ProgressOhio

House G.O.P. Adopts Change Theme

Hoping to get things moving in a positive direction, House Republicans will on Wednesday begin rolling out their own policy agenda, trying to showcase their differences with Democrats on issues such as health care, the economy, energy and national security.

In a memo to be sent to Republican members today, the leadership hints at a new slogan building on the change message that has already been shown to have political resonance with a public unhappy with the nation’s direction.

It looks like Republicans will counter the Democratic push for change from the years of the Bush administration with their own pledge to deliver, drum roll please, “the change you deserve.” The first element of the party agenda developed over the past few months by the leadership and select party members will focus on family issues.

Effexor, also known as Venlafaxine, is approved for the treatment "of depression, generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, and panic disorder in adults."

HT: HuffPo

Senators may tweak a bill to overhaul payday lending, but the essence of the contentious House measure will likely clear committee in time for a floor vote Wednesday, the Senate Finance chairman said in an interview Monday.

Although lenders have floated several alternatives, the Senate Finance & Financial Institutions Committee will likely leave unchanged the proposed 28% annual percentage rate cap on the short-term loans, Sen. John Carey (R-Wellston) said.

"We're looking at ways to encourage payday lenders to go under the Small Loan Act as it is in current law," he said. "You can have origination fees under the Small Loan Act. The difference is it's not repetitive loans."

While the measure (HB 545*) sponsored by Rep. Chris Widener (R-Springfield) would prohibit origination fees, the current Small Loan Act permits lenders to charge $15 on loans less than $500.

"The payday lenders say they can't operate under that, but that's probably the best we're going to be able to do," he said. "Not all the payday lenders would transition to that, but we think at least some of them would."

Sen. Carey said he hopes to pass the bill out of committee Wednesday morning in time for a floor vote later that afternoon. "I think we'll have the votes."

"I will not shirk the mantle of leadership that the United States bears," he said. "I will not permit eight long years to pass without serious action on serious challenges. I will not accept the same dead-end of failed diplomacy that claimed Kyoto."

What he should have added is, "I will not vote on crucial environmental legislation" . . .

McCain skipped every one of the 15 votes that the League of Conservation Voters deemed critical measures for the environment, including votes where the Arizona Senator’s yea would have meant passage by a single-vote margin.

McCain has won support from many environmentalists … but his absenteeism on important votes this session calls into question his reputation as a maverick who might buck the party line on some energy and environmental issues.

“Out of 535 Members of Congress, John McCain is the only one who chose to miss every single key environmental vote scored by the League of Conservation Voters last year. When it came time to stand up and vote for the environment, John McCain was nowhere to be found,” said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club. “Every other Member who received a zero from LCV last year at least had the temerity to show up and vote against the environment and clean energy time after time. And unlike John McCain, I doubt any of them would claim to be environmental leaders or champions on global warming.”

Although McCain likes to play up his environmental record in a positive light, and the media often plays along, the facts don’t always back it up, 

“McCain’s LCV score exposes the real record behind the rhetoric: a lifetime pattern of voting with polluters and special interests instead of consumers and the planet when it comes time to stand up and be counted. Or perhaps worse yet: a consistent refusal to stand up and be counted at all.” 

Short and sweet.

Bush May Be as Harmful to McCain as Wright Is to Obama

One-third of likely voters say they are less likely to vote for McCain because of Bush

PRINCETON, NJ -- George W. Bush may do as much damage to John McCain's chances of being elected as Jeremiah Wright does to Barack Obama's, according to results of a recent USA Today/Gallup poll.

 Update: CNN's Cafferty: Will Pres. Bush or Rev. Wright cause more damage?

Here's her acceptance speech

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• A survey of Central Ohio gays and lesbians found that 60 percent had been called names, threatened or had their personal property defaced because of their sexual orientation.

• The inspector general for the U.S. Department of Justice launched an investigation to determine whether a career attorney with stellar performance reviews had been dismissed because of rumors that she is a lesbian.

After 1100 entries and more than 5.5 million total votes cast, the results are in.

From among 15 amazing finalists, a panel of top filmmakers, artists, musicians, and progressive heroes picked the winning ad, "Obamacan."

Here are the winners:

“Grand Prize” —Obamacan by David Gaw & Lance Mungia (Monrovia, CA)

“People’s Choice”

“Most Original”

“Best Positive Message”

“Funniest”

A state program that provides growth assistance to small businesses enjoyed a record-breaking funding month in April.

Treasurer Richard Cordray said more than $30.3 million was distributed to small businesses in April through the GrowNOW program. The assistance was provided in the form of a 3 percent interest rate reduction on loans for job creation and retention.

"Our goal is to infuse an average of $20 million each month into Ohio's small businesses and help promote job creation through providing businesses with the critical cash flow they need to get through growth periods," Cordray said. "Clearly, months like April are a huge stride in achieving that goal."

All told in April, 143 new program recipients were provided assistance with the potential to create or retain 1,234 full-time and 93 part-time jobs.

Applications for coming grant cycles are now available online at www.GrowNOW.ohio.gov. Eligible small businesses must be organized for profit, have fewer than 150 employees and must have offices and operating facilities within Ohio's borders.

Will Washington Post and Wall Street Journal Call for Release of Cindy McCain's Taxes as They Did with Teresa Heinz Kerry?

Media Matters Calls on Publications to Explain Lack of Consistency

Washington, D.C. - During coverage of the 2004 election cycle, both The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal published editorials calling on Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry, to release her tax returns.

To date, neither publication has called on Cindy McCain, wife of presumptive 2008 Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, to do the same.

Media Matters for America released letters sent to the editorial boards of both papers calling on the publications to explain their lack of consistency.

CNN was the only news network to discuss the issue in this report which ran once on The Situation Room.

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The McCain-picked leader of the Republican national convention has quickly resigned after a report revealed his lobbying ties with Myanmar.

The man chosen by John McCain's presidential campaign to run this summer's GOP convention--Arizonan Doug Goodyear--has resigned setting a new land speed record for shortest time lapsed between the "story breaks" and "ax falls" phases of a political scandal.

Goodyear is CEO of DCI Group, a consulting firm that earned $3 million last year lobbying for ExxonMobil, General Motors and other clients--not the most convenient association for a candidate who's already struggling to reconcile his reputation as an anti-special interests crusader with the sizable number of lobbyists on his senior staff.

Further complicating matters: the revelation that DCI was paid $348,000 in 2002 to represent Burma's (Myanmar) military junta, leading a PR campaign to burnish the junta's image, drafting releases praising Burma's efforts to curb the drug trade and denouncing 'falsehoods' by the Bush administration that the regime engaged in rape and other abuses."

Ouch.

Update: Second McCain aide quits over DCI ties

Doug Davenport, the McCain Campaign's regional campaign manager for the mid-Atlantic states, founded the DCI Group's lobbying practice and oversaw the contract with Myanmar in 2002.  —  “Doug has tendered his resignation and we have accepted it,” Jill Hazelbaker, McCain's communications director, wrote in a e-mail.

The Republican party platform has a strict anti-abortion policy that has been pushed for years by social conservatives and embraced the Bush Administration.

The "Maverick" John  McCain was in favor of exceptions to this policy for rape, incest, and the mother's life. 

Far right conservatives (the Religious Right) want to maintain the hardline policy, taking away all authority of a woman over her own body and placing it in the hands of those who are "pro-life" when that life is in the womb, but couldn't care less after it is born. 

Assuredly, the new McCain will bow down before his "spiritual masters" once again in an effort to maintain the Republican Party's extremely fragile coalition.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., faces enormous pressure from social conservatives to ignore his repeated commitment to change the GOP's platform on abortion. 

"If he were to change the party platform," to account for exceptions such as rape, incest or risk to the mother's life, "I think that would be political suicide," said Tony Perkins, the president of the conservative Family Research Council, to ABC News. "I think he would be aborting his own campaign because that is such a critical issue to so many Republican voters and the Republican brand is already in trouble."

A senior Republican close to McCain told ABC News that building a more inclusive GOP is a top priority for the Arizona senator.

But this adviser does not see changing the party platform to include exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother as necessary for achieving that vision.

Watch Bush, McCain, and Keyes in 2000 debating abortion.

Yesterday at the ODP Statewide meeting, Party Chair Chris Redfern named, and the party approved Dave Regan and William Craig Bashein as superdelegates.

Regan, the former President of SEIU 1199 who recently moved up to the international union as an executive vice president, soon after announced his support for Barck Obama.

DELEGATES: OBAMA GETS OHIO ADD ON

Obama picked up an Ohio add on, AP reports: “Ohio labor leader Dave Regan, who was selected as a superdelegate Saturday, told the AP that Obama is ‘the candidate that can unite the country and move beyond the divineness and gridlock that we have today.’ Regan recognized that Clinton won the Ohio primary March 4. ‘But that was two months ago. I think as the campaign has unfolded, Obama is looking like a stronger and stronger candidate,’ Regan said. ‘I think it's very likely he will be the nominee.’”

The campaign confirms Regan as well. Regan is the fourth Obama has picked up today

With Regan's support of Obama, Ohio's super delegates now stand as five for Clinton, five for Obama and nine undecided. 

The Air Force is requesting $59 million of our tax money to spew misleading and false information to the American public. 

Air Force's Scare-Mongering Space Ad Shoves Facts Out of the Airlock

No one expects commercials to be word-for-word accurate -- not even ads from the U.S. military.  But a new Air Force commercial, about the perils of an attack in space, does more than stretch the truth, a bit.  It snaps the truth into tiny little pieces, experts and former officers say -- violating the laws of physics and common sense, while flying in the face everything that's known about the world's constellation of satellites.

"What if your cell phone calls, your television, your GPS system, even your bank transactions, could be taken out with a single missile?" the military ad asks. "They can."

No, they can't.  Not unless there's some new missile out there that can strike dozens and dozens of targets, spread out over thousands and thousands of miles.  Even a nuke in space wouldn't do the trick. 

Full Story From Wired

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The media made the release of Teresa Heinz Kerry's tax returns a huge deal.

Where's their outrage now that Cindy McCain refuses to release hers?

CBS News:

Kerry's Wife: Above Suspicion?

What would be in her tax returns that's worth keeping secret?

A lot, actually. One Republican lawyer says Heinz's returns would be a "treasure trove of opposition research." One thing the returns would show, this lawyer says, is the extent to which Kerry is a "kept man." According to his tax return, Kerry's income in 2003 was $395,338 -- over half of which came from the sale of his quarter interest in a 17th-century Dutch painting co-owned by Teresa and the art dealer Peter Tillou. (The 4' x 8' painting, incidentally, is "The Arrival of Frederick and Elizabeth, Prince and Princess of the Palatinate, at Flushing, April 29, 1613" by Adam Willaerts.) Sure, it was a high-income year for the senator. But in 2003, Kerry also took out a $6.4 million mortgage on his share of the couple's Beacon Hill townhouse in Boston to fund his strapped presidential campaign.

The Washington Post editorial board:

Teresa Heinz Kerry's Taxes

...with her husband seeking the presidency, her financial dealings, as well as his, ought to be as open as possible. Keeping her returns private would set a bad precedent. Imagine a future presidential candidate whose spouse has complicated business dealings or federal contracts, chooses to file a separate tax return, and refuses to make it public.

Robert Novak:

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn200404...

WASHINGTON -- Sen. John Kerry, having escaped intact a one-hour grilling by NBC's Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" Sunday, slipped in the closing minutes. When asked why his multi-millionaire wife was not making public her tax returns, he misinterpreted the law and the facts. He can only hope voters regard this as arcane trivia.

Three days before her husband's first full-length televised interview since he clinched the Democratic presidential nomination, Teresa Heinz Kerry became the first would-be first lady to refuse disclosure since the practice became common. Kerry told Russert the law required him but not his wife to reveal tax returns, when in fact there is no such law. He is voluntarily disclosing the information, and Mrs. Kerry is not.

This becomes politically critical, because no previous presidential candidate relied so much on his spouse's wealth. Without backing from Heinz ketchup money, it is fair to say John Kerry would not be his party's presidential standard-bearer and probably would not even be a U.S. senator today. Thus, refusal to release his wife's tax returns inevitably raises suspicions, however ill-founded, that the Kerrys have something to hide.

National Review's Andrew Stuttaford

The Curious Discretion of Teresa Heinz Kerry

When it comes to talking about her taxes, however, the voluble — and supposedly fearless — Mrs. Heinz Kerry has been uncharacteristically tongue-tied, preferring instead to hide behind her children. Citing their privacy (thanks to the Heinz trusts, her finances are deeply intertwined with those of her sons) she has held out against full disclosure of her 2003 tax records. As she explained back in April, "What I have and what I receive is not just mine, it is also my children's, and I don't know that I have the right to make public what is theirs...If I could separate it, I would have no problem."

On Cindy?  The sound of crickets chirping . . .

See Also: Double Standard for Candidate Spouses

Media Matters Calls on Publications to Explain Lack of Consistency

Of over 170 countries, the U.S. is one of only 4 that doesn't have any form of paid leave for new mothers (We join Papua New Guinea, Swaziland, and Liberia with that dubious distinction).

1 in 8 children do not have access to healthcare

Women without children make 90 cents to a man's dollar, mothers make 73 cents, and single mothers make the least at about 60 cents to a man's dollar.

Click here to take action

Progress Ohio and the Ohio Healthy Families Coalition are teaming up with MomsRising.org to work toward family-friendly policies.

Where do the major presidential candidates stand on issues like maternity and paternity leave, health care, paid sick days, child care, and equal pay?

Click here to send a MomsRising Mothers Day e-card, and to tell presidential candidates that America's moms need their leadership creating a more family-friendly nation.

From the E-card video:

M is for Maternity leave (the U.S. joins Swaziland and Papua New Guinea on the list of nations without paid leave for new mothers)

O is for Open, flexible work (families need flexible options to fully participate in both the workforce and in family life)

T is for TV (did you know 40,000 kindergarteners are home alone after school?)

H is for Health Care (1 in 8 children don't have access to healthcare. Our child mortality rate is 37th worldwide, even though we pay more per person for healthcare than any other country in the world!)

E is for Excellent child care (only 14% of childcare centers in the U.S. are rated as "excellent.")

R is for Realistic wages (Parents who work 40 hours a week should be able to support their families on those wages)

Click here to send a MomsRising Mothers Day e-card, and to tell presidential candidates that America's moms need their leadership creating a more family-friendly nation.

Happy Mother's Day!

Mom's Rising. ProgressOhio and The  Ohio Healthy Families Coaltion

"We just believe our heroes deserve to be treated better than that."

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered a review of the handling of the remains of US war dead and apologized after learning that some were cremated in a commercial facility that also cremates pets, the Pentagon said.

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said there was no evidence that any US servicemember was cremated in an incinerator used for pets.

But Gates believed that the use of a commercial facility that cremated both humans and pets, albeit in separate incinerators, was "insensitive and entirely inappropriate for the dignified treatment of our fallen," Morrell said.

"The families of the fallen have the secretary's deepest apology," he added.

Watch it: