Republicans whined that it was unfair (boo hoo) that parts of the state that were more densely populated were always able to outvote the more rural areas because there were MORE PEOPLE there. So every rural/small town person should have their vote count for twice as much.

*Rich Cordray at Labor Day Parade: He looks happy, but he'd rather not be doing this*

With the Republicans in the Senate throwing at tantrum and refusing to confirm Richard Cordray as head of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau because — waaaaaaaaaa! — they don't want the CFPB to exist and frankly, don't want ordinary citizens protected against the predations of the big banks, President Obama installed him with a recess appointment, good through the end of this year.

This afternoon, President Obama stated his intention to renominate Cordray and send his nomination back to the Senate. Waaaaaaaaaaaa ... he's not playing fair (some Republican is sure to say very soon).

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/01/with-cordray-nomination-oba...

Obviously, the President is not going to jump back in this fray dragging an unwilling nominee. So it's clear that Cordray has indicated he'd rather continue to run the CFPB — work he demonstrated a real passion for as Ohio treasurer (remember when we had one that showed up for work?) and attorney general — than come back to Ohio and hit the campaign trail to run for governor in 2014.

I'm not terribly surprised. I've been saying for a long time that if the President figured out a way to keep Cordray on the job in D.C., he would forgo the governor's face. Since I first crossed paths with Cordray when he was running for treasurer, it's been clear to me he has no great enthusiasm or knack for campaigning. He's not a gladhandler or a rabble-rousing speechmaker.

*{{{sniff}}} "The President is a meanie who won't do what we want."*

"The public is not behind us, and that’s a real problem for our party," said Congressman Justin Amash (R-Mi).

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/us/politics/obama-speech-leaves-gop-st...

Yes, that could be a BIG problem.

But why take a good look at WHY your policies aren't popular when you could be whining about the President?

The president’s inaugural speech set Republicans on edge. Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the party’s vice-presidential nominee last year, said Mr. Obama had used “straw man arguments” in taking an implicit swipe at Mr. Ryan when he said that programs like Medicare and Social Security “do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take risks that make this country great.”

Mr. Ryan said that his own past references to “takers” did not refer to programs that people had paid into over their lives, and that the president was distorting the Republican stance.

“When the president does kind of a switcheroo like that, what he’s trying to say is that we are maligning these programs that people have earned throughout their working lives,” he said on the Laura Ingraham talk-radio program.

Actually, Ryan HAS been doing that — but never mind.

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell pouted about the speech too.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky called the address “basically a liberal agenda directed at an America that we still believe is center-right.”

A number of years ago — back in the dark ages of the Bush administration — the activist group MoveOn invited people to submit videos for a project. They got hundreds of entries, which were posted online. Among them was a suggestion that there might be something a tad Hitler-like about George Bush. It wasn't create by MoveOn, it wasn't featured by them, and it never became part of their message. It was just one of hundreds of obscure amateur videos. But right-wingers went into an uproar, vestiges of which you can still find online today, outraged that "the left" would be guilty of such a beyond-the-pale comparison.

What we've learned since then, however, is that while even a hint of such a message from someone on the left, no matter how insignificant that person may be, is cause for high dudgeon, when someone on the right slings it back — no matter how prominent that person is — it's fair game.

The latest of many right-wingers to use this tactic is Ohio school board president Debe Terhar, a confederate whom Kasich installed in the post via a series of back-room maneuvers in order to fire nationally respected superintendent Deb Delisle (currently an assistant secretary in President Obama's Department of Education).

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/01/22/state-school-bo...

Not understanding that her position is sensitive and maybe she should watch what comes out of her keyboard, Terhar jumped into the gun control debate (on the anti side, of course), posting a picture of Hitler with the message "“Never forget what this tyrant said: ‘To conquer a nation, first disarm its citizens.’ — Adolf Hitler.”

For most of US anyway.

Maybe not for Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, minority leader of the U.S. Senate, who said back in 2010 that his top goal wasn't to put people back to work or make sure everyone had health care or that no child in the U.S. went to bed hungry.

No, he said, "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."

Today epitomized the complete failure of his drive to put GOP power before the good of the American people. And that's a good thing!

You can read President Obama's uplifting address here:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/01/21/inaugural-address-...

He covered so many important things, including most what purity progressive whine he won't talk about, like global climate change. And there's so much to love in the following passage and so much for the angry old white guys on the right to hate:

We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths –- that all of us are created equal –- is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth. (Applause.)

HAPPY! HAPPY!

Many of us can't get to Washington D.C. for the inauguration, even if we were able to get tickets. But there are some celebrations closer to home for those who want to be hanging with like-minded people while the President is sworn in for his second term.

The Franklin County Democratic Party is hosting an inauguration watch party Please Join the Franklin County Democratic Party from 10:30 a.m.-2 p.m. on Monday (the President takes the oath of office at noon) at Dempsey's Restaurant, 346 S. High St., Columbus. The $50 ticket includes lunch and a couple of drink tickets. RSVP to 614.469.7886 or colspolicyworks@gmail.com

The Hamilton County Democratic Party is planning to celebrate later that day with a party starting at 7 p.m. at Cincy's on Sixth, 41. E. 6th St., Cincinnati. They'll be replaying the glorious event from earlier in the day. The admission to this party is $20 which includes a light meal and a cash bar. RSVPs are appreciated for planning to caleb@hamilotoncountydems.org. You can pay at the door or send at check to Hamilton County Democratic Party, 6109 Webbland Place, Cincinnati, Ohio 45213.

*The President's Official Second Inauguration Portrait*

It's that time again. The excitement is building! On Monday, the President's second public swearing-in and various special activities take place in Washington D.C. this long weekend (Monday is MLK Day).

A whole multitude of musicians is proudly taking part in the various balls and concerts.
And the President has released his official list of inauguration music, 16 tracks which you can enjoy with him here:

http://open.spotify.com/user/barackobama/playlist/3DYdRhM1VrOkNNPPaYnkLc

The first track is Stevie Wonder's "Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I'm Yours)," which anyone who attended a campaign event last year will pick up on immediately as one of the President's favorite tunes. Other tracks feature Beyonce, fun. Marc Anthony, James Taylor, Usher, Katy Perry and Jennifer Hudson.

Look at that portrait up top again. The presidency is normally conceded to be a heavy weight which wears down and ages its incumbents. But President Obama looks like he hasn't a care in the world, like he's refreshed and rejuvenated and ready for action. If I were a Republican, I'd be worried.

I know there are some in the Democrat party who grumble about Ohio Democratic Party chairman Chris Redfern. They think he's too brash or not progressive enough or he's played favorites. Yes, but has he ever helped rig a presidential election or solicited bribes? No evidence that he has. On the other hand ...

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/01/18/bennett-elected...

The Ohio Republican Party just unanimously reelected Bob "The Thug" Bennett as its chairman. As you may recall, Bennett, a former chair, was called out of retirement to replace Kevin DeWine, who was basically shoved overboard by Governor John Kasich in a series of contentious maneuvers that even had the FBI called in. DeWine, understandably, quit in disgust, since it was he who helmed the party when it swept all statewide offices in 2010.

In case you can't place Bennett, in 2004, while chairman of the ORP, he was also chairman of the board of elections of Cuyahoga County, the state's largest bloc of Democratic votes. As chairman, he was ultimately responsible for the poorly run, poorly equipped polling places in Cleveland that had lines up to four and five hours long, likely preventing many inner-city residents from voting at all. Nice work, Bob.

But Bennett doesn't intend to stay.

Bennett said he will remain chairman only until a process to name his successor is put in place and the 66-member committee, the party’s governing body, names a new chairman. ... He said he wants to ensure that a new chairman is seated well before next year’s statewide election when Gov. John Kasich and four other GOP statewide executive officeholders are on the ballot for second terms.

Expressing interest in the post is the party's executive director Matthew Borges. This Matthew Borges:

Greg Haas, chairman of the Franklin County (Columbus) Democratic Party, issued a statement today regarding Publicity Utilities Commission of Ohio Chairman Todd Snitchler.

As you'll recall from my post yesterday, Snitchler's Twitter feed was found to be jammed with wild-eyed climate-change denial messages.

http://www.ohiodailyblog.com/content/puco-chief-has-climate-denial-buddies-—-what-surprise.

Whether Snitchler shares their views or whether he's just in thrall to big Republican donors in the gas and coal industries is unclear.

But as Haas points out, decisions such as the recent one shutting out a new solar energy company that would have created as many as 600 jobs, are costly for Ohio, positioning it as a behind-the-curve, backward-looking state rather than an innovative state of the future:

The PUCO has a critical role in ensuring consumers benefit from the most advanced energy technologies and solutions. Most observers agree that new and emerging technologies and sources must be found to address the states' long term energy challenges. That doesn't seem to be true for Chairman Snitchler. His contemptuous dismissal of virtually all green energy sources recklessly disregards the near unanimous view that it is reliable, affordable, and beneficial for our health, our economy, and our environment.

Haas then urges Governor Kasich to remove Snitchler as his appointment is "demonstrating a callous disregard for Ohio's best interests."

I thought I'd post something upbeat because reflecting too much on what our bully gov. and our neanderthal legislature are up to can get depressing.

Michelle is 49 today, and I want to wish my fellow Bryn Mawr Elementary School alum a happy birthday.

"Dear Old Bryn Mawr School" (ha ha) at 74th and Jeffrey, Chicago. Nasty old pile of bricks. Can't you almost smell the crumbling green plaster inside? The ghosts of Miss Tittiger, Miss Gavin, and lavender-haired old Miss Frisbee probably still haunt the third floor west corridor.

The First Lady looks considerably more attractive:

You may have read stories in the last few days about how the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO), which theoretically oversees utilities on behalf of Ohio citizens (stop laughing!), voted against a solar energy project that would have created 600 new jobs AND more clean, renewable energy. PUCO's staff, which studied the project, recommended it. PUCO board members, likely under the ideologically driven spell of our governor, vetoed it.

Now comes word that PUCO chairman Todd Snitchler has a Twitter feed jam-packed with messages that say things like "'green' religion is taking over from Christian religion."

You are known by the company you keep. I just looked in my Twitter feed and I've got nothing like that.

Ohio state representative Mike Foley (Cleveland) and Ohio state senator Bob Hagan (Youngstown) put out the following release:

Reps. Foley and Hagan Blast PUCO Chairman Over Anti-Green Energy Stance and Climate Change Denials

Chairman’s extremist views cost state 600 jobs
COLUMBUS- State Reps. Mike Foley (D-Cleveland) and Robert F. Hagan had some harsh words for PUCO Chairman Todd Snitchler today after it was revealed his twitter feed is filled with climate change denials and anti-alternative energy rhetoric. His written communication was discovered after the Chairman voted against the Turning Point Solar project; an economic investment would have been the largest solar project east of the Rockies. The alternative energy venture would have employed 300 construction workers and created 300 manufacturing jobs.

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/fox-news-signs-dennis-kucinich-as-co...

No, it's not April Fools' Day yet.

No, the link is not from The Onion.

It's true.

Fox News Channel has signed former Congressman Dennis Kucinich as a paid contributor to FNC and Fox Business network. Kucinich, who was for years a liberal stalwart in the House of Representatives, will provide analysis and commentary across all of FNC and FBN’s programs, beginning with Thursday’s edition of “The O’Reilly Factor.”

Response among progressives online is split between "What a sellout" and "Maybe he can change a few minds."

Personally, I say no to both those things. Obviously, he deserves to make himself a little money. But I'd have to think there must be as much of a market for him to appear at events and make high-dollar speeches at leftie events as there is for the air-headed, incoherent Sarah Palin on the right.

As for changing minds, Fox "News" is a little bubble world that has created its own reality and draws viewers who are all-in on that reality. Few minds there are likely changeable.

Fox "News" chairman/CEO Roger Ailes, the man who dedicated himself to using his media outlet to campaign for Mitt Romney, said “I’ve always been impressed with Rep. Kucinich’s fearlessness and thoughtfulness about important issues."

Odd hiring then, because the station that has featured such provocateurs as Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck has never cared much about "thoughtfulness."

This could get interesting.

http://www.salon.com/2013/01/14/is_john_boehner_hitting_the_bottle/?sour...

This piece, which appeared on Salon this week, asks "Is John Boehner hitting the bottle?"

Stories about Boehner's drinking have been circulating for years, both in D.C. and back home in Ohio. This story brings those whispers out into the open.

It's actually a sad and sympathetic piece about the man's struggles, both with his own vices (which include heavy smoking) and with the ruthless, amoral "young guns" whose Ayn Randian creed of selfishness makes them impervious to the idea of compromise or even considering viewpoints other than their own.

I wouldn't want to be John Boehner for all the money in the world.

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20130116/NEWS010801/130116001/

The man can bluster until he's blue in the face about saving taxpayers money — but he's doing the opposite. He's devastating local services unless residents want to pay more out of the own pockets. And those increases are many times more than what any state income tax cut is likely to save them.

This cincinnati.com article outlines some of the negative impacts the last Kasich budget has already had on communities, with more to come (The estate tax elimination hasn't kicked in yet). And this is BEFORE he slashes state income with his proposed income tax cut. Who's hide do you think he's going to take that out of? Not his buddies and cronies, that's for sure.

Kasich has already wrecked havoc with my budget thanks to the enormous tax increase he made necessary — with more to come.

Thanks, John Kasich — the biggest tax increaser in recent Ohio history.

Election 2012,
A Sonnet

For some Obama’s victory was sweet
Because the ultra-Right had been so proud
To think Obama’s end would be defeat.
The people spoke with voices clear and loud.

They gave the President another term.
Of candidates they knew he was the best.
Election Day made Right-wing pundits squirm.
They thought Obama’s win a cruel jest.

Tea Party members need to understand,
The group they represent is very small.
The citizens of our most blesséd land,
Desire a President for one and all.

So quench your anger now Tea Party friends,
And work with Democrats for noble ends.

Edward Taylor
Mount Gilead, OH

Here he comes to save the day!

Josh Mandel is now claiming he was the Ohio GOP's seventh choice to run against U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown last year.

http://cincinnati.com/blogs/politics/2013/01/14/mandel-wasnt-gops-first-...

But somehow, mysteriously, no one else wanted to do it, and whoooosh! here comes Josh 'The Empty Suit" Mandel stepping up to the plate to make a strenuous effort to save Ohio from being represented by someone who cares about regular working people and is actually working hard on their behalf.

It was entirely accidental he started having fundraisers about a month after being sworn in as state treasurer, two years before the election, and long before other candidates might have started exploring a run. It just happened that an exceptional amount of special interest big money was gravitating to Mandel. Wide-eyed little Joshie just never gave a thought to leapfrogging all the big names in his party and making a big push for an office he clearly wasn't qualified for. Not an ambitious bone in HIS body, nosiree.

According to Mandel, the party would have preferred former congressman Pat Tiberi, who was drawn out of a district; newly elected attorney general Mike DeWine who had previously lost the seat to Brown; lieutenant governor Mary "Who?" Taylor, newly elected secretary of state Jon Husted; former congressman Steve LaTourette who retired in January; and Ohio's mot radical right-wing congressman Jim Jordan, who would have pushed the Ohio party so far to the right it likely would have even increased President Obama's total here.

Current Ohio Republican Party chair Bob Bennett's response was "Josh said that? There was a consensus that Josh was the strongest candidate.”

(Are you losing count yet?)

Apparently, goaded by criticisms that he has basically ignored education except to steal money from schools and give it to his cronies at failing for-profit charter schools, Governor Kasich is making noises about presenting an education reform program to the legislature.

But, since he really obviously doesn't care all that much about education or it would have been at the top of his to-do list two years ago when he was suddenly unveiling SB 5 instead, his "ideas" are nothing but the weak fodder of the anti-public education "reform" crew.

One such idea he's ballyhooing is "merit pay" for teachers who perform well according to some unclear standard.

http://www.ohio.com/news/break-news/kasich-wants-schools-to-develop-bonu...

This is one of those ideas that kind of sound good in theory but has proved of questionable worth in practice. In areas where it has been implemented, it has often had no impact on teacher or student performance. Many teachers have made it clear this isn't a motivation, and they'd rather have the resources put into education.

The lack of clear, reliable standards for judging teacher performance is a huge obstacle, especially with the push by many "reform" groups to weigh standardized testing more — testing that wasn't designed to measure teacher quality.

But I don't see one of the biggest obstacles mentioned by education funding slasher Kasich — who is going to pay for it? Please draw my attention to this if I missed it. Is Kasich going to offer a significantly large new pot of money to make this anymore than a symbolic sop? HA! Or does he plan to pay for it by firing other teachers or cutting their pay? That would be terrific for morale. Or maybe he'll pay for it out of the profit David Brennan of the failing for-profit White Hat charter schools is making at the expense of Ohio taxpayers and kids, and the state's future? Double HA!

Perhaps I shouldn't be so suspicious, but this sounds like yet another of our governor's poorly vetted plans based more on ideology than on being a pragmatic and proven solution to a problem. It joins a long list of such ideas, like JobsOhio, prison privatization, and turnpike leasing/bonding, whose benefits to Ohioans would be questionable, if any of them were actually ever implemented.

The seventh annual Rootscamp in Columbus yesterday was a great experience as always, with a diversity of attendees from around the state who generated a wide variety of discussions/panels/presentations to attend.
And this year, instead of 9 a.m., it started at 1 p.m. so those of us driving in from around the state didn’t have to get up at dawn. Thanks, organizers.

The speaker at the opening session was Cuyahoga County executive Ed FitzGerald who is openly exploring running for governor. He made a strong case for why he would be a good choice, talking about how he convened county officials across northern Ohio to oppose Governor Kasich’s unpopular plan to privatize the turnpike, which would be devastating to the economy of northeast Ohio. He demonstrated that he has a couple of qualities Kasich lacks: the ability to collaborate and a focus on pragmatic solutions to problems rather than blind ideology.

I’m not a big fan of self-appointed education “reform” guru Michelle Rhee. Her three-year stint as chancellor of the Washington D.C. schools was marked by controversy, as she adopted a bullying, I-know-best attitude that alienated teachers, principals, parents, and much of the community. Since she left in October 2010, charges have emerged — documented in USA Today — that any gains in achievement were tainted by the possibility of cheating.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-03-28-1Aschooltesting...

Since leaving, she’s formed an organization called Students First that claims to care about kids so much more than those lousy, lazy, progress-blocking teachers who won’t knuckle under to her ideas. While she says she’s nonpartisan, she’s mostly been embraced by right-wing Republicans such as Governor John Kasich, who don’t seem to mind associating with an ethically tainted, dishonest individual — as long as she furthers the inroads of their ideology on education.

Last week, Rhee exposed just how absolutely she is driven by a rigid ideology and not by practical real-world reforms that have been proven to get results i.e. educating kids. Students First released education “grades” for each state.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/state_edwatch/2013/01/michelle_rhees_grou...

Most states did very poorly with none getting an A.

Sounds alarming, eh?

Don’t worry. It’s not. Rhee’s group wasn’t grading the states on how well their schools educated kids. It wasn’t looking at things like dropout rates, or how many kids go on to college, or even standardized test scores.

Not anymore! Look what 18 depraved fools introduced this week in Congress:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr23/text

They've dubbed this the "Sanctity of Human Life" bill (I can hear you groaning already). It's really "Personhood" — the most extreme anti-abortion proposal out there — in another guise. Never mind that a "Personhood" amendment was defeated in Mississippi (!!!!!) in a landslide in 2011. Never mind that Colorado voters have said "no dice" twice. These 18 congressional co-sponsors (all Republicans, of course) think massively huge, invasive government needs to be monitoring the reproductive cycles of every woman of childbearing age — what you'd have to do to even tell if an egg has been fertilized — to protect zygote "persons."

If even the voters in deeply conservative Mississippi rejected this, you know that the list of things wrong with it is very, very wrong. The problems with the idea that a fertilized egg enjoys all the rights of a born person start with the fact that your birthday would no longer be your functional "start" date. For record-keeping purposes, your conception date would be what everything from your school readiness age to your Social Security age would need to be counted by. And good luck figuring out when that is. The entire idea — even if it weren't invasive, cruel, and an attack on women's AND religious freedom (many faiths don't share the belief of extremist right-wing evangelicals that human life suddenly springs into being at conception) — is impractical.

Who didn't see this one coming 372 miles* away the minute Steve LaTourette announced he was retiring from Congress? I don't see any hands out there.

* Distance from Cleveland to Washington D.C.

That's right: Steve LaTourette's new career is — wait for it — LOBBYIST!

Oh, you're not surprised? Me either.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/moderate-republican-group-remove-repu...

"Moderate Republican group to remove ‘Republican’ from name, welcome Democrats"

I actually thought this article might be from The Onion when I first saw it, but no ... Stevie is going to continue his charade of being a "moderate" or a "centrist" or whatever they're calling far-right conservatives these days who aren't simply out of their minds (aka Michele Bachmann or Steve King or Darrell Issa or Jack Kingston or Virginia Foxx ... or way too many for a supposedly "advanced" nation to be sending to their Congress).

The organization's board of directors voted Tuesday morning to scrap party identification from its title and be known simply as "The Main Street Partnership." The group's new president, former Ohio Republican Rep. Steven LaTourette, told Yahoo News that he plans to begin conversations with Blue Dog Democrats and centrist groups in the coming months.

I wonder if that rules out his congressional BFF Dennis Kucinich?

He's certainly got a lot of Blue Dogs and members of former "centrist" groups which have vanished to chose from; they're a dying breed. They've lost seats and influence in Congress, and many such groups have slowly disappeared from public view, as people picked up on what they really were: conservative apologists for the bad policies of those non-batshit crazy Republicans, policies that put corporate welfare WAY above public welfare.

LaTourette demonstrates his skewed sense of the political scene in this quote:

This morning, the Ohio Democratic Party released a statement from former governor Ted Strickland saying that he will not seek a rematch with Governor John Kasich next year. Strickland was a good governor but trying to mount a comeback didn't make sense to me.

While I'm sure it was tempting to go back and try to redo a race that he lost by only two points — with his opponent not even garnering a majority of the vote — Strickland carried some baggage from the last campaign that could have been a minefield going into a new one. Specifically, his allies' working to undermine Jennifer Brunner's U.S. Senate primary campaign and his embrace of the anti-choice, anti-gay Jennifer Garrison for statewide office dampened the enthusiasm of activist women (and probably some in the LGBT community as well) for his campaign.

I had heard much talk in recent weeks that Strickland either would not run unless the field was cleared for him or that if he ran, that would clear the field because other potential candidates had expressed a desire not to challenge him. I have heard some say — wrongly, I think — that Cuyahoga County executive Ed FitzGerald should not seek the office because he needs to stay another term in order to get more done in the county.

I don't buy that. It's not like he's only been in office a month and is already looking for higher office (not that any officeholder in Ohio would ever DREAM of doing that — oh no! Hi, Empty Suit!). FitzGerald has already amassed a solid record as county executive and has plenty to run on. He can certainly speak strongly about what Kasich's budget priorities have done to local governments and schools and how they have placed an increased burden on taxpayers.