Monday, August 29, 2011

ProgressOhio continues to beclown themselves

ProgressOhio is a left-wing attack group that seems to be getting more and more desperate in their assault on Governor Kasich.

These are the same jokers who sued in an attempt to prevent Ohioans from making their own choice as to whether citizens can be forced to join a health care system, which is what Obamacare does. They tried to invalidate thousands of Ohioans' signatures and have Issue 3 pulled from the ballot. In their world, the federal government should be free to dictate that you must purchase a product, regardless of whether Congress is granted such power. The Ohio Supreme Court recognized the frivelousness of the effort and unanimously rejected their suit.

Now, they are out with a new smear.
The leader of a liberal policy group levied harsh claims against Gov. John Kasich and the governor's intentions to use Third Frontier dollars for JobsOhio this morning.

...

Rothenberg said Kasich's intentions to divide $24 million in Third Frontier dollars between six regional economic development agencies for the purposes of working with JobsOhio was a "laundering scheme" to award campaign donors for supporting him and Senate Bill 5. Throughout a monring (sic) news conference, Rothenberg said the Third Frontier dollars were slated to go to "local and regional" chambers of commerce, and said those chambers and their board members have donated more than $430,000 to "Kasich, pro-SB5 lawmakers, and Republican Party campaign committees" since June, 2007...
Rothenberg is being so dishonest, and the accusations are so ridiculous, that the Dispatch article already disproves what he is claiming.

First off, most of the donations he refers to were made before Kasich took office, and before Senate Bill 5 was ever introduced. So, there is no possibility that the donors were looking for a "reward" for supporting SB5.

Furthermore, no Third Frontier money is actually going to any chambers of commerce. Rothenberg lied about that throughout his entire press conference. The money is actually slated to go to development agencies.

In some cases, they highlighted donations to Kasich and Republicans, but ignored donations to Democrats and anti-SB5 politicians made by the same people.
Rothenberg also cited $3,858 in contributions to Kasich and GOP causes made by Team NEO chief executive officer Thomas Waltermire. But Waltermire also donated $1,500 to Democratic House Minority Leader Armond Budish and gave to other Democratic causes during the same time frame.
Normally, I would say, "duh", but Rothenberg knew this detail full well. He just chose not to disclose it because it completely undermines his foolish argument.

And here's the biggest whopper from ProgressOhio. Of the $430,000 in donations that they identified, the overwhelming majority of that money, $372,000, came from members of an agency known as the Greater Cleveland Partnership. Guess how much Third Frontier money the GCP is due to receive to work with JobsOhio?

Zero.

So, 87% of the donations they are complaining about came from a group who isn't even going to see Third Frontier money. So, how is GCP being somehow rewarded?

Finally, even if Rothenberg's accusation had merit and was true, which it isn't, it would be the height of hyprocrisy.

Using his logic, isn't the relationship between labor unions and the Ohio Democratic Party a "laundering scheme"? Union dues are collected from taxpayer-funded salaries and the vast majority of those funds are directly funneled to Democrats, who reward the union bosses by keeping the forcibly-taken money flowing. If anything is a laundering scheme to use tax dollars to benefit a special interest group, it would be "We Are Ohio".

These folks will do anything, say anything, and straight out lie to the public to defeat Senate Bill 5 and maintain the status quo. Don't let them fool you. Vote Yes on Issue 2.

11 comments:

  1. SB5 is an antiworker bill! I can't believe how biased you are!

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  2. It may be "pro-taxpayer" but it is also "anti-worker" ramrodding this bill through the system without any negotiation is going to be Kasichs downfall, this bill, and any good that could come from it is going to go down in November...

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  3. Ramrodding? The Dems offered no amendments.

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  4. Ah yes, time for the liberals and the Democrats to try a new play. The "assault on the middle class" play hasn't worked that well so we're getting "Anti worker".

    First and foremost, I believe that most American taxpayers would doubt seriously that gummint employees actually "work". Work implies some output of value to someone. What of value has the government produced of late? And of that meagre output, how much of it could be produced by the private sector at a significantly lower cost with significantly higer quality?

    Assault on workers? Hey after spending a tough few years getting paid too much for lording it over the mere citizens the state employees get to retire with aplomb on a taxpayer funded pension while the folks who actually DO WORK get to pay ever more in taxes.

    And I love the "ramrodding" charge. Just too funny. We watched the liberal establishment hose the taxpayers with Obamacare while hundreds of thousands protested in the streets of DC. The liberal response? "We're all racists." They lied, stole and schemed and now when we're trying to save our state lying, stealing is schemeing is still their response. Apparently it is their only response. It is all they know how to do.

    Stuff it union thugs. You may be able to destroy Ohio, but we, the angry taxpayers, won't go down without a fight. And to many the word "fight" means exactly what it says.

    Let's take a look at Greece. The Greek union thugs were able to fend off every effort to rationalize their system. Now the country is beyond broke, Germany may very well be unwilling to fund additional Greek sloth and the Greek union's response is riots in the streets.

    We got a taste of that in Madison, WI.

    Pick up any sunday newspaper and you'll notice a large number of display adds for personal defense fire arms. Think that's an accident union thugs? Or isn't it just possible that capitalism's response to the marxist inspired failure we see around us is a better ROI on investments in ammunition?

    Ohio has been a democrat/liberal enclave for at least a generation. Our coffers are empty and our prisons are full. The blood runs in the streets of our cities each and every night and all the Democrat politicians can do is whine about the pension plans for their do nothing union friends who have persistently funded their campaigns.

    Ohio is now reaping what liberalism, unions and the Democrat party has sown. It is a bitter, bitter harvest.

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  5. @anon above: well said. The truth is that SB5 isn't nearly anti-union enough. Until the law stops the state of Ohio from being the paymaster of the unions through mandatory dues deductions, the ruination of the state by the slacker class will continue. Take a page from WI: stop the deductions, force annual recertification. The benefits of the WI approach are already being seen in that state. If we had real republicans in charge here, we would already have done those things.

    By the way, where is John Kasich on the SB 5 repeal. I didn't vote for him so that he could go missing in action as soon as the demogogues ginned up a little negativity. As soon as "Ohio's greatest home newspaper" the Columbus Discharge, lobs a little union propaganda his way in the Sunday op-eds he goes silent. The dems and the unions (but I repeat myself)hate his guts. They have made it personal about him. He can't outsource this election to anyone, no matter how well funded. Either he comes out swinging right now, and takes it to them every day until the election or he loses...and we lose. In that case, his administration is effectively finished, and the dems will be rolling downhill towards delivering Ohio for Obama next fall. C'mon John, off the dime now, if you please.

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  6. While I do lean toward the liberal side, I did vote for Kasich based on the fact that Strickland is an idiot. I wasnt a fan of ramrodding Obamacare through either. Real change is done by working together, not running with the mentality of "get on the bus, or get run over by it" way that American politics has become. SB5 is going to go down and its due to the fact that the Republican governor shoved this bill down the throats of the people in a manner that the people are sick of.

    The bottom line is that American politics have become so adversarial right now, nothing will ever get done.

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  7. MJL, sorry but your earlier comment gives the lie to your "I voted for Kasich" story now. I just don't believe you.

    I have no problem with polarization in politics today. I see it as a great first step toward regaining our supremacy over our own government.

    A quote from Ayn Rand (gasp!) sums up my position quite well:

    In a bargain between food and poison, death is the only winner.

    What the Democrats want is death to America. Sorry, but we're seeing it right before our very eyes. Compromising with these folks (and I will include you MJL in this group pending futher "proof") is simply suicide. The liberal approach has failed. One need look no further that Ohio's cities to see this. Why should any rational, decent, hardworking person compromise with folks whose track record is abject failure?

    We "compromised" with the left for my entire life time and let's take a good hard look at where we are as a county. NO ONE I know is impressed with America today. NO ONE. Why give folks like Chucky Schumer anything but the finger at this point?

    so I prefer an adversial situation to the status quo ante that lead us the dire straits in which we find ourselves. Grid lock is a good thing. A legislature that cannot even pass basic laws also cannot repeat Obamacare, or raise taxes or visit any more mayhem on the beleagured American taxpayers.

    Time for a revolt. A serious effort to repudiate this government and bring DC down to where it belongs. In fact, let's look at DC. Since the feds run that city, why would any thinking person let them have any power at all? DC is so bad that they had to change the name of the basketball team from the bullets because the murder rate was too high! What's the graduation rate for DC schools? Liberal failure.

    Shun them, deny them the company of polite, thinking men and women. Treat them as the failures they are. They should receive no respect because they've earned no respect.

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  8. Yeah, the democrats have been nothing but abject failures...I mean its not like Clinton left this country with a budget surplus and the guy who followed him totally tanked that within two years...Oh wait...

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  9. There are a lot of blathering idiots on here - rather well spoken though (?) - are you college-degree-holding-business-moguls?

    Just wondering why you want all the power to go to the guy with the most money and none to average 'Ohio Joe'?

    I can read the tea leaves.

    Kill the bill and support our last vestige of middle class Ohioans! And once we have saved the State Ohio Government workers - then we can work on more fairness for all workers!

    Think those kind-hearted wealthy business people are just going to do the right thing? Yea, and what about all the great abundant jobs created over the past 10 years??? Well yea, -they don't exist either (Just like the kind-hearted wealthy business people.)!

    We can stand up for ourselves by voting in our own best intrest for a change!

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  10. Just wondering why you want all the power to go to the guy with the most money and none to average 'Ohio Joe'?

    What are you talking about? All the power to go to WHAT guy with the most money? This isn't about a company and its workers.

    Government workers are PAID by the average 'Ohio Joe'. And Ohio Joe can't afford to give them more than he makes anymore.

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