Free Republic

Well, at least they’re focusing on jobs, even if only for trial lawyers.The latest brilliant plan to get people back to work seems to focus on… wait for it… punishing potential employers by dragging them into court on a whole new class of discrimination based lawsuits. The idea, spearheaded by Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and a handful of other Democrats, would identify employers who run advertisements which specifically seek to avoid hiring people who are currently unemployed and allow them to be taken to court on some form of discrimination charge. Lawyers should be allowed to win financial damages from...

Today the Cleveland Plain Dealer announced the resignation of Connie Schultz, wife of Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH). Schultz had come under fire recently for attending a Tea Party rally near Cleveland at which her husband’s likely opponent in 2012, Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, was a featured speaker. Schultz was spotted videotaping Mandel’s speech, but she conspicuously neglected to mention in her article that Mandel was even at the rally. (Read the details in my previous diary). Once news about Schultz’s covert-op became known, the Pulitzer prize winning journalist and 18-year veteran of the Plain Dealer issued a breathless apology, claiming...

National political parties have a test for potential candidates: Do they have what it takes to raise eye-popping amounts of money? Josh Mandel has passed that first test, and moves on with honors. The Ohio treasurer, barely in office seven months, raised $2.34 million in his initial foray into a U.S. Senate race, according to preliminary figures that he'll finalize in a filing with the Federal Election Commission this week. It takes more than money to win a Senate seat, and the election isn't until November 2012. But Mandel, a 33-year-old Republican whose youthful appearance is tempered by his two...

This may be the most unexpected bit of good news to come along for Republicans in a while: Ohio state Treasurer Josh Mandel raised an outstanding $2.3 million for his bid against Sen. Sherrod Brown(D-Ohio), the Republican’s campaign announced Wednesday. Mandel raised more in the second quarter of this year than Brown, who announced last week that he collected $1.5 million during the same period. The Ohio Democrat also reported $3.5 million in the bank at the end of June. Mandel’s campaign did not disclose the candidate’s cash on hand at the end of the quarter. Brown boasted one of...

Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., is the lead player in a legislative effort, already endorsed by a handful of other senators, that would spend $60 million to develop a program that would charge consumers for the costs of installing drunk-driving interlock devices in vehicles. The proposal, S.510, was introduced this week in the U.S. Senate by Udall, who was joined by Sens. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Bob Corker, R-Tenn., Al Franken, D-Minn., Amy Klobuchar D-Minn., West John D. Rockefeller, D-W.Va., Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I. The legislation actually doesn't call for the technology to be installed in...

That would explan why he shares the typical liberal ignorance of history, claiming Hitler and Stalin didn’t like unions. Brown claims the first thing tyrants do is go after the trade unions. No, the first thing all tyrants do when they seize power is disarm the citizens. Their overrated idol, FDR, didn’t get the memo about embracing public unions. He was adamantly opposed to them, understanding the inherent conflict of interest in allowing public “servants” to collude with politicians against the tax paying public. Hitler and Stalin would never have put up with a bunch of smelly slobs taking over...

WASHINGTON – The only sound visitors hear on the Senate side of the U.S. Capitol on an early Sunday morning is the click of heels on the marble floor, echoing off the 20-foot ceiling. Hard to imagine that, less than 100 years ago, the men serving here weren’t elected by voters. “That is because the Framers did not want two chambers to be controlled by the frenzy of popular opinion,” said Senate historian Donald Ritchie. From 1789 to 1912, senators were elected by state legislatures. That changed in 1913 with ratification of the Constitution's 17th Amendment. The Senate joined the...

With the election a lifetime away (23 months to be exact), Public Policy Polling released the first, post-mid-term snapshot of how Ohio views Senator Sherrod Brown and some possible opponents for his re-election in 2012. The poll, taken over the last week, shows some troubling, but very, very early warning signs for the man who will become Ohio's Senior Senator following the retirement of George Voinovich next month. In the first head-to-head match-ups, Brown does rather poorly against a number of would-be challengers. He and Attorney General-elect Mike DeWine are tied at 43% in what would be a rematch of...

Democrats will make an attempt to reform the Senate's filibuster rules, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said Wednesday. Brown joined other members of his party who have been signaling, in the closing days of the lame-duck Congress, that their party is likely to seek changes to longstanding Senate rules that require 60 votes (instead of a simple majority of 51) to advance most pieces of legislation in the chamber. "I think you're going to see attempts to do that," Brown said Wednesday morning on MSNBC, referring to the prospects for filibuster reform. The filibuster, or at least the implied threat of...

_resident Obama's $858 billion tax package won a huge bipartisan majority in the Senate Monday evening, setting it up for a contentious debate in the House. In a 83-15 vote, the Senate quashed a filibuster by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Va.). Fifteen lawmakers voted against it, including five Republicans: Sens. Tom Coburn (Okla.), Jim DeMint (S.C.), Jeff Sessions (Ala.), John Ensign (Nev.) and George Voinovich (Ohio). Nine Democrats and one independent voted against the bill: Sens. Jeff Bingaman (N.M.), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Russ Feingold (Wis.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Kay Hagan (N.C.), Frank Lautenberg (N.J.), Pat Leahy (Vt.), Carl Levin (Mich.), Mark...

Democrat senator Sherrod Brown says that unemployment benefits, not tax cuts, create jobs. Appearing on the lowly rated and hardly watched "Hardball" program on MSNBC on Tuesday, Brown took a page out of his Minority Leader’s playbook by ineptly declaring that unemployment benefits are the way to economic prosperity in the US. In the same breath, Brown also decried tax cuts as not doing anything for the US economy in terms of growing jobs for people who want them. Sane people would think that Brown was doing unfunny stand-up comedy, but Brown was being 100% serious. He is the second...

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin will travel to Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, and Sudan this week to examine U.S. foreign assistant programs in the region, Durbin's office announced Saturday. The trip by Durbin and Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) will focus on global health, maternal/infant mortality, clean water, sanitation, refugee, and economic development activities, according to a release from Durbin's office. The senators will also discuss regional peacekeeping and diplomatic issues. Because of security concerns, the full itinerary will not be released in advance. Durbin and Brown departed Friday, traveling first to Tanzania where they plan meet with embassy...

For an editorial promoting fiscal responsibility, The Dispatch overlooked one of the best ways to lower health costs: a public option that competes with private insurers to lower costs and keep the industry honest ("Honest accounting," Oct. 19). The newspaper called the public option "the way for a government takeover of health care," but I ask: A takeover from whom? The two insurance companies that control more than 50 percent of Ohio's health-insurance market? The insurance companies across the nation that deny care based on gender or pre-existing conditions? The insurers that place arbitrary limits on how much medical care...

DAYTON — Sen. Sherrod Brown said Friday, Sept. 18, that he believes President Obama should have a health reform bill — one with a government-run insurance plan and universal coverage — on his desk by late fall. The Ohio Democrat said he would be “hard-pressed” to vote for a bill that does not include a government insurance plan as one of the options available to people. He made his comments following a breakfast speech sponsored by the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Also Friday, an audience member asked Brown about comments by Nancy Pelosi, the...

"Thank you Cincinnati. Thank you, Ohio. Thank you labor," yelled President Barack Obama over the cheers of roughly 4,000 as he took the stage at the PNC Pavilion next to Coney Island moments ago. This followed fiery speeches by labor organizers at today'a annual AFL-CIO Labor Day picnic in Cincinnati. This is the first time a sitting president has addressed the annual picnic, the largest of its kind in the nation. White House officials estimate roughly 10,000 tickets were distributed to the speech, which was moved to the pavilion from the park grounds because of rain. "This is a unique...

<p>President Barack Obama told thousands of cheering union members and activists gathered at Cincinnati's Coney Island park Monday that his economic recovery plan is working.</p> <p>"We're on the road to recovery, Ohio, don't let anybody tell you otherwise," said Obama, who took the stage as the sky cleared following a morning that threatened rain.</p>

...In "The Graduate"...Dustin Hoffman's Benjamin is given a one-word bit of career counseling by one of those shallow and corrupt grown-ups at a shallow and corrupt grown-up cocktail party: "Plastics." Forty-two years later, the line has picked up a meaning that the makers of "The Graduate" could not possibly have anticipated.. today, the reaction is, "Oh, right: America still made things then." We don't any more...Since 1987, manufacturing as a share of our gross domestic product has declined 30 percent. Once the world's leading net exporter, we have become the world's leading net importer. In 2007, we exported $1.2 trillion...

Verbal sparks flew at U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown’s forum on overhauling the health care system. The forum, lasting nearly two hours, was held on Wednesday, Aug. 12, in Columbus at Ohio State University’s Biomedical Research Tower. Mike NeutzLing, 56, a nurse at the Ohio State University Medical Center, blasted plans by President Barack Obama, Brown, D-Ohio, and others to overhaul the system. He said 80 percent of Americans are satisfied with he health care they have now. Neutzling said “the whole concept of limited government is being tossed out the window.” The nation’s founders “understood that when you have unlimited...

Let's face it, most pundits on the left and right (including an amateur like me) produce columns which are largely interchangeable with the rest of their camp. They rarely introduce new insight or change someone's mind. That's not to say we don't try, but it's often an elusive goal. Recently, a headline over a column in my local paper and raised my hopes that I had stumbled across one of those mind-changing columns. Read the health care bill: It won't kill you - by Connie Schultz Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for The [Cleveland] Plain Dealer and...

Senators who voted for the Obama administration’s $787-billion economic stimulus bill defended its performance, saying that despite a weaker-than-expected economy, the stimulus was not a failure and they were not disappointed in the results so far. Republican supporters of the Obama economic plan said that even though the administration’s economic predictions proved wrong, the stimulus is still on the right track. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) told CNSNews.com that the stimulus was not a failure and that the real need was for the administration to spend the money faster. “It means they need to speed it up a bit,” he said....