Buckeye State Blog - US Senate Race

Help Expand the Map of Competitive U.S. Senate Races

Senate Guru — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 00:26:43 -0700

Promoted to the front page because this is a worthwhile cause if ever I've seen one. - Nick D.

I know that Ohio doesn't have a U.S. Senate race in 2008. But 33 other states do. And anyone following the news over the last year-and-a-half has read about Senate Republicans filibustering anything and everything that moves, breaking the record for filibusters in a two-year Congressional session in less than one year!

It is critical that we expand our majority in the U.S. Senate to reduce this historic rate of Republican obstructionism, so that an Obama administration can proceed with an agenda that helps rather than hinders American progress. I have been following this on my blog, Senate Guru, very closely and have been pushing for us to expand the map of competitive Senate races.

To that end, I have established the Expand the Map! ActBlue page, raising much needed funds for Democratic Senate candidates in uphill but competitive (or very-close-to-competitive) Senate races. Every one of these Democratic Senate candidates who wins her or his race means one less Republican filibustering progressive legislation. And every one of these Democratic Senate candidates has a message that will resonate with voters - all they need are the resources to get their messages out to the electorate and prevent the Republican incumbents from muddying their records.

With Monday night being the deadline for the second fundraising quarter of 2008, it is critical that we get funds in to help these Democratic candidates show strength. So, please, please, please contribute if you can to any of the terrific candidates for Senate on the Expand the Map! ActBlue page. Even though these candidates don't represent your state, if elected, they will defeat the Republican obstructionism that very much impacts you and your state.

Sen. Voinovich says "No" to jobs of the future

Nick D — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 21:05:43 -0700

Some interesting policy thoughts. We've tended to gloss over most of these important issues while we've been focusing on other things. -Jerid

U.S. Sen George Voinovich (R-Ohio) announced that he will oppose efforts in Congress to hold SUV's and light trucks to the same fuel mileage standards as cars. A bill which passed the Senate 65-27 but is now headed to a House-Senate conference committee would require a combined fleet fuel economy of 35 MPG by 2020. In requiring this, the bill promises to spur further investment in fuel-saving technology that could create thousands of new jobs right here in Ohio, jobs that won't be tied to the inevitable decline in the use of fossil fuels. Voinovich instead backs an alternative bill that would call for a 35 MPG standard for cars, and a 32 MPG standard for trucks & SUV's, by 2022, but includes a loophole allowing regulators to delay fuel economy mandates if they are found impossible to meet. Read the full story in this Pee Dee article.

Reducing our dependence on petroleum is not just a win-win, it is, by my calculations, a win-win-win-win.

Win #1 - Reduce CO2 emissions - Anyone notice how warm it's been into October? How dry it is down in the South? Yeahh....that global warming thing is not only not a hoax, its happening right now. This is a great first step towards reducing our carbon emissions

Win #2 - Prevent Terrorism - Let's see if we can grasp this one kiddies, we buy oil from Middle Eastern countries for dollars. Some of those dollars get spent for good stuff, but some get provided to terrorists. So the less dollars we send over there, the less ends up in the hands of al-Qaeda. The less oil we buy, the more it drives down the price of oil, which means that al-Qaeda gets less money no matter who is buying oil. If we really want to win the "war on terror," we must reduce our reliance on oil. Was that simple enough?

Win #3 - Reduce our trade deficit - Anyone been paying attention to all those stories talking about how cheap the dollar is these days?? Five years ago, it cost 90 cents to buy a euro. Today it costs $1.40. That's because we've been sending oodles of cash overseas to purchase increasingly expensive oil, (Five years ago, the price of oil was $20/barrel. Today its $80/barrel) and it turns out the rest of the world isn't buying more of our stuff to compensate. So, there are piles of greenbacks overseas, and that makes them easily available and therefore....less valuable. Less oil use = less greenbacks sent overseas = smaller trade deficit.

Win #4 - Creates the jobs of tomorrow - Hate to break it to the UAW, but hanging on tighter than hell to the jobs of the past is a slow-death strategy. Instead, how about an infusion of some young blood. How about having confidence that Ohioans will be manufacturing fuel cells, electric motors, lithium-ion batteries and other advanced technologies. Ohio has manufacturing know-how that few areas in the world can match. Why don't we provide incentives to invest in this emerging technology, by, for instance, requiring higher gas mileage!! Gosh I crack myself up.

Go tell Georgie to shape up and support the gas mileage bill without the loopholes.

The Smithsonian and Our Ralph Regula

raz — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 17:17:18 -0700

What's the story with Regula's involvement with the director of the Smithsonian who saw fit to spend close to a million dollars of tax payer money for personal fineries. Hell I always believed that Ralph was a God Fearing Ohio farm boy. Could he be just like the other long time Republicans. Been there so long that they really believe that they are above the law. Do the people need to know more or is this going to play out as nothing except standard Republican Style Politics.

Voinovich Hangs Up On Hannity

Mikado — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 18:25:05 -0700

ThinkProgress

Voinovich Lashes Out At Hannity: ‘You’re Not Going To Intimidate Me,’ Then Hangs Up
Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) said recently that “talk radio is running America” and that “we have to deal with that problem.” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said “hate radio” has hijacked the political discourse with its “xenophobic, anti-immigrant” rhetoric.

Yesterday, Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) released his frustration in a “hate radio” interview with Sean Hannity. “A lot of radio programs have really got out there and fired this thing up,” Voinovich said of the immigration debate. “And so people are really hot about it. And I’m getting calls from people that basically are intimidating me.” Voinovich told Hannity:

I’ve had people back home because of programs like yours said to me if you vote for this bill, it’s the end of your political career. I just want you to know and I want everybody else to know that you do not intimidate George Voinovich.

Fed up with Hannity’s efforts to turn the interview into a right-wing commentary, Voinovich lashed out, “I really don’t think it’s worthy to talk to you right now because you’ve got your mind made up.” Hannity then turned on Voinovich, telling him, “You’re running away because you can’t answer a simple question. … Oh, so I’m irrational because I disagree with you? You’re a mighty senator, ok I get it.” Voinovich then hung up.

UPDATE: The right is outraged over Voinovich. Hot Air says he humiliated himself. KLo writes, “At least he didn’t cry.” Radio Equalizer asks, “How did these elected officials get so out of touch with reality?” And FrontPage calls him “Senator Embarrassment.”

Jail Time

raz — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 10:43:02 -0700

CLEVELAND (AP) - Two county election workers were sentenced Tuesday to 18 months in prison for rigging a recount of 2004 presidential election ballots...

The United States Congress is looking at making it ten years. Are we Joking each other.

John Boehner "boner"

raz — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 06:53:56 -0700

House GOP Leader John Boehner of Ohio issued a statement saying that Democrats shouldn't count on any help passing their legislation to limit Bush's wars. "Republicans will continue to stand united in this debate, and will oppose efforts by Democrats to undermine the ability of General Petraeus and our troops to achieve victory in the Global War on Terror," he said.

What he failed to mention was the Republican wish to allow our commander in war to march directly into war with Iran with out congressional approval.

This Mr. John Boehner continuals to be the biggest shame on the good voters of Ohio since Taft, Noe and Nea all convicted crooks. How in the hell we missed Boner is beyond my thinking.

Are we working to get some competition to run against him?

Professor DeWiner: Class is Now in Session

redenemy — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 15:46:50 -0700

Today Cedarville University announced that former Sen. Mike DeWine would be taking a spot at their prestigious institution.

Mr. DeWine will take the title of Visiting Scholar at the Baptist school's Center for Political Studies. He will be teaching one course, "Leadership and Decision-Making in Modern American Politics". In addition, Mr. DeWine will be helping the school set up its new Semester in Washington program.

Levity

redenemy — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 22:09:09 -0700

Levity comes in many forms... Maybe Mike DeWine should look to his old intern (and friend of bsb's) for some.

Dems Take Senate

MarkJablonski — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 19:36:30 -0700

AP calls VA for Webb. Dems now hold majority in both houses of U.S. Congress. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/ELECTION_RDP?SITE=CAFRA&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

MLM LIBERAL EXCLUSIVE: VICKI ALMAY NEVER WAS A NARCOTICS OFFICER, BUT AN INFORMANT HAVING "FAMILIARITY WITH THE DRUG TRADE"

MLM Liberal — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 21:58:44 -0700

Vicki Almay was NEVER a State of Ohio employee eligible for retirement benefits from Ohio's Public Employees Retirement System, according to an e-mail MLM Liberal received tonight from Common Sense:

People please do some research into the history of Vicki Almay. She was never a certified police officer in any state in the country. She was used as a BCI undercover agent because of her familiarity with the drug trade, a connection which she developed in her life prior to becoming an honest citizen. This is common practice in law enforcement, the use of people currently or formerly a part of the drug culture. Although she was theoretically an agent, she does not recieve a state retirement pension as she is basically considered an informant not a regular officer. She still cannot tell the difference between reality and fiction as the case she refers to was never prosecuted and neither were any of Mr. Brown's staff supposedly related to this case. Another last ditch effort by Mr. Dewine to smear his opponnent. He should have used a person with "Clean Hands" when he made the TV spot.

See the DeWine spot here

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As a former journalist and now an Ohio Department of Public Safety employee, I have always known an informant in drug cases to mean either a drug dealer or a drug user. MLM Liberal can only wonder which applied to Vicki Almay in her past life.

As was posted here yesterday:

From Jonathan Riskin of the Columbus Dispatch October 28:

(Sherrod) Brown himself in 1985 asked for a State Highway Patrol investigation into whether employees in his office were selling illegal drugs, though no one was charged. At best, the ad overstates the level of scandal and at worst is misleading about Brown's culpability.

The Akron Beacon Journal would report the following on September 9, 1990:

"No Proof of Impropriety Found in Drug Inquiry in Brown's Office."

"The patrol has accepted fault for not telling prosecutors about a mid-August 1985 drug buy."

To the readers of this blog: The Bureau of Criminal Identification & Investigation is a division of the Ohio Attorney General's Office, not the Ohio Department of Public Safety.
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A Google advanced search using "Vicki Almay" came up dry. However...

Yet another SOB Alliance member, Matt Hurley of Weapons of Mass Discussion, has become the latest member of that Alliance to not only slam my co-workers but also to accuse them of wrongdoing:

When this failure to take action on the drug buys surfaced in 1990, an investigation was launched by Franklin County Prosecutor Michael Miller into whether a cover-up had been conducted. While Miller could find no direct evidence of cover-up, he did find that Highway Patrol officers failed to turn over their findings to prosecutors, and that a felony case existed that was not prosecuted.

Inquiries made by newspapers at the time also uncovered the fact that reports filed by Joseph Hopkins, the lead Highway Patrol investigator, were altered after he filed them to lessen the severity of the drug crimes committed. Further newspaper reports indicate that the actions taken by (State Highway Patrol) investigators left lingering questions of whether politics played a role in the probe��s conclusion.

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It is absolutely unbelievable how members of the State of Ohio Blog (SOB) Alliance have been brazen in their smear campaign against the employees of the Ohio Department of Public Safety on behalf of Ken Blackwell and now Mike DeWine.

It is one thing to smear me. I was prepared for that. But when there appears to be a coordinated effort by SOB Alliance members to smear my co-workers (including at least 1,600 State Highway Patrol troopers), these bloggers will be revealed for who they are.

The politically correct term would be Karl Rove wannabees. My co-workers would use a more direct term: bullies.

Chris Matthews of MSNBC may not be even that kind, as readers can see from his interview with DeWine yesterday.

See Chris Matthews' interview with DeWine here.

God don't take sides in life, in love or in politics!

links — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 14:48:31 -0700

I ��recently received an email from the campaign headquarters of Sherrod Brown, suggesting I needed to investigate the newest aspect of his campaign....the Religious card!

His eMail said in part..��

"Promoting the common good, a central tenant of many faiths, calls us to serve a purpose larger than ourselves and leave this world better than we found it.

That is why I have launched a new campaign Web site to share the principles and values I will carry with me to the U.S. Senate: http://sherrodbrown.com/pages/principles...."

I replied as follows, and truly believe we need to leave faith, religion, hope, prayer, and other unfounded and unreliable��aspects of the religious and faith based communities.�� I certainly don't want our military forces praying for, much less believing, that the enemy will just lay down their weapons if we pray hard enough.. We need to fight our battles with real guns and real ammunition. Likewise, we need to go about�� our daily tasks with a plan, not a hope and a prayer !

" Well, If there is one thing that I could have found out about Sherrod Brown that would have��re-ignited my anger with politicians in general..I just found it in your religious page linked to below..�� Religion has no place in the politics or on the campaign trail!

Let me suggest that God is not going to solve any problems in "this" world.�� If faith was the answer, it would have been realized some time ago. God Don't Take Sides. �� If God took sides, where would we really be?��

I certainly believe that every man can worship as he sees fit, but please don't hold up that cross with hopes to ward off evil spirits in this campaign.. I suggest you unload on religious babble before it backfires.�� This move is not like putting icing on the cake, it's more like��blowing out the candles before the celebration!..."��

I am firm believer in freedom of��religion. Likewise a firm believer in freedom from religion when it comes to our governing bodies. Separation of��Church and State is critical to this country solving its many ills! Lets start with the government getting out of the business of legislating morality..

DeWine May Be Connected to Coingate and Other BWC Problems

Muffet — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 08:41:23 -0700

INFLUENCE-PEDDLING SCANDAL
BWC defends belated investigation
Agency took 3 months to act on tip

By STEVE EDER
and JAMES DREW
BLADE STAFF WRITERS

COLUMBUS - When the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation received an allegation in June that staff for two Republican officeholders tried to aid a politically connected firm that manages the care of injured workers, the bureau didn't investigative for three months. On Sept. 12, a bureau fraud investigator made one phone call, and then closed the case, satisfied that the accusation was "unfounded." The bureau never contacted the elected officials or their staff, subpoenaed phone records, or requested any documents. The bureau - at the center of an influence-peddling scandal that has gripped state government for more than 18 months - defended its investigation last week, saying politics played no role in the lag time and the tip wasn't pursued further because it appeared baseless. Scott Fitzgerald, assistant director in the bureau's special investigations department, said the agency is working hundreds of cases and sometimes it takes as long as 190 days to complete an investigation. The claim, which focused on the offices of U.S. Sens. George Voinovich and Mike DeWine, was examined by the bureau's fraud task force because, if substantiated, it could have amounted to a violation of the bureau's regulations that govern its managed-care organizations. The allegation in this case centered on CareWorks, a Dublin, Ohio-based firm that has collected at least $347 million from the bureau since 1997. A spokesman for CareWorks did not return messages seeking comment. According to bureau records, the agency opened its case on June 13 after receiving an accusation from Dan Neubert, the executive director of 1-888-OhioComp, a Cleveland-based managed-care organization, that staff for the senators and possibly one other politician contacted Cleveland's Council of Small Enterprises, known as COSE, to recommend that the organization stay with CareWorks as its preferred managed care organization. Mr. Neubert, whose firm ultimately wrestled COSE's business away from CareWorks, said he learned of the alleged calls earlier this year when his firm made a presentation to COSE. Mr. Neubert initially made the complaint to an employee at the bureau, but later told a bureau fraud investigator that he didn't wish to pursue the allegation. An investigator, Kris Sharp, made one phone call on the case - on Sept. 12, four days after a Blade investigation showed the bureau's managed care program had been a source of campaign contributions for top state Republicans, and some Democrats. Agent Sharp spoke with Steve Millard, COSE's executive director, who confirmed that a COSE employee "received an inquiry phone call from someone who stated they were affiliated with the senator's office regarding CareWorks." Mr. Millard told the investigator he didn't know who took the call at COSE. Contacted by The Blade, Mr. Millard said he did know which employee took the call but would not identify that person. Mr. Neubert of 1-888-OhioComp didn't return messages seeking comment. Mr. Millard, whose organization has about 5,500 member organizations in its workers' compensation program, told the bureau investigator that the "inquiry call" had no bearing on COSE's selection process as evidenced by the organization's decision to end its long-standing relationship with CareWorks. After speaking with Mr. Millard, Agent Sharp closed the case. "We try to get to all of our cases as quickly as we can, but we are limited and we moved as quickly as possible," Mr. Fitzgerald, the bureau official, said. He added that the bureau receives up to 6,000 allegations a year, and "if we can't substantiate anything in the allegation, we usually don't move forward with it." Spokesmen for Senators DeWine and Voinovich said they could find no records of any calls made by their staffs on behalf of CareWorks. CareWorks executives and associates have given more than $400,000 to politicians on the state and federal levels, including at least $21,000 to the campaigns of Mr. Voinovich and Mr. DeWine. Mr. DeWine is in the midst of a re-election campaign against Democratic U.S. Rep. Sherrod Brown, of Avon. Asked if the lag time in the case had anything to do with politics, Mr. Fitzgerald, the bureau official, said "absolutely not." "I wish we could close our cases immediately, but we need to take our time and work all of our cases, and we do our best," Mr. Fitzgerald said. State Sen. Marc Dann, the Democratic nominee for attorney general and a chief critic of the bureau's management, said he would have expected that the scrutiny focused on the agency would cause it to be run more like a business. "The obligation of the people at Workers' Comp is to run the place like a business, and no business would get an allegation that one of its vendors was being coerced by politics, or anybody, and let it sit on the shelf for three months," Mr. Dann said. Contact Steve Eder at: seder@theblade.com or 419-724-6272.

Live: Brown-DeWine debate on ONN

dirtgirl — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 16:24:03 -0700

In case I'm not the only person watching it, I thought I'd start a live-blogging thread for this debate.

So far the panel has been spanking Mike D pretty bad:

First he was asked about how he thinks he should be judged by his accomplishments in the Senate and whether that meant he should be judged on the Iraq war.

Later he was asked about how he's had two phony ads that he's had to change and whether he stands behind his advertisements.

The Toledo crowd is pretty rowdy. Boos, hissing, screams and applause on almost every exchange.

Write A Letter!

MarkJablonski — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 09:38:02 -0700

I encourage all to write letters to the editors of The Akron Beacon Journal, The Columbus Dispatch, and the Dayton Daily News regarding their recent endorsements of DeWine. Let your voice be heard. Take ten to fifteen minutes and continue the fight. It is by no means over. PS: PD endorsed Betty today, let them know how you feel as well.

"Heads Down, ReDouble Efforts"

MarkJablonski — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 19:37:25 -0700

Editor of Ohio2nd said it best. The new polling on the predicted 14 point Brown blowout should not make us cocky. We must not put our feet up, we must not have a cold one, we must not take anything for granted. DeWine is fighting harder as the days go by. Keep your heads down, and double, nay, triple your efforts! MoveOn.org has some phone banking tools that you can use at home. Also, does your bumper bear Brown's name? How about your front yard? Brown buttons, anyone? 27 days.