gop

Tea Party guide to legislative supporters

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The Dispatch ran an article titled "Tea party has had it with GOP"

Feeling betrayed by the Republican Party and its leaders, tea party groups in Ohio appear to be uniting and moving toward either a split from the GOP or action to punish Republican candidates who fail ideological purity tests.
[...]
It remains uncertain, however, just how much the Ohio GOP and its candidates could be hurt by an insurrection because it is difficult to assess the true strength of tea party groups. A 2012 poll by The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation found that about 28 percent of Republicans identified themselves as tea party supporters.

To gage how much support the Tea Party has within the Ohio GOP legislative House caucus, we took a look at who had signed on to the Tea Party's pet union busting "right to work" cause. Spread across HB 151 (Private Employees "Right to work" bill) and HB 152 (Public Employees "Right to work" bill), the following Republican state Representatives sponsored or cosponsored one or both of these Tea Party bills

Adams
Beck
Becker
Blair
Boose
Brenner
Buchy
Hood
Lynch
Maag (sponsor)
Roegner (sponsor)
Rosenberger
Stautberg
Terhar
Thompson
Wachtmann
Young

This represents 28% of the GOP house caucus, identical to the number of Republicans the Kaiser Family Foundation found identified as Tea Partiers. You will also note Rep Terhar on the list, he is the spouse of the Hitler referencing Debe Terhar, the President of the State Board of Education - quite the family of anti-working people policy advocates.

28% is quite a sizable rump for the more moderate Republicans to have to deal with, and it might be growing

But tea party leaders say their ranks are being swelled by social conservatives who oppose abortion and gay marriage and who are angry with the Republican Party.

This also corresponds with the information we published as to why some on the Ohio GOP were wanting to push "right to work" - it's all about bigotry

Harvey said the NEA has supported an “immoral, deviant and destructive” gay agenda for at least 25 years, citing its gay and lesbian caucus started in 1987. Harvey criticized the union for supporting a gay and lesbian history month, diversity training that included homosexuality, and pro-homosexual school counseling. She said the NEA has asked schools to protect students and staff from sexual orientation harassment and discrimination and has replaced the word “tolerance” with acceptance and respect.

“Kids are being trained as activists now,” she said.

Harvey said the NEA has voted to lobby for same-sex unions and said petitions are currently circulating to overturn the 2004 Ohio marriage amendment, which stated that that only a union between a man and woman would be recognized as a valid marriage. The OEA opposed the amendment.

It's hard believe that the "Tea party has had it with GOP" when at least 28% of the Ohio GOP's elected Representatives is made up of tea partiers.

DNC Day 2 - Clinton schools on policy

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On day 2 of the DNC Convention, Sandra Fluke spoke about women's health issues, contrasting the two parties. We thought we would spotlight this speech as the majority of educators are female, and this has been one of the most contentious issues of this election.

Sandra Fluke, the former Georgetown Law student whom Rush Limbaugh called a "slut" because she advocates for contraception coverage, criticized Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney during her speech at the Democratic Convention Wednesday night, saying he failed to stand up for her.

"Your new president could be a man who stands by when a public figure tries to silence a private citizen with hateful slurs," Fluke said. "Who won't stand up to the slurs, or to any of the extreme, bigoted voices in his own party."

Romney was widely criticized earlier this year when he responded weakly to Limbaugh. "I'll just say this," he told reporters. "It's not the language I would have used."

Fluke contrasted Romney's reaction to that of President Obama, who embraced and defended her after the incident.

"Our president, when he hears a young woman has been verbally attacked, thinks of his daughters -- not his delegates or donors -- and stands with all women," she said. "And strangers come together, reach out and lift her up. And then, instead of trying to silence her, you invite me here -- and give me a microphone -- to amplify our voice. That's the difference."

Bill Clinton however was the headline speaker, and didn't disappoint the crowd with a detailed and sometimes humorous set of policy lessons and choices voters face this November

Clinton saved the zinger for tax cuts for the rich, warning that Romney will "double down on trickle-down."

He paraphrased Ronald Reagan: "As another president once said, 'There they go again."

In reframing last week's GOP message, he employed equal parts mockery, wonkery and plainspeak.

In short, he said, the Republicans came to Tampa to deliver a simple message about Obama: "We left him a total mess, but he hasn't cleaned it up fast enough, so fire him and put us back in."

Clinton hit Paul Ryan in the same style. The GOP vice presidential candidate had attacked Obama for cutting $716 billion from Medicare, when his own budget proposal included those same cuts.

"You gotta give him one thing. It takes some brass to attack a guy for doing what you did," Clinton said.

Here's the word cloud for Clinton's speech

A litmus test tomorrow in Wisconsin

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Tomorrow is a big day in the test of working people vs. extreme politicians. In Wisconsin an election will be held to allow voters a say on recalling 6 Republican State Senators who voted for an SB5 like bill. Unlike Ohio, Wisconsin doesn't have the ability repeal legislation, instead they provide the voters a chance to recall their legislators.

So worried are the GOP over this recall effort they even resorted to running "fake Democrats" in a primary election a few weeks ago. Needless to say voters saw through this scam and every fake candidate was handily beaten. But these extremist lawmakers have a right to be worried after building an all too familiar extremist record in short order

Further, with the Republican-contrived primaries over (they recruited fellow Republicans to run against Democrats in order to delay and sow considerable confusion about recall process), the public can now focus on clear-cut choices between Democratic candidates with demonstrated followings and Republican senators whose reputations have been tarnished.

The Republican baggage includes:

  • their extraordinary anti-union votes,
  • their support for an exceptionally punitive budget toward local public education and services, and
  • their collaboration with the most dictatorial procedures and anti-democratic legislation that the Wisconsin Legislature has witnessed in more than a century.

MotherJones provides us a good synopsis of the 6 elections being held tomorrow. 2 are looking good for the Democrats, 3 are toss ups and one is looking to be a GOP hold. The Democrats would need to win 3 of the 6 to retake control of the Wisconsin State Senate and end Gov. Walkers middle class damaging agenda.

This election will also give us one of our first indicators of the kind of energy and voter turnout we can expect in Ohio around Issue 2, in the fall as voters here look to repeal similar extreme legislation.

This week in education cuts

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Here's the stories of education cuts this week, as reported by local media

Saturday, April 30th, 2011

Sunday, May 1st, 2011

  • Even JTF needs a break

Monday, May 2nd, 2011

Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011

Wednesday, May 4th, 2011

  • Primary election results snap shot
    Today's news is dominated by the results of the election yesterday. There's sure to be lots of fallout from the failed levy efforts around the state. We'll continue to bring you news as it develops.

Thursday, May 5th, 2011

Friday, May 6th, 2011

Top 3 Today

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