Recently in Ohio Politics Category

Democrat John Boccieri (OH-16) just announced he'll be voting "yes" on Obamacare. In response I just contributed $25.00 to Republican challenger Jim Renacci.

Please do the same and contribute what you can, and let's replace this craven licker of Nancy Pelosi's boots.

11:25 AM Update: The rumblings were real. Democrat Charlie Wilson, (OH-06) just caved and will vote "yes" on Obamacare.

Ohio candidates and voters have signed the pledge to repeal Obamacare, but so far no elected officials have signed it. Encourage them to do so!

12:05 PM Update: More from Ed Morrissey at Hot Air.

4:30 PM Update: Tom Blumer has a nice collection of links and a revealing video clip, plus a suggestion to "go local" if Boccieri's DC phone is busy.

A warning to John Boccieri, Steve Driehaus, Zack Space, Charlie Wilson, Marcy Kaptur, Tim Ryan, Betty Sutton, Dennis Kucinich, Marcia Fudge, and Mary Jo Kilroy:

Any special deal, job, earmark, or payment that comes your way in return for your "yes" vote on Obamacare will be dragged to center stage and spotlighted. Bank on it.

According to The Columbus Dispatch:

Rep. Charlie Wilson is one of a number of Democrats who is officially undecided about the final health care bill - but the St. Clairsville Democrat is giving off strong signals he is headed toward a "yes" vote.

Get on it, folks!

Washington Office
ph: (202) 225-5705
fx: (202) 225-5907

Canfield, OH
ph: (330) 533-7250
fx: (330) 533-7136

Marietta, OH
ph: (740) 376-0868
fx: (740) 376-0886

Bridgeport, OH
ph: (740) 633-5705
fx: (740) 633-5727

Ironton, OH
ph: (740) 533-9423
fx: (740) 533-9359

Wellsville, OH
ph: (330) 532-3740

Unless you've spent the last four years living in a cave, this is no surprise at all. In a statement e-mailed to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Betty Sutton said:

Every year more than 40,000 people die because they don't have health insurance coverage, and in this great nation it should not be that way. The legislation is not perfect and indeed contains provisions that I will continue to strive to improve, but I will vote for the bill. By passing this legislation we will take the long overdue step toward ending the egregious, discriminatory practices of insurance companies that deny care based on pre-existing conditions and impose outrageous premium increases. This legislation will also strengthen the solvency of Medicare, lower drug costs for our seniors, and make health insurance more affordable and accessible for small businesses and individuals.

The bosses of the big labor unions want this bill passed, and what union bosses want, Betty Sutton delivers.

By the way, Betty, that "40,000 deaths" statistic is a complete crock of poo:

So, how did these political doctors come up with the 44,000 figure? They used data from a health survey conducted between 1988 and 1994. The questionnaires asked a sample of 9,000 participants if they were insured and how they rated their own health. The federal Centers for Disease Control tracked the deaths of people in the sample group through the year 2000. Drs. Himmelstein, Woolhandler, and company then crunched the numbers and attributed deaths to lack of health insurance for all the participants who initially self-reported that they had no insurance and then died for any reason over the 12-year tracking period.

At no time did the original researchers or the single-payer activists who piggy-backed off their data ever verify whether the supposed casualties of America's callous health care system had insurance or not.

...

To boil it all down in plain English: The single-payer scientists had no way of assessing whether the survey participants received insurance coverage between the time they answered the questionnaires and the time they died. They had no way of assessing whether the deaths could have been averted with health insurance coverage. A significant portion of those classified as "uninsured" may not have even been uninsured, based on past studies that actually did verify insurance status. But the Himmelstein team just took the rate of uninsurance from the original study (3.3 percent), applied it to census data, and voila: more than 44,000 Americans are dying from lack of insurance.

At least do your constituents the favor of using honest data when you try to support your socialist initiatives, Betty.

Since ACORN is re-branding its less-than-stellar image these days, they'll likely downplay or eliminate the name "ACORN" soon here in Ohio. Slapping a new label on a crooked organization might be easy, but selling property and changing leadership personnel is not. To make it harder for ACORN to crawl back under a rock somewhere, I'm linking to the Ohio Secretary of State's online records for ACORN's business filing information. Look for street addresses, agent names, etc.

As long as the name "Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now" is in use by an existing business or non-profit organization in Ohio, the Secretary of State's office will also have that information. To run that query, just push this button.

Ain't citizen journalism grand?

11:35 update: Wow. ACORN just agreed to surrender its business license in Ohio as settlement of that RICO lawsuit by the Buckeye Institute. That's good news, but let's be wary. Keep a close eye on what happens with these properties:

379 N. 20th
Lower Level
Columbus, OH 43203

2069 East 36th Street
Cleveland, OH 44115

1025 Central Ave Ste 3
Cincinnati, OH 45202

115 E. Market St.
RM 202
Akron, OH 44308

4945 Profit Way
Dayton, OH 45414

316 North Michigan
Toledo, OH 43624

12:20 Update: Apparently The Buckeye Institute recently split off the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law as an independent organization after the lawsuit was originally filed, so it's the new group that gets the scalp for defeating ACORN.

12:35 Update: Matt Naugle cheers the victory, but cautions everyone to keep an eye open for the same ACORN crooks returning with different front groups.

A decent opening shot, but somehow I suspect my congresscritter Rep. Betty Sutton (D-OH) is not listening any more now than she usually does. When it comes to confronting the vast majority of Americans who don't want anything to do with Obamacare, she's been a bit, um, timid.

Any comment, Tom Ganley? Justin Wooden?

So, it seems Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) will step down fight the rush to remove him from his chairmanship of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. His fellow progressives have decided to leave Corruptocrat Charlie twisting in the wind. That's no surprise.

What does surprise me is the mild reaction from Rep. Betty Sutton (D-OH), my Congresswoman. Maybe that's because Rangel gave Sutton $5000 in 2006. Heck, if it weren't for the sudden danger to her cushy job from Republican Tom Ganley, she likely wouldn't have gotten out in front of Rangel's immolation at all.

I'm sure she's grateful, Charlie, but you're just too toxic these days.

3/3 12:45 AM Update: Spin, Betty, spin.

Quite a lot of blinking in that segment. I guess it was seven grand Rangel gave her, which Sabrina Eaton reports is to be donated to local charities.

Rep. Betty Sutton called yesterday for Charlie Rangel to step down from his post on the Ways and Means Committee:

The House Ethics Committee has now determined that a violation of the ban on corporate funded travel did occur and is still considering other allegations against Mr. Rangel. I think that in order to preserve the public trust, which is of the highest priority, Representative Rangel should, at this point, step aside as Chair of the Ways and Means Committee. Our nation is facing many challenges and we must put all our energy, without distraction or question, into meeting those challenges.

It's funny how responsive to ethical concerns a politician becomes when her seat is no longer safe.

The hard-working folks over at Recovery.gov, ever on guard for that rare instance of government inefficiency that occurs only once in a decade or so, have responded with commendable speed to news reports of erroneous/incompetent/fraudulent data in the records of stimulus money spent to save (or "create" jobs). No longer does their database report on taxpayer funds wasted invested in places like the nonexistent 99th U.S. Congressional District of Puerto Rico. No, sir. Everything's been scrubbed squeaky clean, and the original records now show each offending transaction taking place in an "unassigned congressional district."

What's that you say? You want to know what the original data showed? Oh, c'mon. You can trust faceless, nameless bureaucrats in Washington to behave with the most scrupulous ethical standards. They're from the government, and they're here to help you.

Pardon me? You still don't trust them? You must be one of those bitter people clinging to their Bibles and their guns out in the sticks. Besides, it's too late now. The original data's gone. Unless you know someone who scooped up some of the data before it was altered erased corrected, you're out of luck.

Hey, wait a second. Guess who snagged the original data for Ohio, put it in Excel spreadsheet format, and sorted it all by district?

I just looked up the summary of Ohio data on Recovery.gov and here's some of what I found. Compare the numbers for jobs created/"saved" and money wasted spent for Ohio's 18 congressional districts, and the numbers for the ten nonexistent districts that turned up.

$5.3 million went to nonexistent congressional districts, creating (or maybe it's "saving") 11 jobs. That's $482,174 per job. How do I sign up for that sweet deal? Then there's the average waste stimulus per job in our actual 18 districts, which works out to $294,758 ... still not too shabby. If I can snag one of the 149.5 jobs here in the 13th District, I will have cost America's taxpayers a cool $1,026,735! Betty Sutton, call your office. I want a job.

That's "transparency" in the age of Hope and Change™ for ya. Is this incompetent accounting, dishonest accounting, or both?

Want more? Nineteen out of the top twenty Porkulus recipients in Ohio are state, county, or municipal government entities. The one that's not government owned is "a single-purpose environmental remediation Limited Liability Corporation dedicated to providing remediation services to the United States Department of Energy at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant site." In other words, a government contractor.

Boy oh boy, that Porkulus sure did stimulate the free market, didn't it? Way to go, Governor Strickland ... you sure know how to allocate funds. I can't wait to experience the joys of Obamacare, Cap & Trade, and amnesty for illegals.

For more analysis, check out Ohio Watchdog.

Darn right. Jesse Hathaway's all over this Ohio Democratic Party scandal.

We had 606 voters today. Pretty high for an off-off-year election. If memory serves, we had around 750 voters show up for the 2008 election.

The vote was 83-7, with 9 not voting. Incredibly, überliberal Sherrod Brown (D-OH) voted with the majority. He's worried about his re-election prospects. He should be.

Now let's see which way former labor lawyer and perpetual union suck-up Rep. Betty Sutton (D-OH) decides to go.

Next, the Congress needs to pass a stimulus clawback of any and all funds that end up in ACORN's coffers.

Call in and ask tough questions.

Have you wondered why SEIU and the rest of Obama's union thug buddies have been pushing the House's version of Obamacare so avidly? Thanks to Warner Todd Huston's and Ed Morrissey's digging, I've cut and pasted Section 164 for you to examine. Take a look at this $10 billion payoff (look at the red text on the second page):

Those are your tax dollars being shoveled into the pockets of union bosses. You can thank people like Rep. Betty Sutton (D-OH) for slipping this fat bribe to the unions that have been ruining American productivity for decades. She was intimately involved in drafting this bill, and you can bet your last wrinkled dollar that her union friends will repay her richly with kickbacks campaign contributions.

Apparently, Betty's $3 billion Cash-For-Clunkers pet project wasn't enough. The previous multibillion-dollar bailouts of GM and Chrysler (with the unions getting great gobs of common stock) weren't enough. The minimum wage increase (which boosts union members' pay, according to their contracts) wasn't enough. Even this $10 billion payoff isn't enough. It's just another in a long line of juicy sops thrown to the labor lobby. Before long, she'll resume her push for card check and its stacked-deck-arbitration companion.

How long will Ohio voters in the 13th District tolerate this legalized corruption? How high must unemployment go? How many tax hikes will we tolerate?

This e-mail from Rep. Betty Sutton (D-OH) just landed in my inbox. She's hiding behind a telephone conference call to avoid facing her constituents in the 13th District.

August 21, 2009

Dear Mr. Konsen,

Thank you for contacting my office regarding my schedule of events for the month of August concerning health care. I will be hosting a tele-town hall meeting for my constituents on August 26th at 6:30 pm to discuss the America's Affordable Health Choices Act. A tele-town hall meeting will enable me to discuss this important bill with you by telephone. The call in number and identification code is provided below. I look forward to providing you with a legislative update about the bill and hearing your thoughts and questions regarding it.

Please contact my office at 202-225-3401 with any question you might have regarding this event.

HOST: Congresswoman Betty Sutton (OH-13)
WHAT: Tele-Town hall meeting on America's Affordable Health Choices Act
WHEN: Wednesday, Aug. 26, at 6:30 p.m. - p.m.
PARTICIPATE: Dial 1-877-229-8493. When prompted, enter I.D. code "15125."

Sincerely,

Betty Sutton
Member of Congress

Please do not respond to this email as this is an unattended mailbox. Please return to our website to respond (http://sutton.house.gov).

Betty's chief of staff, Nichole Reynolds, assured me unequivocally that Betty would hold public meetings with her constituents. So much for keeping one's word.

It's targeted at Zack Space for being a servile little toady to Nancy Pelosi.

Has anybody heard it on the air down there?

Hat tip: Campaign Spot

Courtesy of the Chronicle-Telegram:

An Elyria woman said a member of Congresswoman Betty Sutton's staff asked her to leave a public meeting held Tuesday in Lorain because the woman wanted to know if she could ask the congresswoman questions during the talk.

Nichole Reynolds, Sutton's chief of staff, said the staff member who spoke to the woman denied telling her that the meeting was private, as the woman alleges, and also denies telling her she had to go.

Jane Grimm, 58, said she had wanted to speak with her congresswoman about health care reform and called her Washington, D.C., office last week to see when Sutton would be coming to town.

...

She and her husband walked into the clinic and wanted to confirm with staff people in the front whether this was a meeting where questions could be asked. Grimm said a man wearing a name tag identifying him as a Sutton staff member approached them. This is where the stories differ.

"He said, 'I was told I'd see you here,' and 'I understand you wanted this to be a town-hall meeting,' and I told him that I wanted to ask a few questions," Grimm said.

She said the staffer told her it was not that kind of meeting.

"I said, 'All right, well, I'd still like to sit and listen to what the congresswoman has to say,'" Grimm said. "Then he said, 'No, I'm not going to allow you in because this is a private event.' "

That's our Brave Betty!

She must be a secret agent. Rep. Betty Sutton (D-OH) does a better job of staying covert than any Representative we've ever had here in Ohio's 13th District. She's never published her schedule for this summer recess, so her constituents are forced to unearth her plans in other ways.

I've repeatedly e-mailed and called her staff to ask where and when she'll be appearing. For the first two weeks or so, they assured me that she'd publish her schedule at the beginning of the recess. After her last day in session on Friday July 31st, the staff began telling me they'd release a schedule "soon."

Over the last week or so (when they deign to answer my inquiries at all), they've offered the excuse that her schedule is so fluid that nothing can be published. When I pointed out that her constituents will have a hard time finding out where she'll be, her chief of staff insisted that everything is published in the newspapers ahead of time.

Riiiiight. Lots of public meeting notices there, alright.

Betty's afraid of her constituents. She knows they don't want Obamacare, Cap-and-Tax, stimulus spending, bailouts, and all the other statist garbage she's been pushing. She's hoping that being a "Milk Carton Politician" she can run out the clock and get back to Washington unscathed.

Betty's got 22 days of hiding to go until the House of Representatives is back in session. Will her constituents let her impose socialism on Ohio's hard working families and takje away their rights to run their own lives?

Betty Sutton's contact info:

Summit County Office
39 E Market Street
LL #1
Akron, OH 44308
Phone: (330) 865-8450
More about this office

Lorain County Office
205 West 20th Street
Room M230
Lorain, OH 44052
Phone: (440) 245-5350
More about this office

Toll-Free: (866) 317-9980

Nichole Reynolds (Chief of Staff): Nichole.Reynolds@mail.house.gov

Unless I'm missing something obvious, Rep. Betty Sutton (D-OH) still has not released a schedule of her public events for this month. We're 15 days into the U.S. House's summer recess, and there are 23 days left.

Where's Betty?

Her constituents in the 13th District have questions for her, and if we have to fork over $30 to get them ... so be it.

His stealth town hall was sniffed out anyway, though.

Nice work, Shelby Holliday!

--

7:57 PM update: At least one anti-Obamacare questioner got to actually ask a question.

I hope this guy didn't follow him home.

You can't hide, Sherrod.