Ohio in True Peril

Only 4 years have passed since the days of total RepubLIEcan rule in the State of Ohio. Yet Ohioans clearly forgot about the mess that created for our state. Indictments, convictions, election fraud, massive tuition increases at our state colleges and universities, million dollar rest areas, state funds stolen by a Republican operative while laundering money illegally to Republican campaigns. We even had a Governor that was convicted of illegally taking gifts and remained in office. Yes in 4 short years Ohioans clearly have forgotten the frustration, anger, embarrassment and damage RepubLIEcan rule did to our state because much to the disbelief of people that actually pay attention, the voters just put the Foxes in charge of the hen house once again.
Every state wide elected official is now a RepubLIEcan, The state house is totally under RepubLIEcan control, and even the state Supreme Court is entirely Republican. What were Ohioans thinking? Was it competence of the individual candidates? Clearly not.

We have replaced an experienced Governor who managed to balance the state’s budget in a horrible economic climate and unlike most states without raising taxes, cutting education, teachers, firefighters, police and other services citizens depend on our state for. He even froze tuition at the state colleges and universities. His replacement? A man who got rich working for THE Company whose greed, and lack of business ethics, led to a bankruptcy that was the very spark that triggered the recession. Caught in that mess was Ohio retirees who saw their pensions stolen by this company. This man who has already made it clear he plans to cut education, who doesn’t feel every school even needs a principal, is cutting jobs in manufacturing and construction by cancelling much needed state infrastructure improvements. This man will cost the jobs of many middle class workers in state offices, police, fire, education, yet he plans to develop a board of his rich donors and pay them unlimited unreported bonuses.
We went from a competent, effective State Treasurer who put in many developments to improve efficiency and cut costs, to a man who has no financial experience, who has been nothing but a professional politician his entire career, who the Federal election commission and every major newspaper in the state has called a liar.

Then there is the Secretary of State, where we had a very competent, experienced elections attorney in that office, which cleaned up the fraud and even the appearance of it in our elections. She is being replaced by a man who lied about his residence to stay in office as a State Senator, who is going to be running our elections even though he has publically stated that he “can’t break the law, he makes the law, he can change the law” Are you kidding me?

How bad can it get, how bad will it get? The problem is not only is there almost nothing that can be done about it, we won’t even know about it. Since every state official is beholden to the party apparatus, who is going to investigate things. Even the Supreme Court is part of the gang. Perhaps the media will call them out? Who? The clearly RepubLIEcan supporting Dispatch Media group and the Wolfe family? Not a chance. WSYX and Fox 28 owned by RepubLIEcan ultra Conservative Sinclair Media group?
If we are lucky the Plain Dealer will get the word out, but don’t count on it.

Yes Ohio your memory is short, you did not take the responsibility of voting seriously by getting the facts about who these men are. So when your kid can’t afford college, when your property taxes go up to just maintain the basics at your local school. When you have to pay outrageous fees for state services, when state parks decline, roads deteriorate. While your medical costs go up to pay for all those that are losing their Medicaid to get basic health services at the Emergency rooms, while your local taxes go up to replace all the cuts in state funding just to maintain fire and police departments. Meanwhile under the guise of “privatization” you see the rich donors get massive state contracts and get richer and richer. Remember how you voted November 2nd and thus who to blame.

GOP The Party of BP

It has never been more obvious who Republicans represent. Throughout the gulf spill tragedy while President Obama and the Administration was worked tirelessly to try to protect the lives, the environment and the way of life of the residents of the gulf human and animal, the Republican's primary talking points are complaints about the temporary moratorium on such drilling that caused this great American tragedy.

The party of "drill baby drill" wants us to again believe this was an isolated incident and take the risk of additional such tragedies in order to protect the profits of the oil companies.

Yesterday President Obama in a remarkable sign of his strength and leadership got BP, a major corporation to put 20 billion dollars in a fund to be administrated by a third party to finally effectively and efficiently get financial help to those harmed by this corporate damage to America. How do the Republicans respond? One calls it a fleecing of BP, one calls it an unprecedented shakedown of a private corporation, another calls it a slush fund.

The President is doing what is right, to work to recover from the effects of this horrible corporate attack on America, to make sure that proper safeguards are in place to prevent it from happening again, and to make sure that the people whose very lives have been destroyed by that are helped financially. And the GOP? Wants us to stop picking on BP.

Seriously? Yes America, Vote Republican, Vote BP.

Perhaps when BP rebrands all their stations so people forget this tragedy they will change the name to GOP stations.

Has the Political Media Lost Their Minds?

A few months ago no matter what political reporter you listened to or read the underlying theme was the impending death of the Republican Party. Now these same people on Politico, MSNBC and others are talking about the sinking ship of the Democratic Party.

They do this with a Democratic President who has succeeded in delivering or working toward the vast majority of his campaign promises. They do this as a Health Care Bill is about to be passed, something that no President or Congress has been able to do over decades. They do this as the there are continuing signs every day that the economy is recovering further validating the job the President and Congress has done. They seem not to notice that the group with the lowest popularity rating in the polls are Congressional Republicans. They poll significantly lower then Democrats and way lower then the President.

They seem to have forgotten the taking over of the Republican Party by the Glenn Becks, the Rush Limbaughs, the Sarah Palins and the Tea Baggers. They forget that in the last actual election of a congressional seat, the republican was defeated despite the fact that seat had been in GOP hands for over a century.

This up and down story line has proven to me these poltical "experts" can be believed as much as the local weatherman can be in his long range forecasts.

The next congressional election is 10 months away. In that time President Obama and the democrats will have more successes regardless of how many hurdles the GOP tries to put in front of them. The Tea Baggers and the Right wing wackos will continue to scare off moderates, and Sarah Palin will continue to open her mouth and confirm to even more people her lack of intelligence. That and with continued economic recovery and thus better unemployment numbers, things look quite good for the next 10 months.

Though the Republicans will try to deny each and every success of the Democrats, the facts will be there. As long as we on the left continue to get the facts out in every way we can, we will do just fine in November 2010.

How hopeless is the Federal Deficit?

The projected deficit for this year is 1.85 trillion dollars. No doubt a staggering amount and if you listen to the right its an Obama created disaster that there is no hope of getting out of. But is it?

First of all lets look at the 8 years of the Bush Administration. When Bush came into office the federal budget had a surplus of 236 Billion dollars. 8 years later a deficit of 700 billion dollars, a net loss of 936.2 Billion dollars. The net loss so far in the Obama Administration is about 97% not the 300 and 400% numbers people on the right keep claiming.

Yet this is a huge number. Is there any hope of getting out of it? History clearly shows us the answer is yes. The current years deficit is 12.93% of the nations GDP, sounds high. Yet in 1943 it was 28.05% of GDP, in 1944 it was 22.35% and 1945, 24.06%. Think about almost 1/4 of our nations economy was federal debt.

So how long did it take to get out of that? Amazingly not long. Only 2 years later in 1947 there was a surplus. In fact in the 11 years from 1947-1957 we had a surplus 7 out of 11 years.

Oh and for the record it was a Democrat, Harry S. Truman that took our country from the largest deficit as a percentage of GDP to a surplus. And the last surplus was once again under the leadership of a Democrat Bill Clinton.

Lets look at Congress, during the 8 years of the Truman Presidency and the taking of our federal budget from massive deficits to a surplus, 6 of those 8 years it was a Democratic Controlled Congress. The 8 years of Clinton's 6 of the 8 were Republicans. So in short Congress is 50/50 historically.

The point is when Republicans try to label the Democrats as the tax and spend party, and they the fiscally conservative party, history doesn't back them up. Barack Obama has pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term. Though it sounds impossible, it has been done before and yes by a Democrat.

source: Deficit as a % of GDP

Unemployment Rate Drops-Thank you President Obama

Today despite all the naysayers, all the Republican claims the stimulus plan has been a failure, and predictions of over 10% unemployment rates, the June unemployment numbers dropped .1% to 9.4%.This is the first drop in unemployment since August of 2008.

This is another in a series of positive economic signs to show that President Obama's actions have put our economy on the path to recovery. Housing starts, automobile sales, the stock market, bank solvency and now unemployment are all moving in the right direction.

Thank God we have a President who has had the vision, strength and ability to take the action that was required to get us out of the mess we found ourselves in after decades of voodoo economic policies that practically brought not only our nation's but the world's economy to its knees. Thank God as well that the Republicans short visioned, political games were not successful in preventing it.

By no means is this a "mission accomplished" moment. It is however a clear indication we are heading the right direction.

Thank you to President Obama, his Administration, and the Democrats in the Congress. Thank you to the American people for putting such people in office.

To the GOP: Parole Denied!

The "Right" is screaming and yelling about spending. They use scare statements like "mortgaging your children's future," "It's socialism," "High Taxes!" After 8 years of Republicans controlling our nations spending that's like Paris Hilton criticizing Sarah Palin's clothing allowance.

Don't get me wrong, spending is a concern. But what is most important is how it's spent. Since the years of Reagan almost all the economic policies of our government and resources have gone to increasing the wealth of the wealthy. Starting wars, paying off campaign contributors like pharmaceutical companies, and the oil companies with spending. Giving government contracts to personal cronies like Haliburton, spending money on charter schools many of which are contracted to friends of the politicians that are more about profit then education.

Meanwhile, education has suffered, health care has worsened, more and more of our services are contracted out to companies full of fraud and abuse, and the wars on which we have spent money have destroyed our reputation around the world. Under Republican policies our country declined in strength, economically and militarily, our quality of life has suffered and even the wealth that was created for the few turned out to be false.

The house of our economy has a roof that is damaged from all the storms caused by Republican leadership. It is leaking badly and the longer that roof is left to leak the more damage is being done to the structure.

Thus that roof must be fixed and fixed now. It will cost money. That is what our President is doing. Then once it is fixed, we must find a way to pay for it. That can be done with investing taxpayer money in projects that have long term gain for the country as a whole not just the rich. That improves the economy, brings jobs, improves education and health care. That increases the quality of life for all.

These high spending Republicans that took this country from a surplus under Bill Clinton, to the largest deficit in history are like the Criminal that suddenly finds religion until he gets parole. But the voters are the parole board and we do not forget that quickly. These Republicans remain a danger to society and should not be allowed to repeat their crimes. Parole denied.

Austria and Tiberi put politics before jobs and education

As expected Congressmen Steve Austria and Pat Tiberi walked in lock step with fellow loser Republicans to maintain their course of putting politics above the citizens of their districts. The voted no on the stimulus package despite the fact it was the policies and their party that lead this country down this path.

Thank goodness the voters of the this country in most districts have put men like this in the minority in congress and our country can move forward on improving the economy and the lives of Americans despite them.

The whining of the republicans on this bill has been laughable. Tiberi complained it did nothing about the mortgage crisis. Well genius does it address it directly, no this is a jobs stimulus package. The mortgage crises is being dealt with in various other ways and in other bills and he knows this. Regardless Americans losing their jobs by the 10's of thousands is not helping the mortgage crises either. So this will in fact in a indirect way have a positive effect on that.

The other bogus claim is they didn't have time to read the bill. Bull pucky. This bill has been debated and discussed for weeks. They manage to find little pieces of it to take out of context and twist to complain about but somehow don't know whats in the bill? The bill as passed had only a few changes. Each and every congressman and Senator has a huge staff, this is what they are for, to read, analyze and provide the information to their bosses.

President Obama was unbelievably gracious and understanding when it came to getting the input from the Republicans on this bill. The bill was changed in ways not for the good, in my opinion, based on this input. The President reached out and acted in a bi partisan manner as he promised he would. The Republicans chose to still turn their backs on him and the country.

Quite clearly the Republicans didn't learn from their blistering defeat at the polls in November. Perhaps they will learn in 2 years when their numbers decrease even further. American has chosen leadership over partisan political games. Leadership will win.

How Dare They

I have had enough of listening to the Republicans spewing their partisan crap about the stimulus bill.

Republicans lecuturing on increasing the deficit? These are the morons that took our country from a surplus to the largest deficit in history, but now suddenly when democrats are in charge and are left with an economic mess created by republican leadership they have found the anti deficet religion? Spare me.

The President, even though he does not have to, has been trying to reach out to republicans to come up with a true bi partisan bill with lots of ideas involved. What do the republicans do, the same old crap, cut taxes for corporations, blame democrats for TARP, which EXCUSE ME was Bush's bill. Pushed for, and mismanaged by HIS people, NOT DEMOCRATS.

Republicans have had 8 years to test out their economic theories, they have failed miserably. This is not theory, this is not ideology, this is fact. Their theories have lead us to the worse recession in 25 years. People are losing jobs at incredible rates, homes are being lost, lives are being ruined.

These fools complain about spending in the stimulus package increasing funding for unemployment, state and local needs, education, and other help programs. Well NO KIDDING, your policies threw hundreds of thousands out of work, your policies are bankrupting our cities, our states our schools. Your policies who have made only the rich richer and corporations thrive on false wealth, have created real hardship in this country. So yes there is spending, because there is a republican created mess that has to be cleaned up.

Bi partisan ship means sharing good ideas, not holding the country hostage to continue your worn out failed policies.

Despite the attempt the rewrite history buy claiming FDR's policies failed to restore the economy, the fact is he did save our economy. Democratic ideas and programs saved this country that was left in a mess by the Republican Hoover, and once again it will be democrats and democratic ideals and programs that will fix your mess again.

So frankly Republicans, shut up and get out of the way, its time for the country to be fixed by Democrats once again.

House Democrats take action without Republicans

Despite talk about bi partisan ship by republicans. Despite President Obama reaching out to them, listening to them, and then changing the bill, the house Republicans showed the are more concerned about politics then the countries well being and voted no en mass against the Stimulus Package.

Guess what, it passed anyway.

House Republicans have just made themselves irrelevant. Good luck getting anything you want from the President or the Democratic Leadership in Congress the next two years.

You had a chance, you blew it.

The Democrats once again truly put country first, Republicans as usual put failed political games first.

Republicans are Threatened By Democracy

As we watch all of the demonization of ACRON for registering voters, the lawsuits attempted against same day voting, the complaints about early voting, the attempts to disenfranchise voters with caging, one thing is clear, the Republicans must hate Democracy.

For years it has been an embarrassment that the model for democracy to the world has such low voter turnouts. Yet whenever there are grass roots efforts to increase the turnout the Republicans panic and fight it every step of the way.

Republicans don't want democracy, they want control. As long as we have a Democratic Secretary of State that has done great things to improve the reliability and efficiency in Ohio's elections, they will try to vilify her. As long as groups are successful at registering new voters, they will try to claim fraud, as long as it is made easier to vote, they will fight to make it harder.

Republicans may wrap themselves in the flag but when it comes down to the basic tenant of democracy they are opposed to it whole heartedly.

Lincoln Chafee in Pickerington

I had the opportunity to attend a Town Hall sponsored by the Pickerington Ohio Campaign for Change with former Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island. Senator Chafee was a Republican Senator then turned Independent and is now a supporter of Barack Obama. Senator Chafee was introduced by a former Republican county chairman in Michigan that now is an Obama supporter living in Pickerington.

Chafee spoke about his conservative values in regards to fiscal policies, involving our troops in quagmires, and environmental policies. He pointed at that with the support of McCain and the far right wing of the Republican party these conservative values have been lost.

The Senator talked of his disappointments in the Bush administration, primarily Bush's campaign promises of working across the isle and having a non arrogant foreign policy. When the reality is Bush has done quite the opposite and McCain has made it clear he would be even more arrogant on foreign policy.

Chafee said that being an independent now he had the opportunity to choose a candidate in this election based on the men themselves not just based on party loyalty. He said he researched, read both of Barack Obama's books, read the policies of both and found that for him the clear choice for our country's future was Barack Obama.

He spoke of how the world is waiting for Americans to choose a man like Barack Obama, to show them that the years of the Bush administration were not what America is about but in fact the real America is one of reaching out and diplomacy and moral values and actions around the world.

A rather emotional moment occurred when a couple that are immigrants from Liberia expressed their thanks to Senator Chafee for his support and his voice to help stop the genocide in their home country.

GOP plays Nero while Economy Burns

In an attempt to separate themselves from the Bush administration and all his failed policies that have lead our country to the brink of financial collapse, the GOP has failed our country by voting against the Economic recovery bill and the stock market has its 3rd biggest point loss in history.

They went against their leadership and against their own President to pull this political stunt. Take a look at who voted for and against the bill. My quick spot checking shows that Republicans that are retiring or safe districts voted for the bill and those trying to separate themselves from Bush in fear of losing in tight races voted against it. Examples are Hobson voted for it, Schmidt against.

There were also 95 Democrats that voted against the bill Dennis Kucinich among them.

The fact is this. No one is happy about having to do this. Yet, 8 years of Bush policies and 20 years of eliminating or not enforcing regulations caused by people like John McCain have created this problem. Republicans are hell bent on sticking to their voodoo trickle down economics despite the obvious failure of such policies.

It angers me we have to do this, but the reality is the economy is bleeding. We must stop the bleeding first, then do the hard work of diagnosing and healing it.

GOP Blackmail on Bailout to Help the Rich

The Republicans are using the seeming urgency of the need for this bailout and demanding items to be added that have one and only one purpose, the help the wealthy.

First they are demanding a tax cut. One for the middle class, of course not these are Republicans. They are actually trying to push through another capital gains tax cut. Does this help the current crises in any way. No of course not. It helps the wealthy who may profit from this rescue to make even more money but cutting their taxes on their gains.

But the most disgusting item they are pushing for is to repeal The Community Reinvestment Act. This act which was first implemented in 1977 and adapted in 1995, has as its purpose to require banks to invest in all areas of their market not just the wealthy neighborhoods. The repeal of this act would destroy our urban neighborhoods and severely restrict the growth of small businesses and jobs in the inner city.

So as they did with the Iraq War Vote and the Patriot Act they are trying to sneak in things that the majority of Americans would never want. This will once again benefit their wealthy donors and harm the middle class and the poor.

I am beginning to believe this entire "crises" is a Republican Scheme to try to hold on to some of the house seats they were about to lose in huge numbers.

RepubOILcans show their true motives.

It is quite clear that "drill here, drill now" is just another mean nothing slogan the RepubOILcans want to use to try to fool Americans. As we speak the Democrats in Congress are proposing a compromise measure to be able to actually accomplish something. But as usual the RepubOILcans in Congress oppose it.

This bill takes off the federal moratorium on drilling more the 50 miles off shore and leaves drilling up to the states. This would open a significant number of areas to new drilling leases to the oil companies.

So why would the RepubOILcans oppose this?

1. The bill ends tax breaks for the Oil Companies that are making record profits on the back of American consumers.

2. The bill requires additional usage of renewable sources of energy by the electric companies.

3. The moratorium expires on September 30th anyway, so the Bush administration can pad his buddies in the oil industry's balance sheets by approving unlimited drilling leases.

4. The RepubOILcans don't actually want any actual solutions to the energy crises they instead want to block any progress so they can try to blame the other side in the upcoming elections.


Republicans true motives are simple, more profits for their big oil donors and have a simple minded slogan to use in the next election. This is how they have operated for decades. This time its destroying our economy, hitting our wallets every day, and risking our national security.

Enough is Enough.

We need solutions not slogans.

RepubOILcans block measure to lower gas prices

Apparently in an attempt to get more time for the oil speculators on wall street and Big Oil to reap more profits on the backs of American consumers, the RepubOILcans in the Senate blocked Senate Bill 3268 from being voted on.

This bill would be one of the few simple short term solutions to the problem of high oil prices, that would place Oil Commodity trading under the same rules and regulations that are in place for all other such trading.

This loophole that has existed put in place by McCain's economic guru Phil Graham, has allowed speculators to falsely inflate the price of oil on the world markets to gain even more profit for themselves while forcing the price at the pump higher and higher.

Though this is just one step in a multifaceted solution to lowering oil prices, this one corrects a wrong and would have immediate effect and can be done now. Experts have estimated this bill alone would lower oil prices up to 20%.

Seems simple upfront and a correction that could be made immediately. One problem, it negatively effects the profits of big oil and these speculators that back the these RepubOILcans, so they voted to prevent this bill from passing.

The RepubOILcans also today blocked a vote on a bill that would provide energy assistance to low income homeowners. Why, because it did not include any provisions to allow Oil Companies to pad their balance sheets with new idle leases. Since this bill had nothing to do with energy production, the RepubOILcans are proving with clairity, they have one goal, more profits for Big Oil and they will block any attempt to help consumers unless they get this.

Apparently they are stalling for time to give big oil more profits as long as possible until the Democrats have a larger majority in the Congress and take the White House.

8 years divided by 2 oil men = $4 gas

This was the chart shown on the Senate floor this afternoon by Senator Barbara Boxer. While George W. Bush and the Repuboilcans repeat the mantra "drill drill drill" the Democrats in Congress are proposing real solutions to the oil prices that are bringing this nation to its knees.

McCain proposes fake solutions along with George W that will do one thing increase the assets of the oil companies. It will not have any effect on the amount of domestic oil on the market or the cost of gas at the pump. The fact is the Oil Companies have leases on 68 million acres of oil reserve they can drill now but choose not to. Instead they wish to hold on to these assets and add to them to line their pockets.

Barbara Boxer detailed a number of solutions that can and must be done to actually solve the problem. First "Use it or lose it" If the Oil companies that currently hold the leases to the 68 million acres that can be drilled now choose not to, then they shall lose the leases on that land and it will be given to companies that will drill.

Another point Boxer made was that the oil that is drilled domestically should remain in this country not sold overseas for higher profits as is the case now with much of the oil obtained in Alaska.

She also discussed higher CAFE standards which by bringing them up to 40 mpg which hybrid cars can exceed now, would by itself eliminante the demand for all foriegn oil in this country.

Finally to regulate the oil speculators that are a major cause of the current oil prices that are creating a false value for a barrel of oil that is making the oil men like Bush and Cheney richer and 90% of Americans poorer.

Repubiolcans like to accuse Democrats of wanting to "transfer wealth." The fact is the energy policies of Bush, Cheney, McCain and the repuboilcans are causing the biggest transfer of wealth in human history, from our pockets to theirs, the CEO's of the oil companies and the Oil Sheiks abroad.

It is time for America to wake up, and say no to 4 soon 5 dollar per gallon gas. To say no to wars fought over oil, to say no to record profits for the oil companies and to say NO to false policies like "drill drill drill." Instead we must support the Democrats in the Congress who are looking for real solutions for all Americans not just the oil men.