OpEdiTude: Predictions and thoughts on John Kasich's last political performance SOTS show

Ohio media is engaged in another round of meaningless mental masturbation about Gov. John Kasich's last State of the State (SOTS) address. Will it be a look back on his less than stellar two terms as state CEO or will it be another forward-looking infomercial about his personal ambitions for life after governor, including whether he'll mount a third Quixotic run for the White House?

John Michael Spinelli, Ohio's leading
independent reporter, in the White House
press room. Will he run for POTUS in 2020?

There are better and more fun questions to ask, since answers to the usual questions statehouse media bath in are easily found by just reviewing his previous off-road, made-for-TV performances.

Will the state flag he uses as a backdrop to his SOTS be as big as before or bigger? How many times will he invoke the name of The Lord in his address, since it's his go-to rhetorical device to utter political gibberish and get a way with it.

Will he use human props, as he did before when he brought on stage women who had been held hostage in Cleveland for ten years and engaged in a group hug with them, to distract from his mediocre at best and disastrous at worst public policies? How many times will he bring his wife and his twin daughters into his talk, since he's used them before to evade what he thinks on pointed questions, like whether he would vote for Donald Trump for president?

How much time will he devote to his well-worn narrative of his mail-man dad and faithful mom, both Democrats and pubic employees? Or his famous and favorite story of pressuring OSU's president of the day to deliver a letter to then-President Richard Nixon, who invited the young college student to the White House for a five-minute talk that turned into a 20-minute meet up with the president who engaged in corrupt activities and then avoided impeachment by resigning at the behest of right-wing senators, including Arizona's Barry Goldwater?

If Kasich falls back on his hyperbolic tale that Ohio was broke when he became governor, media worth their salt, who can review archived articles, should pin the tale on the liar. John Kasich inherited a recovering economy from a Democratic governor who indeed lost hundreds of thousands of jobs when Republicans Kasich-endorsed, like President George W. Bush and his Republican congress, teed up the Great Recession and the havoc it wrought across the nation. When Wall Street melted down as subprime mortgages and credit-default swaps tore people from jobs in all states, where was Kasich's voice then?. The recovery Kasich benefited from enabled him to hike the state budget by billions, a curious result for a broken state. For someone who has built a legacy on reduced government spending and whining about government debt, boosting the budget as he did needs more than a little explaining.

Las Vegas or Columbus odds makers would have safe bets that Kasich won't discuss the 20 bills he's signed that make women accessing their constitutional health rights an obstacle race. He won't talk about his role in enabling Ohio's terrible gerrymandering plan.

He won't talk about all the gun laws he's signed that have weakened state gun laws. He won't talk about his partnership with state leaders like Secretary of State Jon Husted and Attorney General Mike DeWine to thwart voting laws. He won't talk about how making eligible Medicaid recipients pay for some of their care, by working hours at jobs he's failed to create in quantity and quality, will make their lives better.

He likely won't talk about how far Ohio schools under his watch have fallen. He won't talk about how his closest political buddies successfully derailed a potential challenger in 2014 by engaging in Donald Segretti style dirty tricks, done with running for president in 2016 in mind. He really won't talk about how the husband of his chief of staff got hired at the Ohio Department of Education, where he then engaged in state and federal law breaking by falsifying data in an application to federal school authorities.

Now that the Trump administration is unraveling before the nation's eyes almost daily, it seems like a missed opportunity for Kasich. But for his antagonist posture on Trump, the National Chaplain might have already landed himself a cabinet official post or be in line to become the next big player in Trump's orbit as yet more Trump aides resign or exit following indictments from special counsel Robert Mueller.

All he wants, he says, is for his voice to stay in the mix after he exits his governorship. His shameless begging for donations to keep his voice alive, while still drawing a tax-payer paid salary and benefiting from all the tax-payer funded benefits of his office, borders on being beyond the pale. If anything, his record should be a classroom example for why voters should demand guarantees from future leaders that they won't use the office they're running for to run for a higher office voters didn't elect them to run for.

Having shown his cards on TV where he has essentially begged a couple of national political pundits to hire him so he can resume the talking-head media role he enjoyed at Fox News before being elected governor of Ohio in 2010, his last SOTS will be in form and substance as predictable as Ohio's right-wing legislature ignoring his major suggestions or overriding his next veto of a bill they will pass with veto-proof majorities.

For big-money TV host like Jake Tapper, George Stephanopoulos, Nicolle Wallace, Chuck Todd, and any other national political pundits who choose to ignore his disastrous record in Ohio because he keeps playing them for fools by dancing around their silly question of whether he'll run for president again, be a real journalist for a change. Don't swallow, hook, line and sinker, the lame-duck governor's flim flam. He has no aces to play at home or nationally, so why pretend he's got a winning hand that will do any better in 2020 than it did in 2016?

And if you just repeat what he says like its breaking news, here's some new breaking news: I'm keeping all my options are on the table for 2020, too. Who knows, maybe Ohio's leading independent reporter will mount his first campaign for POTUS.

Stranger things have happened. Just ask Donald Trump.

Kasich limits gun law tweaks to what Ohio's right-wing legislature might approve

After getting clobbered running for president in 2016, soon-to-be former Ohio Gov. John Kasich has built a reputation with national media on his claim that he has the right stuff to bring people together on one big issue after another.

Gov. John Kasich seated next to then
Senate President Tom Niehaus, one of the
eight members of his gun policy group.

Kasich has tried and failed on too many occasions to demonstrate his so-called healing powers when it comes to thorny issues that divide the nation, and its bellwether swing-state Ohio. His most recent fizzle comes with a weak brew of gun law tweaks he said might have any chance of passing the Buckeye State's very right-wing, pro-gun legislature.

By limiting his leadership to what he thinks Ohio's GOP-dominated legislature might think of approving, if they think that any of the ideas his nearly all-Republican sounding group came up with, he's shown again that when the going gets tough, the great reformer retreats to the merely modest instead of advancing the kind of leadership that can turn a loaf of bread and a few fishes into food to feed the masses. 

As reported by the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the National Chaplain, who's earned this nickname due to his self-serving sanctimonious, political showmanship wonderings about what the Lord wants him to do, offered up six tepid "practical" suggestions to correct some aspects of Ohio's gun laws in the wake of 17 high school students in Florida that were gunned down by a mentally ill student who slipped through the cracks when law enforcement ignored numerous signals and warnings of his instability and potential for committing mass murder.

Kasich and company's gun violence protection proposal orders:

1. Gun violence protection orders: Allow friends and family members to petition a court to remove firearms from people who pose a threat to themselves or others. A handful of states including Indiana have passed such "red flag" laws.
2. Domestic violence: Mirror federal law prohibiting anyone convicted of a domestic violence crime or subject to a domestic violence protection order from buying or owning a firearm.
3. Background checks: Enforce requirements that courts submit conviction information to the state's background check database in a timely manner. 
4. "Strawman" purchases: Ban purchases of firearms for third parties, except as a gift. Current state law bans these purchases only if the buyer should have known the third party is prohibited from buying a gun.
5. Armor-piercing ammunition: Update Ohio law to mirror federal law banning body armor-piercing bullets, which would allow Ohio officers to pursue charges that federal officials might not.
6. Bump stocks: If federal officials ban bump stocks, which increase a weapon's firing rate, Ohio law should be automatically changed to ban them as well.  

In the national debate, President Trump has expressed his approval of arming teachers in classrooms, an idea Kasich likewise seems to be alright with, even though so many others think it's a terrible idea. Last week on a call with reporters, Ohio's senior senator in Washington took the polar opposite position. "It's ludicrous to put guns in classrooms," Sen. Sherrod Brown told reporters on his weekly Wednesday call.

Kasich has been reticent to name the members of an 8-person policy group he convened to look into Ohio's gun laws. And for good reason, it seems, since all but two one of them were ether a Republican who supports the worst interpretation of the Second Amendment, and who have never been known to speak out against the National Rifle Association or any of its directives, or a member of Kasich's administration.

Democrats State Sens. Mike Skindell of Lakewood and Charleta Tavares of Columbus, who have proposed a ban on so-called assault weapons like the one used in the recent Florida high school shooting, were curiously absent from Kasich's lopsided GOP-skewed group. In their bill, SB 260, assault weapons are defined as any automatic firearm or semi-automatic firearm capable of accepting 10 or more cartridges. Furthermore, SB 260 makes possessing such a gun a fifth-degree felony punishable by up to 12 months in prison and a $2,500 fine. Moreover, the legislation which won't see the light of day in committee, would require all Ohio gun sellers to report firearm and ammunition sales to the state attorney general's office.

Kasich could have but didn't ask any member of Akron's City Council to be on his policy group. Those council members asked state officials to ban assault weapons and other murder-making accessories, including giant ammunition clips and bump stocks, brought to the public attention by the Las Vegas shooter who claimed 59 deaths at an outdoor concert from his hotel room. Their perspective seems legitimate, but they were onlookers like so many other voices not included.

"No one is interested in some slippery slope and trying to grab everybody's guns," the Plain Dealer reported Kasich saying at a news conference. Ohio's governor clearly had not heard President Trump saying he would take some guns away first, then let due process sort the rest out.

Offering weak tea when a robust brew is needed, Kasich thinks minor tweaks will do the job, maybe in Ohio. But don't bet on anything happen until and unless GOP leaders stop shrinking at the very thought of doing anything that would change the status quo on state gun laws.

Senate President Larry Obhof, a Republican, said through a spokesman that changing gun laws was not on the table like investments in school security upgrades are. House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger, a Republican, gave Kasich a kind but clear shove off, saying he "appreciated the governor's work." Second Amendment rights continue to be the top priority for legislative leaders like Rosenberger, who didn't speak to one of Kasich's small tweaks. As if to pound another nail in Kasich's coffin on his half-dozen proposed gun reforms, the House speaker offered up a strong prerequisite: "Any potential policy changes will only occur after thorough vetting in the legislature and extensive conversations with the caucus."

This wouldn't be the first time Obhof and Rosengerger would roll over a Kasich veto. In Kasich's final biennial budget, not a few number of his vetos were overrode by GOP super-majorities in both chambers. Kasich has been cut off at the knees before on some of his most Kasich-centric policy proposals, so barking and then getting run over the car is becoming par for Kasich's course.

In further defiance of Ohio's 69th governor, a bill on "stand your ground," that Kasich said he wouldn't sign if sent to him, apparently will be sent to him. If Kasich vetoes it, as he said he would, Ohio's right-wing legislature, that controls veto-proof margins in the Senate and House, will override it. So much for what the governor says he's for or against.

What will do the job is a major overhaul of gun laws that might start with raising the age to buy an assault weapon to 21 or higher, banning the sale of assault weapons in the first place, strengthening background checks and delaying the time period to acquire an assault weapon from a few hours or days to weeks or maybe months. Another angle would be to limit gun sales to any individual until that person justifies why they need such a weapon and whether they have received substantial, rigorous training by more than taking a token class in gunmanship.

John Kasich seems to be a strawman himself, when it comes to the kind of leadership today's horrific gun violence needs. What would Abraham Lincoln have done had he limited himself to what his Congress at the time would have been willing to do on slavery laws? What would Franklin Delano Roosevelt had done had he limited himself to what conservative Republicans would have approved during the early, desperate days of the Great Depression? What would John F. Kennedy have done had his mission to put a man on the moon following Russia's breakthroughs in space technology been limited to what congressional leaders of the day were willing to approve? Barack Obama, defying the wisdom of the day, forged forward with an idea verboten to Republicans to take on health care like never before.

If John Kasich thinks incrementalism turns the tide when bold action is needed, he's only fooling himself when he take baby steps with giant leaps are needed. Appearing again CNN's State of the Union this Sunday, let's see if he tries to convince his Ohio model is the real model to follow. Let's also see if CNN reminds Kasich that while he did back an assault on assault weapons back in 1994, when he was in the U.S. House of Representatives, he feel silent on that issue as it expired in 2004, and has signed every gun bill sent to him that loosens laws on guns.

At each moment in history, when bold leadership was the recipe to challenge the trying times of the day, had leaders of the day relegated themselves to what was "practical" for their legislators to pass, does anyone believe that the kind of weak tea Kasich has served up would have made a dent in turning the tide of thorny issues that otherwise would have won the day because legislators with no vision defined the limits of progress?

Is John Kasich just a fool or is he stupid, too?

Ohio Gov. Kasich should thank the Lord he uses like a political prop when it suits him, but with whom he has so often differed when it comes to fundamentals of human decency, mercy and care for the least among us, that he's even still governor.

Gov. John Kasich at the Ohio
Statehouse in Columbus

For those unschooled in Ohio government, there is little doubt that the Catholic boy who once wanted to devote his life to his Master, but who found politics more to his liking since it would bring him fame and fortune, would have been recalled early-on had the state constitution contained a provision for recall.

If Ohio's constitution allowed voters to recall statewide leaders, there is little doubt that Kasich, elected in 2010 by just two percent (77,127 votes statewide), would have been subject to recall in 2011 when he threw himself and all his resources into backing Senate Bill 5, the wildly unpopular gutting of public sector unions orchestrated by Republicans.

The bill that riled up so many Ohioans, which got shellacked at the ballot box by a 2-1 margin, sent Kasich a warning to not try such a brazen move again. At the same time, Kasich looked likely in thankfulness that he wasn't his like-minded classmate, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, whose state does have a recall provision and who because of it was hauled before the public for essentially doing the same thing Kasich did. Walker won, but it's hard to think Kasich, who barely squeaked by in 2010, would have been lucky enough to withstand a voter base who saw to what lengths he was willing to go to cement his reputation as a Republican who had it out for the Democratic agenda, in that case, collective bargaining rights.

Ohio's 69 chief executive has brazenly used the high office over the last nearly eight years for his own personal self promotion. Even today when he's still cashing taxpayer checks, he has the unmitigated gall to continue to tap the pocketbooks.

"We’re nearing our February fundraising deadline and could use your help. Our message is making a difference but we need to raise the funds to continue paying for the services that allow us to support Gov. Kasich's mission," a flash solicitation for more dough reads, reciting his stacked-deck performances on various TV shows

Using his office to further his personal ambitions has been a Kasich trademark from his first days in the Ohio Senate to two years ago, when he took a second bite of the presidential apple. His drubbing on the primary trail showed everyone, especially big ticket donors, how unpopular he is with his own Republican Party. The GOP instead nominated an inveterate liar and documented misogynist billion from New York, who pounded Kasich so badly that the boy from McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, where his own hometown voted 5-1 against him, finds himself a governor who's on the outs with Republicans trying to succeed him and wolf in sheep's clothing in Democratic circles.

The best he could do two years ago was win one Electoral College vote. Pathetic and humiliating are apt words for his second White House loss. Because the multi-millionaire was too stupid to quit when losing was a foregone conclusion to all the other 15 GOP candidates when the Trump juggernaut rolled over them, media confuses his stamina of ego with voter support.

Like a pull-toy doll with prerecorded catch phrases, Kasich is adept at lying on a par with Donald Trump. Tripping on ant hills on the way to the pyramids, the Republican Party is my vehicle not my master or I don't know what I'm going to do tomorrow are some of his favorite go-to gibberish comments.

Another more recent but equally false and vacuous statement he uses is that he doesn't know what the Democratic agenda is. Basic Kasich say repeat his blather often, because hosts and journalists don't know enough to challenge him on any one of them. Yet another national Sunday TV show, where he's become the reliable anti-Trump dancing bear, the career politician and moving target did it again as if no one was paying attention. Wrong.

How stupid is that for anyone so dependent on the public eye to claim that Democrats don't have an agenda? Is it also stupid that, of all people, he doesn't know what it is? Being a fool is par for Kasich, but showing his stupidity for all the world to see is a double whammy.

Very, actually, since he's fought tooth and nail against that agenda—union workers' rights, support for public schools and public school teachers, women's rights and their access to abortion, raising the minimum wage, allowing Medicare to bargain for prescription drugs, expanding Medicaid, protecting and boosting Social Security, wealthy individuals and corporations should pay higher taxes, tax cuts don't create jobs, gay rights o name but a few—his entire political life.

Nonetheless, even though it was an old notion from an old but fabulously wealthy hack whose parents were Democrats and government workers refuses to acknowledge how un-liked he is among both members of his own party and others, be they Democrats or independents, who have observed him for decades and concluded he's on the wrong side of most important issues, he trotted it out again. And loyal scribblers from his favorite Ohio newspaper, the Columbus Dispatch, reported on it as if he was breaking new ground.

The Dispatch's Washington-based reporter Jack Torry wrote that the National Chaplain launched "a spirited attack against the Democratic Party ... Ohio Gov. John Kasich charged he has 'no clue' what Democrats stand for and complained they have 'no agenda.'" Speaking on “This Week,” "Kasich offered the strongest signal yet that he may want to run for president in 2020 as an independent, even though throughout the interview he kept insisting he was a Republican."

Nine months away from wandering off the political radar screen, the term-limited, lame-duck governor continues to raise money as if he were still on the campaign trail. His last book that recounts his failed run in 2016, that consists nearly entirely of regurgitating his quixotic life story of abandoning his family Democrats roots in favor of self-fish conservative causes that have endeared him to Republican donors who have funded he and his cadre of political operatives, has enabled him seem relevant even though Republican candidates back in Ohio running to success him, have done their best to not seek his endorsement, or for those who have it, like Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, are trying to put her boss in the rear view mirror.

As one Buckeye involved in political circles told me recently, Kasich is playing both sides of the field. "He is taking the hot topic of the moment, getting booked on national news programs to stay relevant and spouting his latest transformation," my source told me, comparing the great reformer to Buckeye weather. "Kasich is like Ohio weather: Wait 5 minutes and his positions change...Ok ... I'll give Ohio weather maybe 10 minutes."

This point is borne out by sources, including CNN, that report that a portion of Ohio Gov. John Kasich's campaign website dedicated to the Second Amendment was altered this weekend. In the wake of the Florida high school shooting that killed 17 students, "Caches of the former GOP presidential candidate's page show that the page was altered sometime between Saturday, February 17 and Sunday, February 18, the day the Republican governor criticized President Donald Trump and Congress on CNN over their inaction on gun violence."

It takes a lot of brass, and Kasich has plenty of it, to shift with the prevailing winds to say he has no clue what the Democrats' agenda is. The easily angered, petulant leader who has Ohio in his hindsight and talks on foreign policy like he was some roving ambassador, gets to claim the spotlight and headlines from loyal reporters who fawn over his ever word, even though those words are as old, tired and obsolete as he is.

He told ABC's national audience, yet again like a broken record, that "at the end of the day it's in the hands of the Lord as to what to my future is ... I don't know what he wants me to do." Clearly, what the Lord doesn't want John Kasich to do is become President of the United States, that's a message he's sent the grumpy governor twice.

Gov. Kasich's shame on gun and abortion bills

Ohio Gov. John Kasich has signed 20 bills into law over his nearly eight years in office that make it harder and harder for law-abiding women to exercise their constitutional right to an abortion. That's a fact.

John Kasich, Ohio's imperious governor,

asks Congress to "wake up and do something" 

after he spent 18 years there doing  next to 

nothing on gun control.

Another fact is that Kasich has not signed one bill into law, or introduced one himself, that makes it harder in Ohio to buy a gun. But he has signed over a dozen bills sent to him by Ohio's uber-right legislature that expands access to guns, Cincinnati.com reports.

Yet access to guns and abortions are both protected by the U.S. Constitution. For guns, the path to Second Amendment rights is virtually without impediment.

For abortions, the path to Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that offered constitutional protections to women, is littered with one hurdle after another.

Still the darling of east coast elite media that continues to delude itself that the National Chaplain who's still waiting for the Lord to tell him what to do in life will mount a third run for president in 2020, as either "Republican classic" or an independent, Kasich enjoyed yet another cameo appearance Sunday on "State of the Union" on CNN.

In the avalanche of news surrounding the 17 students in Florida who were murdered by a student who bought an AR-15 assault rifle easier than he could a beer, Kasich, who says not a word more than he's "pro-life" when the issue of abortion comes up, said he would support background checks on people trying to buy guns. That's good, since 90 percent of Americans already agree on the need for background checks.

Not having expressed any previous support to ban so-called "bump stocks," a device that converts a semi-automatic weapon into an automatic weapon, as a shooter in Las Vegas did to mow down 58 people at an outdoor concert, Kasich, who loves to talk about his religious values, apparently had a rare come-to-Jesus moment. He revealed he would support a ban on bump stocks. Does he also support bans on giant magazine clips that other shooters have used to cause deadly havoc? Don't know since reporters don't ask him these kind of pointed questions.

For reference on Kasich's close association with the National Rifle Association, whose solution is to give more people more guns, the NRA endorsed him in 2014, when he had to win reelection to make himself a viable GOP candidate for the white House in 2016. Kasich was so unviable that he got blown away by Donald Trump just like he got blown away by George W. Bush in 2000, when he first tried a run for the presidency.

Kasich aides went to great lengths to cover up his past tracks on guns that differed wildly with his new-found, media inspired evolution. One report by Kasich's adjunct PR department, The Columbus Dispatch said this:

"Kasich's aides removed from his campaign website a page that had boasted that as governor, Kasich had "signed every pro-Second Amendment bill that crossed his desk." The reported continued, "Those bills included measures that made it potentially legal to carry concealed weapons in day-care facilities and on college campuses."

A congressman for 18 years, Kasich's record on taking on the gun industry is as thin as water. His only noteworthy effort was his vote in 1994 to ban the production and sale of 19 models of semi-automatic assault weapons. After doing virtually nothing during his days in Washington, he's now calling on Congress to "wake up and do something," Fast talk from a fast talker.

Basic Kasich instruct, don't do anything important when doing nothing wins elections. Say something bombastic when you're out of harm's way, so you can point the finger of blame at someone else.

As a presidential candidate two years ago, and knowing the power the NRA holds for wayward candidates, he said the ban was "superfluous, and we don't need laws that are superfluous. It didn't have any impact," a reporter wrote. Congress failed to renew the ban in 2004.

The National Chaplain and soon to be former governor by the end of this year plays media, local and national, like chumps. He's allowed ten seconds to say his headline-grabbing banter without challenge that would make him look the fool he is. Diligent reporters who know his history and know his penchant for showmanship are few and far between. He riles easily, becoming testy and bristly when questions don't go his way.

Where was Kasich's new-found outrage in calling for background checks after any one of the 18 school shootings just this year? Where was his voice on the Pulse Nightclub massacre in Florida or the Las Vegas shooting? He says without naming any names, that he's formed another committee to propose recommendations on gun safety. Where will he be when those proposals come forward if they ever do? Where he'll be is churning the mill as a lucrative political talking-head on TV, something he did at Fox News before running for governor in 2010.

Ohio media has coddled Kasich his entire political career. As a bob-and-weave master, Mr. Reformer has been a flim-flam man who can be counted on to follow all the worst policy flaws that misguided and misled Republicans do as "fellow travelers" in GOP circles. Whether it's him being enamored of corporations and CEOs versus workers and workers unions, or being anti-women versus pro-life or being pro-NRA and weak on gun control regulations, Kasich has rarely been shamed as the rich fool he is.

He will continue to make headlines because media let him get a way with talking rubbish. Junk yard dog journalists, whose standard should be to hold two-faced politicians accountable for what they say and what they do is, are few in number.

Sen. Sherrod Brown speaks out on Gov. Kasich's plan to require Medicaid recipients to find work

After other states like Kentucky and Iowa and Indiana, each controlled by austerity-minded, tax-averse Republicans that love to talk tough about personal responsibility, it was only a matter of time before Ohio would follow suit and ask the Trump Administration for permission to require Buckeyes needing Medicaid health insurance to find a job.

John Kasich on Election Night 2010

Ohio Gov. John Kasich, now term limited and looking ahead to what his next lucrative job might be, has been a broken record on calling for personal responsibility by individuals. Meanwhile, the CEO-style leader is ideologically averse to ask the same commitment from corporations, who apparently are worthy beneficiaries of state largess that include reduced taxes. fewer regulations and taxpayer-financed loan programs.

Reports out Wednesday say Kasich’s administration is moving forward to ask Washington regulators to approve adding a work requirement for adults who use expanded Medicaid coverage for their health care. By contrast, such a requirement wasn't allowed by the Obama administration.

On his weekly call with Ohio media, I asked Sen. Brown what his thoughts were on requiring people poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, tax-funded insurance for the poor and disabled that dates back to the Johnson Administration in 1965, to find a job?

Keep in mind that Kasich, who promised when he ran for his first term in 2010 to "move the needle" on jobs," has not done well in moving that needle when compared to many other states. In fact, while he claims to have created hundred of thousands of jobs, the reality of that claim is that scores of thousands of jobs he takes ownership for came through efforts by his predecessor, Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland. Strickland weathered the Great Recession, turning the tide around enough in 2009 to deliver both jobs and about $1 billion in revenue to Kasich, who will never acknowledge what he inherited from Strickland.

Another factor that presents a problem is that Gov. Kasich has failed for 61 straight months to meet or exceed the national job creation average. Ohio is ranked 33rd in job creation by the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. It's tough to find a job when those jobs go wanting in so many of Ohio's 88 counties.

Kasich, who ran for president in 2016 and got clobbered in the process, isn't big on transparency, especially when it comes to releasing his tax returns. However, through required filings for his second loss for the White House, the public learned his net worth is gaged between $9 and $22 million, as Forbes Magazine notes. Not bad for a congressman who served 18 years in Washington, who parlayed that time into lucrative gigs on Fox News and at Lehman Brothers, the storied Wall Street investment banking firm whose collapse triggered the meltdown on Wall Street that bloomed into the worse economic recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Brown's response on the question was that those who may be forced to find employment to keep their coverage under Medicaid, will mostly be stay at home parents, the disabled or those working for minimum wage.

Brown said such requirements come from "privileged politicians," adding that they are "mean spirited and wrong." Without naming the governor by name, Sen. Brown said efforts like Kasich is ready to undertake on behalf of Ohio's very right-wing legislature reflect "bigotry" spewed out by politicians "who should be ashamed of themselves."

A blueprint on Kasich's plan says the state "would exempt those who are over age 55, in school or training for a job, in treatment for drug or alcohol addiction and those with intensive health care needs or serious mental illness."

Kaiser Health News reports that 60 percent of Medicaid recipients nationwide already work, with advocating saying that "the ones that don’t usually have a good reason for not having a job, because they’re caregivers, students or in drug recovery."

Seema Verma was appointed by Trump to lead the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services after she ran Indiana's program under former governor-turned Vice President Mike Pence. She helped Indiana become the first state to enact a very conservative approach to Medicaid. Eight other states have submitted requests similar to Ohios. Sen. Brown voted against her nomination.

Brown is running for his third term in the Senate in Washington. His all-but nominated Republican challenger is Congressman Jim Renacci of northeast Ohio, who earned the endorsement of the Ohio Republican Party last week.

Trump budget par for his course: upside down, inside out

"I want to be a strong voice to reform social service programs so that we can encourage and help people get back to work, rather than the system we’re stuck with today, with all the federal rules and regulations, that really just keeps people dependent on government."

Talk like this by Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor in her interview with The Courier newspaper in northwest Ohio sums up for the hard-of-learning why uber-conservative Republicans like her will fall in line, and in love, with the upside down, inside out budget President Donald Trump proposed Tuesday.

Taylor and GOP congressman Jim Renacci, who last week won the Ohio Republican Party's endorsement to take on two-term incumbent U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, set their compass headings for TrumpWorld, where debt and deficits no longer seem to matter. 

Candidate Donald Trump in Columbus

The White House summed up its view of the 2019 budget this way: This document provides for a strong national defense, promoting a healthy American economy and curbing wasteful Washington spending." For Taylor and her term-limited, lame-duck governor boss, John Kasich, weaning citizens off government programs designed to help them bridge the gap when paying the rent, feeding the family and weathering sickness on their own dime falls short, Trump's $4.4 trillion budget reads like Simon Legree, the brutal taskmaster slave owner made infamous by Harriet Beecher Stowe in her Civil War era novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," wrote it.

In Ohio, where midterm elections will determine the fate of Ohio for maybe decades to come, the White House budget would deliver cruel cuts to benefits that so many Buckeyes rely on every day to make ends in their life meet. Among the many cuts in domestic spending, a perennial target Republicans love to shoot, is a $200 billion cut to Medicare. Democrats say Trump's budget cuts are unconscionable, especially in light of a tax cut bill passed in December that lavishes billions on the nation's wealthiest individuals and corporations by expanding the debt by another $1.5 trillion.

The AP reports that "if enacted as proposed ... the plan would establish an era of $1 trillion-plus yearly deficits." For perspective, it says, "Trump’s pattern is in line with past Republican presidents who have overseen spikes in deficits as they simultaneously increased military spending and cut taxes." The proposed budget foresees adding deficits of $7.2 trillion over the coming decade.

“We’re going to have the strongest military we’ve ever had, by far,” Trump said, according to remarks he made in an Oval Office appearance Monday. “In this budget we took care of the military like it’s never been taken care of before.”

On healthcare, Trump expects the GOP-controlled Congress will repeal and replace former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Recent history shows that Republicans come out losers when they try to do that, since they have no alternative that works without leaving millions losing their coverage, as the Congressional Budget Office has determined. Relying on states to devise their own programs is currently a bridge to far to cross.

For lovers of the arts, get ready to cry out loud as the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities, whose combined funding total is about $300 million, are targeted for shutdown. Saving them will rely on Republicans and Democrats who like them to fight for them. The same goes for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, two more federal investments that are on the chopping block.

The Environmental Protection Agency, created by President Richard Nixon in 1970, is also slated for reduction by more than one-third, including ending the Climate Change Research and Partnership Programs. Trump isn't a fan of federal employees, so there's no surprise in budget numbers that show agency staffing could be cut by more than 20 percent from budgeted 2018 levels. There are currently 14,162 employees at the agency, the AP reports, the lowest staffing levels since the mid-1980s.

Also in the crosshairs is Housing and Urban Development, which faces funding cuts for rental assistance programs, the elimination of community block grants. Moreover, anticipated future legislation would apply work requirements for some tenants receiving public assistance.

If you're poor and hungry, get used to it, because Trump’s budget hits at 42 million Americans with food stamps who will have work requirements to fulfill. The 2019 budget reduces SNAP by roughly $213 billion over the next 10 years.

School choice advocates rejoice, the Donald is on your side. Trump is behind putting more decision-making power in the hands of parents and families to choose a school for their children. A $1.5 billion investment that would expand both private and public school choice is in the budget.

In broad strokes, the massive spending bill delivers giant setbacks to domestic programs that the poor and middle class currently enjoy, like food stamps, housing subsidies and student loans. Medicare providers would be hit with approximately $500 billion in cuts, representing a nearly 6 percent reduction, but retirement benefits would escape the ax. Meanwhile, proposed changes would mean some Social Security disability program participants would be required to find a job to maintain eligibility. Similar requirements would apply to housing subsidies, food stamps and Medicaid.

Richard Cordray, a Democratic candidate for governor who resigned last year from leading the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, said in response to the budget release that the Wite House and like-minded Republicans "didn't mind adding more than a trillion dollars to our deficit to help their rich donors and corporate sponsors. But when it comes to programs that help children, the poor, and the disabled, they tell us cuts need to be made. They've mortgaged our fiscal future only to line the pockets of people like the Koch brothers."

Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan labeled Trump's budget proposal in a tweet "a non-starter." "The only function the President's budget proposal serves is to remind us how completely out of whack his priorities are for the American people," Ryan, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, said a statement.

Kasich Lt. Gov. sidekick, Mary Taylor, crucified herself at Ohio GOP endorsement meeting

Little leaguers have a favorite shoutout when they are hammering the opposing team's pitcher: "Stick a fork in him, he's done."

Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor in the ceremonial 

Cabinet Room at the Ohio Statehouse

Based on reports of smack talk Friday by Ohio Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor about why she will not support Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine if the Ohio Republican Party endorses him for governor this year, the same infield chatter could apply to her.

Mary Taylor is a CPA, which based on her time in public office could also stand for "career politician accomplished." By following the pathetic path her cranky outbound boss Gov. John Kasich took on being anti-Donald Trump, Taylor burnt her bridge bigly today when she verbally assaulted Mike DeWine, another "CPA" running for governor after serving as attorney general for the last eight years.

Taylor sealed her fate with fellow state GOPers as a loser by refusing to support the party's pick to run against Democrats this fall, just like her petulant boss Kasich has done with national GOPers by being the reliable dancing bear who berates Trump. Taylor has tried to distance herself from Kasich without success. She has been endorsed by Ken Blackwell, a former Republican secretary of state who got clobbered by nearly 2-1 in 2006 by Democratic governor Ted Strickland.

When she bad-mouthed DeWine in Columbus, by extension, she also trash-talked his running mate, two-term Secretary of State Jon Husted.

"My opponent is a creature of that Establishment," she said. "A shill for the entrenched special interests and lobbyists who stalk the halls of the statehouse looking for a handout. He’s (DeWine) a career politician who has been on the state ballot in each of the last five decades, and has a liberal voting record as long as the line of babies he has kissed and hands he has shook."

As if that wasn't enough gutter talk, the former Ohio House of Representative member who survived the drubbing Republican's took in 2006 when Democrats surfed the "Coingate" scandal to victories for governor and other statewide seats except auditor, the scorned woman didn't hold back.

"After 42 years on the public dole, he is soft on protecting your Second Amendment rights, soft on getting conservative judges appointed, and soft on immigration. His entire campaign has been built on an air of inevitability. A false belief that it is his turn, and his team has worked hard to make you believe the same."

She called the Republican leadership present in Columbus today, "Mike DeWine’s living room."

The kicker that pretty much seals her fate as a soon-to-be disgruntled sore loser, "I’m not asking for your endorsement here today. With all of the good old boy bullying and backroom deals that have been struck to get us here...I’m not sure I even want it."

Insiders who have spoken with me in confidence consider Taylor a lazy officeholder. After her tirade today, she just qualified as a personal non grata.

Ohio's new redistricting plan is fatally flawed by partisanship

When it comes to naming the elephant in the room on big, thorny topics of governance and who doesn't like government as the main player, the answer, generally, is Republicans.

Voting ballot

When it comes to naming the 800-pound gorilla in the room on big, thorny topics of governance and who likes government as the main player, the answer, generally, is Democrats.

When it comes to naming the fatal flaw in all of American politics, as George Washington warned about when he accepted the presidency instead of being named king as some of the founding fathers offered him, political partisanship is the culprit behind our modern-day, broken and gridlocked system of democracy.

SJR5 Fatally Flawed

With the passage by the Ohio General Assembly of a proposed amendment to the state constitution that will go before voters in May, Republicans, Democrats and members of a coalition of good government types seeking a new framework to mapping legislative districts, they agreement on one thing. Senate Joint Resolution 5 would require, for the first time, bipartisan input and approval on Ohio congressional maps.

The nuts and bolts of the measure include the following three points:

• Both major parties must be meaningfully engaged in the process.
• Communities should not be needlessly split.
• Rule to prohibit gerrymandering or drawing a congressional map to favor or disfavor one political party.

It sounds wonderful, this happy talk about Republicans and Democrats being bipartisan when it comes time to map out legislative districts. The fatal flaw that no one wants to talk about, because they're either afraid or oblivious to the elephant or gorilla in the room, is that SJR5, as currently configured, is created with political parties and their candidates at its center.

When partisans are in charge, as SJR5 makes them, partisans want to win. They don't want to compromise with the competitor if at all possible to lose some advantage they had that now makes them losers.

Reading the document bears our the notion that if partisans don't at first agree, then other combinations of partisanship are tried, until in the end, after all earlier attempts have failed because of partisanship, a four-year map would be drawn that would be subject to veto by the governor at the time (a partisan), or be subject to a citizen referendum, something citizens are historically not good at to begin with, even though they hold ultimate power to create a political system that works for them. Then, after four years of a map that fails, the long, laborious process that sounds good on paper but will hit potholes and ditches along the way by accident or design, starts all over.

What SJR5 should have done but didn't do, because partisanship drives all things political in Ohio and the other 49 states, was to do the right and smart thing: eliminate any participation by any political party, not just the big two majors, in the process.

That's hard to imagine today. By putting non-partisans in charge of devising maps, and maybe even voting rules and regulations that sideline partisan interests, voters would be in the position of picking their candidates instead of candidates picking their voters.

Partisan Control

In any other competitive sport where neutrality is expected and demanded, only a madman would think it a good idea to have partisan referees or judges delivering non-partisan decisions. Which Republican or Democrat would think its a good idea for the referees in an Ohio State-Michigan football game to represent the interests of either team? No one. But these same politicians think it's okay to let their political party gum up the works when it comes to delivering democracy, which is already shortchanged by massive amounts, as county boards of elections run on skimpy budgets from county commissioners who would rather spend the same buck on a rural road than give it to the local elections board. Ohio and America runs democracy on the cheap, so to speak.

One day, maybe, political candidates representing all political parties run in districts created by real neutral, non-partisan officials. When and if that day arrives, mandatory voting as an alternative to volunteer voting might also be part of the package. With mandatory voting, like Australia and a handful of other countries do, neutralizing billions spent each election cycle today would be part of the co-production of better voting. Suppressing the vote of many groups, as Republicans strive to do with the help of billionaires who fund their anti-democratic gambit, would level the playing field for all candidates, especially those representing small parties with little to no money to compete in today's rigged and lopsided election system.

Going the full voting Monty, a national or state holiday to vote would also be a valuable part of the new democracy. No more voting on the first Tuesday in November, when demands of showing up for work often win out over the civic pride and duty of voting.

Will SJR5 be an improvement from the mess in place today? Yes, because "It can't get no worse," as John Lennon said in "Getting Better All The Time."

SJR5 is still fraught with partisanship that could bollocks things up for years. But who cares enough about that to write about it?

Follow me on Twitter @OhioNewsBureau

Why Amazon won't pick Columbus for HQ2

When a new American electronic commerce behemoth like Amazon promises to bring 50,000 jobs, each with an average annual compensation of $100,000, to one of 20 finalist communities competing to be the lucky picked for its HQ2, city and state leaders might disown their own if that's what it takes to convince Amazon billionaire founder and CEO Jeff Bezos to pick them.

Downtown Columbus, Ohio, along
the Scioto River

"Amazon would be foolish to dismiss the strengths of Pittsburgh and Columbus, and Amazon is not foolish," a recent Toledo Blade editorial observed about why HQ2 should come to Pittsburgh, PA, or Columbus, Ohio, two cool cities located in two heartland Rust Belt states.

HQ2 Wants More Than Taxes, Universities

Amazon watchers give good odds to cities located in the D.C. region like Washington, Northern Virginia, and Montgomery County, Maryland, citing among other reasons the acquisition of the Washington Post by Bezos in 2013. The fact that Amazon's global guru is finishing renovations on a Washington home he bought for $23 million only adds more fuel to the fire.

Columbus, Ohio's only growing city, is among the twenty cities that include other big hitters like Atlanta, New York, Boston, and Chicago. Based on one key criteria in the selection process—that the winning city has a strong university system—Columbus and Pittsburgh stack up well in that category, with The Ohio State University in Cbus and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, respectively.

As the Blade notes, "Columbus and Pittsburgh can compete with the large metros on quality of life and affordability. Young millennials have flocked to the two cities, creating vibrant social scenes and an enterprising, start-up culture," as well as boasting lots of affordable housing.

Never forget that that Amazon is headquartered where it started, in Seattle in Washington State, a city and a state that pride themselves on being more progressive on social issues than other cities and states. Ohio's population growth has been moribund for decades, as people look for good jobs in other places. When Ohio stagnates, it also loses political power in Washington, as has been happening for decades and decades.

Moribund Ohio

Ohio once boasted 25 Electoral College votes in the 1920s, but 25 has dwindled to 18, and that number will only go lower, as many demographers predict it will, when the 2020 census shows other states are expanding at the expense of Ohio. 

In addition to slow or no growth, a trend that can't be reversed anytime soon regardless of how business-friendly Gov. John Kasich says the state is, what haunts Columbus and will work against it is that the State of Ohio, under leadership by Kasich and a like-minded far-right legislature, have chosen to embrace many policies that show just how mean-spirited social conservatives can be when they have the power to put in place policies and programs designed to hurt the very populations Amazon embraces, including LGBTQ, immigrants and women.

Look to a recent ruly by the Ohio Supreme Court to close Toledo's only abortion clinic to understand why Ohio's socially unfriendly environment won't be an asset when Amazon weights the pros and cons of each contestant.

Whatever financial incentives (aka, legal bribes) Ohio chooses to offer Amazon, any one of the other 19 finalists can meet or beat it if push comes to shove. What Ohio has that many others don't have is an unfriendly social social climate where women's issues, including access to abortion services, as just noted, are among the harshest in the nation.

It's About Diversity, Stupid!

In the economic development site selection dance, quality of life is often more important that tax policy to some  industries. And Amazon is one of them.

Why would a smart, progressive CEO like Bezos, whose home turf social-climate in Seattle would make Kasich and Ohio Republican leaders lie awake at night, want to bring thousands of female employees to a state that has a drum beat of eliminating constitutionally recognized access to abortion services? Why would Amazon's female employees want to subject themselves or their daughters to the kind of thinking that has put the Buckeye State in retrograde motion on so many social issues other than abortion, when other cities and states, by comparison, have embraced laws related to minorities, immigrants and women that Ohio would find incompatible with its current, dominant political ideology?

Why would a progressive company like Amazon want to bring its employees to a state where public schools are bleed dry to pay for for-profit charter schools that do a terrible job of educating children? Why would Amazon, if it has a choice, and it does, want to pick Ohio when the next crop of Republican leaders promise to ditch Medicaid, dance around unsafe roads and bridges because repairing them costs money, and public spending, as they see it, is to be reduced rather than expanded by taxing a billionaire Colossus like Bezos a few dollars more?

For these and other reasons that go to the heart of why policies and laws at the heart of social conservatism are turning Ohio backward instead of forward, don't expect legacy papers like the Blade and the Cleveland Plain Dealer and The Columbus Dispatch to write about at length, because doing so only focuses the spotlight on Ohio's socially inconvenient Achilles Heel. Amazon can see the obvious, and the obvious is that fiscally and socially conservative lawmakers are passing laws that are silly, stupid and outdated for the Millennial generation that gives less and less of a hoot about race, religion, gender or ethnicity.

For these reasons about the state climate—not for reasons about the Columbus climate that include a good university or an abundant, skilled workforce—Amazon won't pick Ohio's capital city for HQ2.

Buckeyes beware of too much 'Blue Wave Kool-Aid' this midterm election cycle

In just 281 days, the 2018 midterm elections will be over. Will President Trump's low ratings bleed into Republican turnout? Will Democrats, as so many are speculating now, take back the U.S. House or Senate and deliver a mortal blow to Trump World in the nation's capital and in many state capitals across the nation?

Ohio Statehouse in Columbus

Blue Wave Kool-Aid, the tasty, powerful election energy drink Democrats and pundits are ladling out in vast quantities, can make anyone who drinks too much of it too fast drunk with the idea that Republicans are on the ropes this election cycle, due in large part to Trump's unstable, erratic performance one year into his first term that's been captured best so far in Michael Wolff's world best seller, "Fire and Fury: Inside The Trump White House."

When historical facts are broken down and applied to this year's midterm elections, as Bloomberg has done in "All Signs Point to Big Democratic Wins in 2018," Republicans, even those who have tried to distance themselves from the rhetoric and actions of this White House, should be quaking in their boots after presented with a set of tea leafs that predict their demise or destruction in November.

The Blue Wave Kool-Aid might not be the universal elixir it's being cracked up to be, especially in ruby red Ohio, where Trump decimated Hillary Clinton by almost one-half-million votes, and where Republicans at the state level have ruled the roost for decades, with the exception of the short span of 2006-2010 when all but one statewide seat was won by Democrats and the Ohio House for a short two-year stint (2008-2010) was controlled by Democrats. Aside from this anomaly, Republicans have controlled all gears of Ohio government, including the legislature, where laws are made and executive wishes are dashed even for long-time establishment Republicans like John Kasich, who as governor saw many of his cherished policies and goals summarily ditched when even more conservative legislators showed the prickly, lame-duck governor who was boss.

Bloomberg predicts, based on historical averages and the popularity of the president at the time (above or below 50%), that as many as 33 GOP House seats could be lost. With Dems needing a net gain of 24 seats, Blue Wave Kool-Aid drinkers can already see bright light shinning down on them this year.

In the Senate in Washington, Democrats have to defend 26 seats versus just eight for Republicans. Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown is among the 26 defenders this year, so as the last Democrat to be elected statewide, Brown's fate could be dicey if Trump voters turnout in numbers not expected while Democrats slack off at the polls, as history shows happens in midterm elections when overall voting dips.

At the state level, Democrats have racked up wins for city mayor in many of its largest municipalities, but Republicans enjoy veto-proof majorities in the state Senate and House. The gift that keeps on giving stems from the Tea Party wave of 2010, when Ohio rebounded from four years of Democratic control of the governor's office and other statewide offices. Every election cycle after 2010, Democrats have been washed away by Republicans, whose control of the legislature guaranteed that redistricting would favor their party of Democrats.

“If a Democratic wave is big enough, I could actually imagine several Ohio seats being potentially vulnerable,” Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia Center for Politics said, the Dayton Daily News reported. “But at the moment, the Ohio seats are sort of on the periphery of the national conversation.”

Nathan Gonzales, editor and publisher of Inside Elections, has a message that seems to be on point: “If Democrats are winning congressional races in Ohio, then they’ve already won the majority,” he said, adding the big news that Ohio Democrats don't want to hear because it rings so true: “I don’t think any of the Ohio races are in the first or second tier.” Republicans control 12 of 16 House seats, and districts are so gerrymandered that any one of them losing to a Democrats is only seen by Blue Wave Kool-Aid drinkers who have imbibed too much of the fantasy drink.

And keep in mind the prediction that Ohio will lose another house seat following the 2020 national census. Republican map makers will force another two Democratic congressman to fight it out in a new district not of their making. When that happens, GOP candidates will still control a dozen seats compared to just three for Democrats.

If Sen. Brown can win his third term in the upper chamber in the era of Trump, that will be because his populist economic agenda hits home with average Ohio workers, many of whom voted for Trump two years ago. If Brown should lose, the Ohio Democratic Party just might drift into irrelevance after losing big time in 2010, 2014 and 2016. President Barack Obama won Ohio in 2008 and again in 2012, but even in those years, Republicans kept control by expanding their seats in Washington and Columbus.

Marc Dann served as Ohio's 47th Attorney General for a short time before being run out of office over scandals in his office that brought the wrath of Democrats and Republicans down on him. The leader of the Dann Law Firm, which specializes in protecting consumers from various forms of predatory financing, Dann offers up a glimmer of hope for Democrats searching for a new agenda to attract Trump voters back into the fold this year.

At Working Class Studies, Dann says Democrats may already have their opening, and it "doesn’t involve porn stars, Russians, racism, or tax cuts for the rich, none of which seem to matter much to the president’s supporters." What could work, he says, is recognition of the fact that Trump has abandoned them when "they finally realize that he’s betrayed them by gutting the regulatory framework that really made America great for the working class"

Dann lists his suggestions for where Democrats can make their mark when it comes to the new message many Democrats say they need to beckon back wayward workers.

• Net neutrality may seem like an arcane issue, but FCC Chair Ajit Pai ‘s decision to roll back Obama-era internet rules will inevitably lead to increased costs for internet access.
• Betsy Devos, the clueless Secretary of Education, is repealing rules that made it difficult for private universities to rip-off students and making it more expensive for kids and parents to repay student loans.
• Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, who was installed as director of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB), has submitted a “zero budget” for the agency he absolutely loathes, and instituted a hiring freeze and a prohibition on new regulations.  Just for good measure, he’s also decided to make it easier for the vultures in the payday lending industry to prey on the poor and the working class.
• The Labor Department’s decision to allow pool-tipping and to ditch rules that would have made hundreds of thousands of low-wage workers eligible for overtime pay will cost working families millions of dollars each year.
• The unrelenting attack on the Affordable Care Act, which survived repeal but has taken a number of other hits, will lead to premium increases and the loss of coverage in the years ahead.

The unrelenting attack on the Affordable Care Act, which survived repeal but has taken a number of other hits, will lead to premium increases and the loss of coverage in the years ahead.

"Every one of these actions will impact working-class Americans disproportionately, especially those who live on the edge of bankruptcy and lack the financial resources to fend off unscrupulous lenders and other scam artists. According to a 2016 Federal Reserve Report 46% of American households could not handle a $400 emergency expense. That makes them prime targets for payday, car title, and predatory mortgage lenders that generate huge profits by exploiting people who barely live paycheck-to-paycheck," said Dann, who served in the Ohio Senate prior to being elected Ohio attorney general in 2006.

In Ohio, where the results of this fall's election may already be baked in, based on some of the most gerrymandered districts in the nation, and where Ohio media cannot be trusted to speak the truth if it means investigating a Republican ticket they think will ultimately be successful so they can guarantee continued access, Dann believes that "when combined with Trump’s unrelenting attack on the very things that make America a land of opportunity, these bold, state-based initiatives may provide Democrats with the weapon they need to send Trump back to his tower – and actually make America better for the working class."

Another reason Ohio Democrats should beware of drinking the national Blue Wave Kool-Aid that may not have the salubrious effects in Ohio that many think it will have in other states, is the promise by Koch Brothers to spend $400 million in 2018 to tilt the election cycle to Republicans.

Kool-Aid drinkers, drink at your own risk.

Taylor receives 'kiss of death' as outbound Kasich confirms his endorsement

Lonely are the petulant who bristle when asked the wrong questions. When Ohio Republicans shun one of their own, like GOP governor candidates are doing when it comes to seeking an endorsement from their term-limited governor John Kasich, is it a kiss of death when he confirms who he has endorsed?

Gov. John Kasich at the Ohio Statehouse.

That seems to be the case with Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, who has been Kasich's number two partner for going on eight years. Recent reports quoted Taylor saying she hadn't spoken with Kasich in about a year. Taylor told a county Republican party recently that she hasn't spoken with the lame-duck governor, but subsequent reports shows she's been in his presence on numerous occasions, mostly at cabinet meetings in Columbus chaired by Kasich.

As big supporter of President Donald Trump, Taylor, who some Republicans have tagged as lazy and who won't be able to defeat her primary challenger, Attorney General Mike DeWine and his running mate Secretary of State Jon Husted, appears to be distancing herself from Kasich, whose become a reliable Trump critic, to show conservative Buckeye voters she's not as liberal as Kasich has been, especially on accepting expanded Medicaid, a feature of former President Obama's Affordable Care Act.

At a Statehouse event Thursday, reports are that Kasich said he could not recall the last time he talked to Taylor following her recent statement, which some might see as confirmation of Taylor's comment of not really engaging Kasich, who spent most of 2016 out of state campaigning for president. Kasich lost 49 states, winning just one, Ohio, by less than 50 percent of the vote.

"She's been a great teammate ... a great, loyal partner," Kasich said, The Toledo Blade reported.

Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor in the ceremonial
cabinet room in the Ohio Statehouse

Kasich, who returns to New Hampshire, the cite of his biggest victory two years ago, where he came in a distant second to Trump, acknowledged that Taylor has periodically disagreed with his policy positions. Ohio's glib governor on issues he likes to talk about, referred to a the dust up as "a lot of loud voices out there that are on the far right. They don't all like me. That's OK. They didn't want me to expand Medicaid. That's fine."

The author of a book about his second loss at running for president, which he's used to stay in the media's eye even though Trump and Trumpworld has ridiculed him from time to time, said Taylor has a right to be independent. Kasich, who continues to fuel speculation about him running for a third run at the Oval Office in 2020, said he has provided Taylor with advice on running for governor and would be willing to campaign on her behalf of the woman who he says would make a "great governor."

Headlines about no other Republicans rushing to get his endorsement or have him campaign on their behalf, prompted Kasich to say things haven't changed much since he won 86 of 88 counties in his 2014 reelection campaign. "I know that decisions have been made that she wasn't always comfortable with," he said, adding that "She'd (Taylor) express herself and then she'd go out and support the team."

Kasich did win that many counties, but the record from 2014 hows his Democratic rival had imploded and voter turnout at 36 percent was the lowest since World War II. Kasich refused to debate his major party challenger, and when a video of him at a Cleveland Plain dealer acting like a spoiled child, the paper bent to pressure and took down the video shortly after it was posted.

When looked at further, voting data shows Kasich received fewer than one in four registered voters.

Siri, which GOP candidate for governor is lying about John Kasich's endorsement?

It wasn't that long ago when Ohio Gov. John Kasich had the entire Republican establishment, with the exception of state treasurer Josh Mandel who lined up behind Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, cheering him on as he mounted his second run for the presidency since his first one in 2000.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich at the Ohio
Statehouse at a bill signing ceremony

Those were the days. Now, after his humiliating loss in 2016 to be the leader of the free world, Ohio's term-limited lame-duck CEO isn't high on any statewide Republicans' list.

To show just how confused about which, if any party candidate the outbound governor is endorsing, Kasich's two-term Lt. Gov, Mary Taylor told Republicans in Clermont County in southwest Ohio, two starling facts.

One, she's not spoken with her boss, who lost 49 GOP state contests and won exactly one Electoral College vote, in a year. Second, she thought her boss for the last eight years had endorsed her rival team of Attorney General Mike Dewine and Secretary of State Jon Husted. Taylor, a CPA, has been misinformed of the facts, even though CPA's can't be as forgetful or ignorant when it comes to federal or state tax law.

Talk about mixed messages, which candidate(s) Kasich likes this year, and which of those candidates wants his endorsement, reflects why so many Republicans in no rush to court him this year even though they backed his run for president two years ago. The sanctimonious supply-sider, who can't talk about anyone but himself for more than ten seconds, spent most of 2016 campaigning out of state for a job voters didn't elect him governor to pursue.

"She said it’s widely known that Jon Husted and Mike DeWine have been endorsed by Gov. Kasich," Greg Simpson, a township executive for the Clermont County Republican Party, told The Cincinnati Enquirer. "I about fell off my chair, because it’s widely known that John Kasich had endorsed Mary Taylor."

To clear things up for Taylor, Husted, who was awaiting to address the same audience, engaged the services of Apple's famous information concierge.

"Siri, who did John Kasich endorse in the governor's race?" Husted asked his iPhone, already knowing the answer, the Enquirer noted. "An article from The Enquirer popped up, titled 'John Kasich backs Mary Taylor for Ohio governor. Will it help?'"

Spokesmen for Taylor and Kasich added even more confusion, saying the other candidate's statements were wrong. Kasich's PR guy said Taylor and Kasich have spoken by phone, while Taylor's PR guy said she hasn't seen him, ostensibly in person, for a year.

Despite media portrayal of Kasich as both popular and a moderate, history, based on the policies he's endorsed and the bill's he's signed into law, show he's not popular and not moderate. Spending more time on DC-beltway Sunday talking-head political TV shows than he does back home in Ohio, Gov. Kasich is the perfect anti-Trump dancing bear who will reliably invoke God as his heavenly wing-man about what his purpose in life is, and why he hasn't found it yet, including whether he'll mount a third run at the Oval Office.

What Kasich has found to his liking over the decades, is that dedicating himself to the Lord, as he once wanted to do as a young Catholic boy in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, wouldn't have brought him the fame—18 years in Congress and years on Fox News—and fortune—somewhere between $9-22 million—he enjoys now.

On the outs with Trumpworld, and with his well-known abrasive relationship with just about everybody else, including members of his own political party, John Richard Kasich will soon be put out to pasture. He'll have to graze, maybe in the media again, for another three years until the presidential merry-go-round gets cranked up again in 2020.

Until then, his role, or lack thereof in the Republican race to succeed him, will be a carnival ride to watch. Candidates like Taylor, whose claim to fame is not being a third term for Kasich because she'll be even more conservative than he's been, should cause average, hard-working Ohioans to pull out their political worry beads should she win the office and dispense with Medicaid or rally the Right-to-Work crowd. For DeWine and Husted, not having Kasich endorse them might be the daylight they've been looking for to distance themselves from his poor record on jobs, poverty, opioids and for-profit charter schools, at least in words if not deeds.

For Democrats who think the much talked about blue wave will cascade into the Buckeye State this fall, don't fill up too much or too fast on Blue Wave Kool-Aid. It might be a real factor in other states but maybe not in ruby-red, gerrymandered Ohio, where Republicans control the legislature by veto-proof margins and Republicans rule the Ohio Supreme Court.

Gulp up the good times, but don't chug too much too soon.

Kasich evades truth telling on future plans again in front-page report

To criticize Ohio media, especially the very GOP-centered Columbus Dispatch, for fawning coverage of Ohio Gov. John Kasich is too easy, like shooting fish in a barrel.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich at a media event 

in 2013 for the Bureau of Workers' Compensation.

The Buckeye State's term-limited, lame-duck governor gets yet another front page report Monday on his many PR appearances on national TV.

When his Sunday show segments are compared to his many fewer appearances as state CEO last year, after losing his second run for the White House in 2016, it shows he values the national spotlight over lesser venues back home.

In a tally of where he spends his time these days, the Dispatch noted that Kasich took 62 times at bat on various national TV networks in 2017, compared to just 54 events back home in his adopted State of Ohio.

It came as no surprise to Kasich watchers that he "bristled" when asked what his appearances on Sunday shows like "Meet The Press" was designed to do. Students of the former 18-year congressman, Fox News TV talk show host and Lehman Brothers banker know him to have a hair trigger when it comes to media asking him questions he doesn't want to answer, because answering them would give away his game, honed and crafted over four decades in elected public office.

In 2014, when he was running for reelection against a Democratic challenger who imploded with media aiding by pumping up careless indiscretions to oversized proportions, Kasich knew all along that he would mount a second run at the White House, this time with state resources. When media failed to press him on it, after he told them to stop asking questions he wasn't going to answer, Kasich knew he had reporters and editorial writers right where he wanted them.

Where he wanted them was beholding to him for access on the campaign trail, where he spent the greater part of 2016 along with a crew of state highway patrolmen safeguarding the governor and members of his family and inner circle who traveled with him on occasion. Kasich and his administration has refused to reveal to Ohio taxpayers how much has been spent to protect him on a job voters didn't election him governor in 2014 to pursue in 2016. Had he come clean then and said he would run for president if elected, that would have been the kind of truth telling he's not known for. Meanwhile, those costs—which one reporter  calculates in the millions—remain a closely guarded secret. Ohio statehouse media know not to ask for the data, so they don't.

National TV pundits like him because he's their anti-Trump dancing bear, ready to sound off with the same phony, baloney gibberish about his concern for so-called "Dreamers" or dysfunction in Washington or one of his favorites, "people living in the shadows." He took credit, as Chairman of the House Budget Committee following Republicans' rise to power after the "Contract For America" in 1994 elevated him and then Georgia Congressman Newt Gingrich to leadership positions. A favorite Kasich talking point on the campaign trail and in Republican debates was him taking credit for balancing the federal budget for the last time since men walked on the moon.

"I'm going to continue wherever I can to raise a voice as long as my friends and as long as the Lord gives me a voice to talk about things that I think are not just or fair. We're all screwballs, including me. I'm going to make mistakes. But when I see this, I've got to say something about it," he said, according to the Dispatch, a life-long Republican legacy newspaper that endorsed him every year he ran for congress and in each of his two elections for governor.

Curiously, while Kasich likes to raise his voice on Trump, foreign and domestic policy, that voice is silent when it comes to the many scandals on his watch that have largely gone uninvestigated. Wasting billions every two years on for-profit charter schools, Ohio pension retirement funds spending exorbitant fees on Wall Street hedge fund managers who deliver little in returns, signing 20 bills into law that make women's health rights harder to achieve, raising sales taxes and other fees to pay for billions in income tax cuts that favor the state's wealthiest, suppressing voters or falling behind the national average in job creation for 61 months are stories Kasich has nothing to say about.

Gov. Kasich's wing man and presidential campaign strategist, John Weaver, told the Dispatch the governor is not out to promote "Kasich for 2020."

"It's about keeping that voice, which is sadly underrepresented, in the marketplace," Weaver said, the Dispatch reported. "You don't see him on TV talking about running for president. You see him passionately talking about issues and common-sense solutions."

And that's the simple but fake news ruse. Kasich doesn't have to overtly talk about running for president, because everyone today knows he's dying to run for president again in 2020, just like everyone knew as back in 2010, that if he got elected twice, he would pull out all the stops to run for president as the "popular ... moderate" governor of a battleground state candidates had to win if they wanted to move into the White House.

The Quixotic, petulant leader whose time on the political stage will end when 2019 starts, is using the same tired but predictable excuses to deflect attention from his plan to be in the presidential hunt again in 2020 if at all possible.

While media continues to buy his lines that he doesn't know what he's going to do tomorrow, they have taken little notice of him turning down a golden chance to remain relevant by taking on and defeating two-term U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown, following the vacuum created when lead GOP war horse, Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, bowed out.

The opportunity to defeat a popular populist like Sen. Brown would show Kasich is not only still popular but has the political chops to defeat the last Democrat elected statewide. Senator Kasich would have six years to impact public policy, which he says he knows so much about and is so good at. He could run from cover in 2020 as a governor-turned Senator from a Rust Belt state, and still have four years to capture daily headlines if he lost his third run for POTUS since first trying in 2000.

The National Chaplain who hates Obamacare but defends one of its best social safety net programs, Medicaid, evades questions by invoking his master, The Lord, someone he leans on for guidance when circumstances call for divine intervention, like when questions are hurdled at him he has poor answers for. The Lord, to whom he once wanted to go in service to until he found politics more to his liking, appears to have left him in the lurch following two massive defeats for president, and who has apparently convinced him he can't beat a rugged, career politician like Sen. Sherrod Brown.

Otherwise, the Wizard of Westerville would take on and beat Brown. By doing so, Kasich could prove he's the messiah the GOP has been waiting for to move Trump out of the Oval Office and back to Trump Tower in New York City.