The fake news attack continued spinning its wheels this week, even after voters soundly defeated Issue 1 in Ohio and elected President Trump with a landslide Electoral College and popular vote wins.
This week’s target? Senate Bill 104, which was amended by the Ohio House with the so called “bathroom bill.”
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State media is dead.
It has lost all power.
It has lost all legitimacy.
They lied to you about Issue 1.
They lied when they called bipartisan.
They lied when they called it grassroots.
They lied when they called it anti-gerrymandering.
Every major state paper endorsed issue 1.
Only On The Record stood against the wave of propaganda, fact-checking the media’s fake news narrative at every turn.
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Ohio voters extinguished the Issue 1 dumpster fire Tuesday.
The $37 million secretly funded dark money gerrymander went up in smoke, as voters defeated it by 8 points, 54% to 46%.
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The single most important thing to know about Issue 1 is that it does just the opposite of what Democrats claim.
Issue 1 doesn’t prevent gerrymandering – it makes it mandatory.
That is not surprising when you learn that the same Democrats who pushed the Russia collusion hoax are a prime force behind Issue 1.
Marc Elias invented the hoax that President Trump colluded with Russia.
As lawyer for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign in 2016, Elias hired Fusion GPS to collect the phony opposition research on Trump that became known as the Russia dossier. It was debunked by the Mueller report.
Elias isn’t just the Democrat’s top dirty trickster.
He is also Senior Advisor and General Counsel for the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC) run by former Attorney General Eric Holder.
Elias filed the NDRC’s lawsuits attacking the constitutional redistricting process in Ohio, claiming the maps for our legislative and congressional districts were gerrymandered.
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The Issue 1 Gerrymander is designed to fool voters into giving their basic rights away to an unelected, unaccountable panel appointed by retired politicians.
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This week, the Ohio Statehouse honored the legacy of Speaker Jo Ann Davidson at the Ohio Statehouse as she became one of just a handful of notable Ohioans who received the honor of lying in state inside the Statehouse Rotunda.
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Thought 57 genders was confusing?
Try following the 57+ steps in the flow chart of the left’s redistricting plan.
It’s simpler to build an atom bomb.
Seriously.
Compare it with the flow chart for the Manhattan Project.
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As early voting begins this week, Ohioans are realizing the danger of Issue 1.
President Trump blasted the secretly funded $25 million out-of-state progressive left power grab that subtracts all the anti-gerrymandering protections passed by 75% of the voters.
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Breaking news!
The Issue 1 gerrymander just tossed another $11 million into its dumpster fire of a campaign.
What was already a secretly funded, out-of-state dark money campaign, just waded neck deep into the DC Swamp. That makes this a $37 million attempt by DC special interests to buy their way into the Ohio Constitution.
$7 million in additional contributions came from Article IV, a dark money special interest group out of DC that originally contributed $3.5 million. They are running scared.
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Two words.
Racial gerrymander.
Reliable, fixed, percentage based outcomes.
“It’s important to point out that Issue 1 is founded in the concept of proportionality,” said Senator Michele Reynolds, “which is just another term for gerrymandering.”
Issue 1 disenfranchises the Black voter.
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The far left is trying to bamboozle you into voting for a big fat lie.
The radical front group Citizens Not Politicians is trying to sell Issue 1 on the November ballot as a way to stop gerrymandering in Ohio.
It would do the exact opposite – it would ensure gerrymandering.
And that’s on purpose.
Why?
To help Democrats do what they can’t do at the polls in Ohio: win elections.
They were banking on the fact that few voters would be willing to endure the torture of reading the mind-bending 13,343 words of tedious and esoteric legal jargon in the 26 pages of the proposed amendment.
But they left a telltale clue at the very heart of their deception.
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Maureen O’Connor says she isn’t a puppet.
Sadly, she’s wrong.
She says support for Issue 1 is bipartisan.
Wrong again.
She says Ohio’s redistricting maps were unconstitutional.
She was wrong seven times.
Let’s fact check the former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice.
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October 7th 2023.
The world was stunned by the murderous terror attack by Hamas on Jewish young people attending a concert in Israel.
When it was over, more than 1,200 people, men, women, families even babies were killed. Nearly 100 Israelis, including 4 Americans are still being held hostage by Hamas.
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The heart of a college is its students, but the backbone is its board of trustees.
Trustees lead their universities and our next generation towards success. This responsibility is tremendous and not without countless challenges.
The Senate hosted the second Public University Trustee Symposium this week, bringing dozens of board members from multiple institutions to the Statehouse Atrium. Leaders learned about the present issues facing academia, most notably promoting intellectual diversity and institutional neutrality.
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The former Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court who is the face of the secretly funded $25 million Issue 1 campaign fronted a new ad this week.
“Seven Times,” she says the Supreme Court ruled the maps unconstitutional. “I know because I was Chief Justice on that court.”
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Maureen O’Connor is peddling a threat to democracy in Ohio.
She wants to seriously weaken your right to decide who represents you in the U.S. Congress and the Ohio Statehouse.
The former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice wants to give much of that power to a panel of unelected bureaucrats and Democratic cronies.
That panel would determine the boundaries of your state and congressional districts, and that would determine which candidates you can vote for.
O’Connor (a true Republican-In-Name-Only) is the spokesperson for the left’s Issue 1 campaign – a campaign based on the lie that it would prevent gerrymandering in Ohio.
It would do just the opposite.
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Secret, out-of-state, dark money.
So secret in fact, $6.6 million of it came from an organization founded by a foreign national.
Ask any Ohioan who really works for a living, how they would describe an effort funded by millions in foreign money designed to takeover the state constitution, and they would tell you that those people are a bunch of traitors who can’t be trusted.
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The Progressive left dark money power grab, otherwise known as Issue 1, took a straight right hand to the chin from the Ohio Supreme Court Tuesday night.
The ballot language passed by the Ballot Board last month was certified by a majority opinion of the Supreme Court.
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The name Citizens Not Politicians is a lie.
It is the exact opposite.
It is Politicians not Citizens.
It is not a grassroots movement.
It is a fake astroturf scheme run by Democrat Party bosses.
The puppet masters behind the campaign for the absurdly complex ballot measure to radically dismantle constitutional redistricting in Ohio are two of D.C.’s biggest swamp monsters – Eric Holder and Marc Elias.
Flipping red states to blue by changing redistricting laws has been Holder’s mission for the last decade.
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Eric Holder wants to fundamentally transform Ohio.
Do you trust him?
On the Record has detailed his plan (here, here, and here) to flip our state from red to blue using Issue 1 – the elitist and anti-democratic ballot initiative to put redistricting into the hands of unelected bureaucrats.
It would overthrow the Ohio Constitution’s provisions on redistricting overwhelming approved by voters in 2015 and 2018.
Holder’s big pitch is that “independent” citizens panels will draw fairer redistricting maps than elected officials. That’s not how it turned out in Michigan, which immediately flipped from red to blue.
Trust me, says Holder to Ohio – like Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown – promising this time it will be different.
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“The Political Outcomes Over People,” campaign as we like to call it, just keeps getting worse.
The deeper you dive into the 13,000 word amendment, the more it becomes clear the dark money funded campaign is more than a political power grab, it establishes an untouchable 4th branch of government that is insulated by its deep state overlords. Rest assured, it is accountable to no one, including every day Ohioans.
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The ridiculous rhetoric and attacks on Secretary of State Frank LaRose reached a near hysteria following the vote by the Ohio Ballot Board to describe the Political Outcomes Over People campaign, otherwise known as Citizens Not Politicians, as an effort to gerrymander Ohio’s political districts by repealing the anti-gerrymandering provisions that upwards of 75% of the voters approved in 2018 and 70% in 2015.
Two term Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, who also was also elected Ohio Treasurer and served as the Mayor of Cincinnati, joins the President’s Podcast this week to push back on the outrageous rhetoric directed at Secretary LaRose.
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All students deserve to be safe on campus. The American Association of University Professors’ (AAUP) new position on academic boycotts puts our next generation’s security in jeopardy.
Academic boycotts prevent the free exchange of ideas, undermining academic freedom and opportunities for faculty and students. They halt research, collaboration with other universities, and more of the necessary work that can change the world.
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The Citizens Not Politicians Campaign can call itself anti-gerrymandering, or it can call itself Diet Coke, or cheesecake, but it is none of the above.
Just because the campaign tries to define itself as an anti-gerrymandering panel made up of good citizens, doesn’t mean that is what it really is, or really does.
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The Ohio Ballot board approved the language you will read this November for an out-of-state and foreign funded Constitutional Amendment that would again change Ohio’s redistricting process.
Friday afternoon, the board voted on clear language for the November ballot.
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Those of us old enough to remember the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, also remember the day before. It was a different world.
On September 10, 2001, mainland America had never suffered a surprise attack. There was no reason to expect it ever would. That all changed the next day.
Somehow, we’ve come back full circle to that attitude of complacency.
The horror of 9/11 has apparently become a distant memory for the Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security. Its website says there are no current terrorism advisories. Nothing to see here.
On the other hand, the head of the FBI says the danger has never been greater.
FBI Director Christopher Wray testified to Congress in March that the threat of a terrorist attack on America has gone to “a whole other level.”
“I’d be hard-pressed to think of a time when so many different threats to our public safety and national security were so elevated all at once,” Wray testified.
Wray says the danger is greater than ever because our border has been wide-open like never before.
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Democrats know their proposed constitutional amendment to “end gerrymandering” in Ohio is a scam designed to get political power they can’t earn at the ballot box.
And they know the campaign pushing the amendment to radically change redistricting in Ohio is bankrolled by a $6.66 million windfall in foreign money.
And, crazy as it seems, that was perfectly legal.
But the top Ohio Democrat is calling that a lie.
In reality, it is she who is not telling the truth.
And we can prove it.
The dark money, deep state attack on Ohio's Constitution totals $25 million and counting. The "Political Outcomes Over People" campaign, as we like to call it, spent $25 million, reserving $16.2 million in ad buys just in the last two months. Political advertising funded in part by a remarkable $6 million contribution from the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a far left political organization founded by a Swiss billionaire.
The radical, well funded takeover attempt of the Ohio Constitution is trying to buy a win that overthrows the will of Ohio voters in favor of deep state political power grab.
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If you thought the Cold War collapsed with the fall of communism in the 80's, you'd be surprised that a new Cold War has smuggled its way back into your ballot box, crossing not only the U.S. border, but multiple state borders, including Ohio.
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Another attempted takeover of the Ohio Constitution, your political districts, and your political voice made the ballot.
Of course, the so-called “Citizens not Politicians” campaign had 200,000 signatures from their petition drive tossed, but when they fund their drive with dark money from the progressive left, then they can flood the most populated counties with signature gatherers to qualify for the ballot.
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When President Biden says something typically preposterous like "the border is secure" or "inflation is under control," you know what that means -- just the opposite is true.
So, when Democrats say they are trying to stop gerrymandering in Ohio, you know exactly what that means, too.
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The Ohio State Fair kicked off this week, and runs through August 4th.
We take the President's Podcast on the road to the State Fair and talk with Ohio's Director of The Department of Agriculture, Brian Baldridge. He grew up on a farm in Southern Ohio, and went onto serve his district in the Ohio General Assembly.
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When you demonize your opponent you risk unleashing real demons.
The assassination attempt on Donald Trump and the murder of one of his supporters was both tragic and inevitable.
They were the direct result of the left’s over-the-top vilification of Trump and his GOP supporters as fascists who pose a threat to democracy.
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Members of the Ohio Senate’s Republican caucus responded on social media or released statements about the assassination attempt of President Trump that stunned the nation Saturday.
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She was only a month into the job, and was faced with a major emergency as a tanker train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. This week the Director of the Ohio EPA, Anne Vogel, joins the President’s Podcast to talk about the agency’s immediate response, and continued commitment to the people living there. Former Ohio Senator Michael Rulli, now Congressman Michael Rulli praised the response of Director Vogel and her team during the Senate’s Select Committee on Rail Safety.
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With gas prices holding steady in the mid to high $3 a gallon range, just for regular unleaded, and inflation grinding away at your grocery budget, vacation plans tend to take a back seat to a one tank trip or a “staycation” this summer.
Ohio is home to so many fantastic places to visit. Hocking Hills State Park, Geneva on the Lake and Ashtabula wine country, Cedar Point, Kings Island, and plenty of lakes around Ohio to cast a fishing line.
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Senate President Matt Huffman joined the announcement of a new Boys and Girls Club location at Bradfield Community Center in Lima.
The Community Center received $480,000 from House Bill 2, the state's Capital Budget bill, for major renovations to recreation facilities, including its gymnasium, fitness and exercise rooms, and 2nd-floor classroom and game room, to support programming that benefits Lima.
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I have been receiving correspondence as of late from Chris Quinn. For those of you outside of Northeast Ohio, Chris is the leftist editor of The Cleveland Plain Dealer. As such, Chris controls much of the editorial/opinion pages of the paper.
I caught Chris participating in a panel on my local TV station a while back. He has a real smooth delivery on screen. Most of the e-letters I receive from Chris are of the standard left wing boiler plate variety. You know the type. President Trump is a communist under Putin's thumb. Trump is the next Hitler. Trump is out to end democracy.
You get the idea. The usual drivel you would expect to hear from a Russia Hoax denier.
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Happy Independence Day! July 4th means huge firework shows and cookouts and a time to relax and enjoy summertime in Ohio.
But how many people do you think really know what July 4th represents?
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Months of meetings, planning and project vetting reached a final vote this week in the Ohio General Assembly. Both the House and Senate approved Ohio’s $4.2 billion investment into communities and neighborhoods around Ohio, including parks and schools and state-owned property.
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Senator Jerry Cirino has run out of patience with House Speaker Jason Stephen’s refusal to bring his Senate Bill 83 up for a vote.
Cirino met with statehouse reporters Wednesday to announce he will no longer negotiate with Stephens over any more changes to the Ohio Higher Education Enhancement Act.
"I respectfully decline to participate in any such discussions with the speaker," said the senator.
Instead, he said, "We are going to wait for a more favorable environment in the House."
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The Senate welcomed its newest member this week. Senator Al Cutrona took the oath of office at the end of the Senate’s Wednesday night session.
The Canfield Republican had been serving in the House of Representatives, but was selected by the county party chairs in his Senate District to serve the remainder of the unexpired term for the 33rd District, following former Senator Michael Rulli’s election to Congress.
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"It’s frightening, and we’re headed for another 9/11."
That’s not Donald Trump speaking – that’s a Democrat. New York City Councilman Robert Holden.
And it’s not just New York at risk.
The next devastating terrorist attack could happen anywhere.
Even Ohio.
Because, thanks to President Biden’s broken border, Ohio is now a border state.
That porous border has made the danger greater than ever.
We simply don’t know how many terrorists have crossed the Southern Border in the last three-and-a-half years, or what weapons they may have brought with them.
All we know is Joe Biden virtually put out the welcome mat for ISIS, Al Qaeda, and Hamas – because there is no one stopping them.
And any terrorist could have entered our unguarded border since 2021.
They could have brought anything from a suitcase nuke to vials of smallpox or the Ebola virus.
The potential for widespread devastation is enormous.
We have been sounding the alarm loud and long here in the heartland, but the state media is just ignoring us – and the danger.
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“Bring Your Child to Work Day” was a big hit on both sides of the aisle of the Ohio Senate.
We hosted 35 children ranging in ages from 10 months to 18 years, brought to the Statehouse by both Republican and Democrat parents.
Typically held in April, the Ohio Senate hosted this educational event a little later in the calendar year due to the volume of legislation.
Developed by the Take Our Daughters And Sons To Work Foundation, a non-profit educational organization, the day is intended to allow parents to show their children some future job possibilities.
And, perhaps, to take some of the mystery out of what Mom or Dad do all day.
This year's theme was "Inspire 2 Aspire," which aimed to show children they can choose their own future, and that their potential is unlimited if they embrace a positive spirit and great work ethic.
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Editor's note: We are reprinting this conversation with Riley Gaines now that a federal judge has blocked President Biden's redefinition of Title IX from going into effect in six states, including Ohio.
Biden would have redefined gender discrimination in a way that allowed biological boys and men to compete against girls and women. Gaines testified before an Ohio Senate committee in support of House Bill 68.
That bill became law after the Ohio Senate and House voted in January to override Gov. DeWine's veto. The measure protects girls' and women's sports in Ohio and bans genital-mutilation surgery, and chemical and hormonal treatments, on children.
Riley Gaines has a message for girls and women in Ohio and across America.
“Understand that courage is contagious. One person speaking up can inspire so many.”
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Senate President Matt Huffman and Senate Finance Chairman Matt Dolan announced the introduction of the final phase of a unique two-part Capital Budget Process.
The Capital Budget process funds many construction and maintenance programs for state agencies.
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Senate President Matt Huffman returns to the President’s Podcast this week.
The left is reeling from the foreign money ban passed during the special session. This comes after Democrats in the Ohio General Assembly repeatedly said it just wasn’t happening. They knew it was. We knew it was. And now it’s illegal for campaigns targeting Ohio’s Constitution to accept contributions originating from outside the United States.
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Ohio’s newest Congressman hails from the Ohio Senate.
Senator Michael Rulli said farewell to the Senate this week after winning a special election to represent Ohio’s 6th Congressional District. He will begin serving the unexpired term of the seat through the end of the year which became available when long time Congressman Bill Johnson became President of Youngstown State University.
Rulli's colleagues in the Ohio Senate recognized his work representing the 33rd Senate District in their floor speeches this week. Watch those speeches and Senator’s Rulli’s heartfelt goodbye to members of the 135th General Assembly serving in the Upper Chamber. The Chamber honored him with a special Resolution.
Senator Rulli is well known and well liked in his hometown of Salem and the Mahoning Valley. He’s a familiar face and friend to the customers at his family’s grocery store, Rulli Brothers Markets. Senator Rulli responded immediately when the Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine, criticizing what appeared to be a lack of concern from federal transportation officials.
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A punk rock Republican politician?
Why not?
Former State Senator (and soon to be Congressman) Michael Rulli embodies the libertarian streak in Republican Party politics – and in rock n’ roll:
“To me, punk rock is the freedom to create, freedom to be successful, freedom to not be successful, freedom to be who you are. It's freedom.” – Patti Smith
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An historic special session highlighted an action of last resort as Governor DeWine used the power conveyed under Article III, Section 8 of the Ohio Constitution to convene a Special Session of the Ohio General Assembly. This was brought on by a lack of action by the House of Representatives to outlaw foreign contributions funding ballot initiatives targeting The Ohio Constitution while also relaxing the filing deadline to help the Biden campaign qualify for the November ballot.
Following two sessions, one on Tuesday and the final session on Friday of last week, the Senate acted once again to pass legislation answering both issues. Both chambers passed two separate bills addressing the Biden problem and foreign funding separately. Problem solved.
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Ohio’s House Democrats are lying to you.
Don’t be shocked – it's what Democrats do.
President Biden keeps lying about inflation by claiming it was nine-percent when he took office. It is such an obvious lie that even left-leaning CNN is calling him out.
House Democrats are using the same playbook.
Seeking power by any means necessary – even lying to your face.
Here's the proof.
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The New York Times is not standing by their reporting. We submitted this response to an error-filled and misleading article a week ago but never heard back. The paper's editor also did not respond to our follow-up inquiry as to whether they planned to run this column. So we will. As always, we stand by our word.
— The Editors
The New York Times has smeared Columbus, Ohio, with a hit piece based on a lie.
The article, “How Gun Violence Spread Across One American City,” published on May 20, portrays Columbus as the poster child for a “striking spread in fatal shootings nationwide since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020.”
The paper claims, "The same spread of gun violence seen in Columbus took place in other cities large and small.”
That’s not true. Columbus has nothing like the gun violence problems seen in numerous major cities run by anti-gun rights Democrats.
Gun violence and deadly shootings are down dramatically in Columbus.
Incredibly, the Times even admits that, contradicting the very point of its own story. But it isn’t until the 18th paragraph that readers learn:
“There is optimism that 2024 is going to be better in Columbus, which has seen homicide numbers fall dramatically so far this year, with 36 as of last week, compared with 70 in the same period the year before.”
But the Times can’t be bothered with facts. Not when it found the perfect villain for its fable about Columbus gun violence: The Ohio legislature.
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State Senator Rob McColley delivers a hard-hitting interview in this week's President's Podcast about the Special Session called by the Governor.
The Upper Chamber again led the way with solutions by cleaning up the Democrats' mess and putting President Biden on the November ballot, while also protecting our elections from foreign influence by closing a contribution loophole for statewide issue campaigns.
McColley reveals the shocking reason why Democrats support keeping foreign dark money in Ohio's elections.
The Ohio Senate passed these two key pieces of legislation Friday during the Special Session called by Governor DeWine.
House Bill 1 was championed by McColley and State Senator Theresa Gavarone. It extends the current law banning foreign contributions to candidates running for office by eliminating the loophole allowing foreign donations to statewide issue campaigns.
"It's imperative we protect our democratic republic from foreign influence, and at its core, this should be an issue where we all find common ground," McColley said. "Our efforts will close this loophole in Ohio's law to better protect Ohio’s elections from foreign nationals hiding behind dark money entities."
"Ohio's elections are meant for Ohioans, not foreign billionaires who wish to exert their influence on our state. Everyone regardless of party affiliation should agree on this basic tenet in order to protect our elections from outside interests," said Gavarone. "Today, the Senate succeeded in its mission, and I look forward to the Governor signing this bill into law."
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Talk about political gymnastics.
Senate Democrats twisted, tumbled, and flipped multiple times this week while trying to protect campaign contributions coming from outside the United States.
They went so far as to blame a television network for the Democratic National Committee's oblivious failure to hold its convention before Ohio's deadline to put Joe Biden on the November ballot.
That’s right, they blamed television for their own incompetence.
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Governor Mike DeWine turned to the Constitution this week, calling the Ohio General Assembly into Special Session on Tuesday, May 28th.
Frustrated by a lack of action by leadership in the Ohio House to pass a bill that would put President Joe Biden on Ohio’s November ballot, while at the same time outlawing foreign contributions directed toward statewide ballot campaigns, the governor executed Article III Section 8 of the Ohio Constitution.
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Facts matter.
But when you read today's left-leaning agenda-driven legacy media, it seems the facts get lost in favor of feelings. You know, feelings from progressive leftists who believe in their free speech, just not your free speech. The same people who condemn election deniers, dark money and foreign election interference, unless it is tied to their issue or candidate.
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It’s the same old story.
Democrats routinely make an absolute mess then scream at Republicans, “Why haven’t you fixed this?”
That’s true whether it's the border crisis, rampant inflation, the crime pandemic...or anything else.
That’s also the Biden ballot brouhaha in a nutshell.
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Ohioans have the right to vote for whom they please. The Senate GOP fought for that this week by attempting to add Joe Biden to the ballot.
That may sound strange: Republicans making sure a Democrat can be a candidate for president, especially following the Democratic National Convention's scheduling error that prevents Biden from making the ballot in Ohio in the first place. (Read more about the Democrats’ latest fail in Senator Terry Johnson’s latest column in On the Record.)
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Two Senate Presidents bring some hard hitting straight talk to the President’s Podcast this week.
State Auditor and former Senate President Keith Faber joins Senate President Matt Huffman to talk about the shocking student protests on college campuses across the country this week, and why they support the way Ohio State University protected both the 1st Amendment and student safety by enforcing the rules regarding demonstrations.
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“I want Ohio State to value diversity of thought, protect freedom of expression, and foster a welcoming environment for Ohioans from every community in the state,” the new president of The Ohio State University testified before a state senate committee this week.
OSU President Walter “Ted” Carter spoke candidly and comprehensively on a variety of hot-button issues.
He is one of the 14 presidents of Ohio’s four-year public institutions of higher education to testify recently before the Senate Workforce and Higher Education Committee at the invitation of Chairman Jerry Cirino.
The purpose was to discuss the presidents’ funding requests in the Capital Budget for the upcoming budget biennium for fiscal years 2025 and 2026. But it was also an opportunity to explore a number of issues.
Click on the links inside this article to see videos of Carter’s remarks.
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Senate President Matt Huffman made the following remarks on video in observance of the Governor's Holocaust Commemoration on Wednesday at the Statehouse:
I would like to express my deep appreciation to the Ohio Jewish Communities for inviting me to address this year’s Holocaust Commemoration.
I am sorry senate business prevents me from attending in person, but I can explain why this event is so crucially important to me, in just two words:
Never forget.
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Shawnee State University is a hidden gem of higher education located along the Ohio River in Portsmouth.
Shawnee State is a global leader of plastics manufacturing and engineering technology, including gaming technology.
The quiet campus in Scioto County is making lots of noise for technology companies looking for the best and brightest young minds who are qualified, competent and ready to go to work immediatlely.
Join us as Shawnee State University graduates talk to Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman, Senator Jerry Cirino, Senator George Lang, and Senator Terry Johnson, whose district includes the University, about their remarkable careers that launched from the Southern Ohio campus.
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It’s a perfect example of the radical left’s upside-down view of reality.
An Ohio State University professor actually referred to campus police as “armed invaders.”
That’s like calling Hamas “peacekeepers.”
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Elementary students had a blast at the Ohio Statehouse this week.
Literally.
Civil War Reenactors set up camp on the Statehouse lawn complete with Civil War era cannons firing throughout the afternoon.
The boom shook the statehouse much the way, President Lincoln’s death shook the nation.
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Each May every American welcomes Memorial Day. Backyard barbecues, parades, and the first signs of summer are all on the forefront of our minds. But the real reason for this day must be recognized.
Memorial Day is an opportunity for us to remember the brave men and women who sacrificed everything for our country. Without our military, our nation and freedoms would not be safe and secure. We all should thank these courageous servicemembers daily, but Memorial Day allows us to honor our fallen and show them the reverence they deserve.
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The Business First Caucus of the Ohio General Assembly welcomed workers from the Merit Shop Alliance this week.
Hundreds of workers from the trades filled the Atrium in the Ohio Statehouse for a special presentation about what the MSA does for young men and women looking for a career in the trades.
Hundreds of workers from the trades filled the Atrium in the Ohio Statehouse for a special presentation about what the MSA does for young men and women looking for a career in the trades.
Merit Shop is based on exactly that — merit. It is the base for growth, for promotion, and for the next level of a career in the trades.
Experience, competence and results make a difference.
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The Ohio Senate is proud of its mission to support pro-family policies, including helping our children find loving homes through adoption.
That’s why we spearheaded the creation of the Ohio Adoption Grant program and have prioritized it as a resource for Ohio’s newest families.
This program has immediately proved to be successful beyond our wildest expectations. It is so exceptionally popular that we have run out of funding twice as fast as anticipated.
This is amazing for the families who have utilized it, but now there is not enough left for more Ohioans aspiring to adopt, leaving many prospective parents and children waiting.
That is why the Senate made a critical $38 million investment into the Ohio Adoption Grant program this week – to keep uniting more families.
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The Senate conducted a busy week of committees, complete with a full voting session Wednesday.
In remarkable fashion, the bills passed unanimously.
The Senate passed Senate Resolution 121, sponsored by Senator Michael Rulli, urging the Biden Administration to invest in natural gas infrastructure and generation. As more coal plants are decommissioned and razed, the power supply available is reduced.
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Housing Reimagined. Building a Solid Foundation for Ohio's Future. Following months of hearings around the state, the Ohio Senate's Select Committee on Housing released a comprehenisive report detailing the challenges facing Ohio's diverse housing markets.
Within the report's 94 pages, findings from hearings held in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Lima and Marietta combined with hearings from the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus painted a unique set of challenges facing Ohio's current inventory of homes that are available for sale, to hurdles facing new construction and affordable rental units.
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Springtime in Ohio wouldn't be complete without getting into the weeds with Ohio's statehouse press corps. There are always headlines blooming, many of them national.
Folowing the rollout of the Senate's Select Committee's Housing Report, Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman took tough questions this week from statehouse media.
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{Editor's Note: We had an audio glitch on one of our microphones this week. My apologies. Fortunately the audio for President Huffman and Senator Reynolds is crystal clear. So as we used to say in the golden age of television, don't adjust your set.}
Following several months of hearings around the state, the Senate’s Select Committee on Housing released its findings and recommendations for a path forward in a 94-page report.
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It is always easier to ask questions than answer them.
Join us for an inside look at what it is like to face the legacy media, in this case, the statehouse press corp.
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Totality Awesome!
Watch our story from Indian Lake in Logan County where we captured an amazing photo of the “Ring of Fire” as the solar eclipse reached totality.
Senator Steve Huffman, Senator Rob McColley and their families watched as the moon’s shadow turned daytime into nighttime.
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Ohio was "The Heart of It All" for political science and the science of astronomy this week.
The total solar eclipse delivered a once in lifetime event for many, as totality crossed a large part of Ohio on Monday.
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While attending a political event a few months ago, I ran into an old friend. She asked me if I knew Brent Larkin, former Executive Editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Yes, I knew him. Not very well mind you, but I did have contact with him when I was the Ashtabula County Auditor. I also sat before him several times at candidate endorsement interviews.
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The wide open southern border is a growing threat to Ohio. The mainstream media won’t discuss it. But I will.
I hosted a Border INsecurity Forum last week with Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and numerous law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and local officials. We spent time learning about how the porous Southern Border is creating dangerous criminal activity in our Northeastern Ohio communities.
We invited the media to attend.
There was zero coverage. Just another taste of The Views the News Excludes.
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More than 200 homes were demolished or seriously damaged by the March EF-3 tornado that blasted Lakeview, Ohio, and the surrounding communities near Indian Lake. Senate President Matt Huffman joined local leaders to craft an immediate plan for a state response to help people who lost their homes, or whose homes aren't safe live in.
The effort to provide funding for temporary housing is underway and is being coordinated through the Governor's Office. A plan to provide RV's for people to live-in and park on their property was proposed, which would provide a fastser and more economical response than waiting for the federal goverment to act, if at all.
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I would like to commend OSU graduate student Christine Fite on the guest column she wrote for Columbus Dispatch titled, “Integrity of Ohio’s universities in jeopardy. Extreme bill a dangerous (sic) to future.”
She writes well and seems bright, caring, and well-intentioned. I applaud Ms. Fite for her civic-mindedness and concern for the state of higher education in Ohio, even though I disagree with her conclusions.
I would like to take the opportunity to set the record straight, so that she and her fellow students across Ohio can rest at ease, knowing this bill will, in fact, improve our state’s higher education system.
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The crisis at our Southern Border is causing unprecedented chaos and threats to the quality of life in nearly every state, including Ohio.
State Senator Jerry Cirino (R-Kirtland) hosted the Border INsecurity forum in Independence, Ohio, on March 27. The forum was a search for solutions that included law enforcement officers, mayors, prosecutors, and other local leaders. These men and women discussed the dire consequences the wide open Southern Border has on our neighborhoods here in Ohio.
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Fraud, flowcharts and frequent lawsuits.
Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman delivers a hard-hitting interview on a recent report from the State Auditor's Office detailing a billion dollar fraud regarding Medicaid recipients double enrolled with another state.
Plus, we show you the confusing road map to nowhere the progressive left wants to use to gerrymander the state on their behalf. And why the ACLU's recent lawsuit against an Ohio law protecting children, is yet another example of politics over public safety.
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The crisis at the Southern Border of the United States threatens every state in the nation. Drug trafficking, human trafficking, and violent crime threatens the public safety of Ohioans across the state.
This week, Ohio State Senator Jerry Cirino hosted police chiefs, prosecutors, mayors, and elected officials at a forum on border security.
Attorney General Dave Yost delivered the keynote address, sharing what his team has learned about the very real danger that has arrived here at home, and what can be done.
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Editor's Note: This is a reprint of an article that ran on Christmas. We thought it would serve as a timely reminder this Easter.
President Thomas Jefferson penned his letter to the Danbury Baptists describing a wall of separation between church and state on January 1, 1802.
Two days later he attended church inside the U.S. Capitol.
In the House of Representatives.
No heads exploded because there was no ACLU yet.
How times have changed.
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Thursday night brought a deadly EF-3 tornado to Auglaize and Logan counties, creating a debris field several miles long that destroyed many homes and businesses in the Indian Lake Neighborhood. Three people died. The damage assessment is underway.
There was a tremendous outpouring of support with tons of donated food and clothes made avaialble at Indian Lake High School. Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman and Senator Rob McColley represent the area and joined Governor Mike DeWine for an aerial and ground level view of the devastation.
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It's your money first, not the government's. That's our firm belief and that's why President Huffman is talking tax relief this tax season on this week's President's Podcast.
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The left just doesn't seem to care about facts. One wonders if they truly think that if they say something enough that people will start believing them, or if they are just blinded by their own ill-conceived far-left zealotry?
Regardless, here is a painful fact for them. The Ohio General Assembly approved record funding for public schools in the current budget.
Another painful fact is that today's school funding system is constitutional.
If you missed Senator Andrew Brenner's column on school funding, make sure you read it by clicking the link inside this story.
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Senator Ted Gray passed away this week. His legacy is unlike any other member of the Ohio General Assembly.
Senator Gray served 43 years in the Ohio Senate.
His first term began in 1951 and his final term ended in 1994.
Originally from Piqua, Ohio, Senator Gray later became President Pro Tempore, and in the 1990's served as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
His colleagues honored him at the Ohio Senate Reunion, which was held in the Statehouse Atrium in 2022.
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What would you think if the government began keeping track of every Big Mac you buy? Or every Big Gulp. Bottled water. Red meat. Gasoline. Or anything else the busybody woke left does not like?
And then, what if the government said you could not buy any more because the number of your purchases was “suspicious?”
Does that sound like America to you?
But that’s exactly what the radical left is now trying to do with firearms. It’s a backdoor attempt to steal your Constitutional right to self-defense.
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Ohio's Constitution remains an easy value-added target for far-left groups funded by foreign dark money.
As we learn more about political organizations like the Sixteen Thirty Fund, it becomes more clear that billionaires from outside our country's borders are targeting Ohio's Constitution by funding a revolving door of far left issue camapaigns aimed at changing the law, without a single committee hearing at the Ohio Statehouse.
This week, Senator Rob McColley joins us for the President's Podcast to explain why the passage of Senate Bill 215 is a huge step in protecting the integrity of Ohio's Election System and our state's founding document, the Ohio Constitution.
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Editor's note: We prefer to publish exclusively in On The Record because we developed this platform to speak directly to you without the spin and censorship of the state media. We felt an exception was necessary in this case.
An abbreviated version of this piece was published in the Columbus Dispatch on February 19 in response to an editorial by one of our Democratic colleagues. It was filled with so many untruths we felt it was necessary to set the record straight and to make sure Dispatch readers were aware of the real facts.
The Dispatch limits all submissions to a certain number of words. This is an expanded version for those eager to learn more of the truth.
Senator Bill DeMora, a Columbus Democrat, did not tell the truth in the column he penned for the Dispatch on February 13 on state spending for public schools.
DeMora claims Republican lawmakers are “diverting precious funds away from our public schools” by expanding school choice for K-12 students.
That is false.
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Dark money campaign donations from outside the United States continue to infiltrate far-left issue campaigns targeting Ohio's Constitution. Senators Theresa Gavarone and Rob McColley sponsored Senate Bill 215 to ban campaign dollars contributed by foreign donors.
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Early voting began Wednesday in Ohio.
Nearly a month of early voting is available to registered voters.
Tuesday, March 19th, is Election Day in Ohio.
This week on the President’s Podcast, Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman talks about election security, voter ID, and the first election using Ohio’s new bipartisan maps for the General Assembly that were passed unanimously by the Redistricting Commission.
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Is smoking bad for your health?
Yes.
Should local municipalities be permitted to ban certain flavored tobacco from being sold to adults?
No.
In this week’s President’s Podcast, Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman responds to criticism from the healthcare community following the Senate’s recent veto override that reinstated the law prohibiting local governments from passing their own tobacco laws.
The General Assembly made a record investment in Ohio public schools in 2023.
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Senate President Matt Huffman, and Senator Jerry Cirino make the case for asking Ohio’s public universities to review and disclose their administrative costs as part of the process to apply for billions of dollars available as part of the 2024 Capital Budget process.
This caused a meltdown by the editorial side of Cleveland.com, which has reveled in name calling and launched tirades of vitriolic nonsense.
Don’t miss our response in this week's President's Podcast.
Get an update on Senate Bill 83, Ohio’s Higher Education Enhancement Act and why it is vital to protecting independent thought on today’s campuses and how it empowers trustees to truly act in the best interest of their university.
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Foreign campaign contributions are now targeting Ohio’s elections.
It might sound like a movie script based on espionage tradecraft, but it is the reality we are facing here in the heartland.
This week we learned that contributions from the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a far-left advocacy group led by a Swiss billionaire, are helping fund the attack on Ohio’s redistricting process.
That’s a process endorsed by 70% of the voters in 2015, which also produced a bipartisan and unanimous vote by the Redistricting Commission approving Ohio’s new House and Senate maps last fall.
Senator Theresa Gavarone joins us this week on the President’s Podcast.
She is leading the way in protecting Ohio’s elections from foreign interference and contributions.
Get her unique perspective about why bills she is sponsoring in the Senate are vital to Ohio’s election integrity, especially in a presidential election year.
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Foreign money doesn’t belong in Ohio’s elections.
And the convoluted and confusing ranked choice voting concept doesn’t either.
That’s why I am working on two bills to prohibit both in the Buckeye State.
Last week, Senator McColley and I introduced Senate Bill 215, which prohibits foreign entities from funding ballot issue campaigns and closes the loophole on foreign dark money.
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The Ohio Constitution requires a three-fifths vote of each chamber of the Ohio General Assembly to overturn a governor’s veto. In the Senate that equals 20 votes. Senate Republicans cast 24 votes on Wednesday to override the governor's veto of House Bill 68.
Click on this story to listen to their moving floor speeches.
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In case you missed our in depth discussion with Senate President Matt Huffman last week, he challenged the upcoming campaign led by former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor to overturn Ohio’s redistricting process. That process was passed by more than 70% of the voters as a Constitutional Amendment.
Her campaign, funded with dark money from at least one foreign organization, now has one goal in mind: Gerrymander wins for Democrats by dividing communities that are now represented in compact districts as directed by the Constitution.
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This was a historic week in the Ohio Senate.
Lawmakers voted to protect our most precious natural resource – our children.
Senate Republicans cast 24 votes on Wednesday to complete the final phase of the legislature’s override of the governor's veto of House Bill 68.
This legislation protects women’s sports in Ohio. By maintaining the integrity of Title IX, the bill ensures that our daughters’ courts, playing fields, and locker rooms are safe, competitive, and for women and girls only.
The bill also prevents gender reassignment surgeries and the use of cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers on children, protecting youth from procedures and drugs that have life-long consequences, while also ensuring access to mental health care. It also preserves the right of parents to consent to any such mental health treatment.
However, the media coverage (as usual) came with a fixed and false narrative. That included the Ohio Associated Press, which wrote that “Ohio has banned gender-affirming care for minors.”
In this week’s President’s Podcast, Senate President Matt Huffman responds to the misleading coverage.
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One year ago, on February 3, 2023, a Norfolk Southern train derailed and caught fire in the village of East Palestine in Columbiana County. The horrific crash and aftermath caused widespread destruction, toxified the air, and turned the lives of the community upside down. Members of the Ohio Senate set out to find answers as to why this catastrophic derailment happened and how to best support the members of East Palestine.
Senator Michael Rulli, who represents the community, reflected on the past year saying the following:
"This was a devastating accident that uprooted and changed the lives of an entire community forever. Myself and many others from the state visited and helped the people of East Palestine but the Biden Administration failed to do its job."
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Make no mistake, Ohio is under attack by foreign campaign dollars.
Undisclosed donors from foreign countries are spending millions to change Ohio’s Constitution.
This week, Senator Rob McColley and Seantor Theresa Gavarone introduced SB 215 that will ban those contributions.
It is the next step in their efforts to protect the integrity of Ohio’s elections and make sure your vote is secure.
Click on this story to hear to them explain exactly what’s at stake for Ohioans.
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Gerrymandering.
It’s the Democrats new answer for everything.
Traffic was bad. Gerrymandering.
The pancakes were cold. Gerrymandering.
We didn’t win the election. Gerrymandering.
It’s the new breakfast cereal for today’s Democratic party. They wish it was Lucky Charms, but unluckily for them, candidates, campaigns, and issues matter.
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Ohio has sent dozens of its own into space, leading the way in exploration beyond our world. Some of these heroes will be part of the Ohio Statehouse forever.
Ohioans in Space, a painting by Bill Hinsch, was unveiled in the Statehouse Rotunda this week. This masterful piece is the first commissioned painting to be installed in the seat of state government in 66 years.
The painting features astronauts John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell, and Judith Resnick with the notable addition of Gene Kranz, representing the engineers and scientists in the laboratories and control rooms of NASA.
These legendary Ohioans embody decades of American dominance in space, showing us all that anything is possible.
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This week the Ohio Senate will vote to override the Governor’s veto on House Bill 68.
The bill simply protects children from sex change surgery, also known as gender reassignment surgery, while maintaining access to counseling and some prescriptive treatments. It also protects girls’ and women’s sports by not forcing females to compete against boys and men on school and college teams.
If you haven’t read our column responding to the media’s temper tantrum following the House’s convincing vote to override the governor’s veto, it is worth your time. How can editorial pages be so out of touch with today’s audience? No wonder their businesses so many newspapers are folding.
Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman delivers some straight talk on the President’s Podcast regarding the vote to override. It’s worth listening to his thoughts, as a grandfather of seven grandkids, about why we have a duty to protect Ohio’s children.
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Protecting kids. That’s what House Bill 68 is all about.
Saving girls’ sports and protecting all children from the life-long consequences of highly experimental, unproven, and inherently dangerous chemical treatments and surgical procedures.
The Governor’s veto of the Saving Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act was a truly puzzling and remarkably poor decision for parents, children, and families.
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Work in the Ohio Senate has been heating up even as temperatures have dropped below freezing. Senators have been busy in Columbus, and across the state, introducing new legislation, meeting with constituents, and ensuring that all Ohioans are supported, protected, and have their voices heard. Here’s a brief update on the top 10 items in Jnauary, so far.
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From availability to affordability. Renters, homeowners and future homeowners face significant challenges looking for a place to call home.
The Senate’s Select Committee on Housing, chaired by Senator Michele Reynolds, R-Canal Winchester believed that it was important for hearings to be held outside of the Ohio Statehouse, in different communities around Ohio.
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The car is a ticket to freedom. That’s why in Ohio we protect your ability to choose the vehicle best for you.
Since its dawn in Detroit, the American car revolution has changed our country for the better. Transportation keeps us connected and our economy strong. Ohio’s economy is even leading in the automotive industry, including the second largest workforce in the nation in motor vehicle and parts manufacturing.
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Editor’s note: We submitted Senator Cirino’s column to the Plain Dealer more than two weeks ago. Crickets.
Senate Bill 83 is intended to reform Ohio’s higher education system to make it the best in the nation. In the years of research and consultations I spent designing this legislation it became clear that top leaders are essential to the success of this endeavor.
So I was puzzled to read the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Brent Larkin make such malicious accusations against the new president of Youngstown State University, a man of true character with a remarkable résumé.
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"Harvard president’s resignation highlights new conservative weapon against colleges: plagiarism."
That was the actual headline from the outraged, woke minds of mush at the Associated Press.
You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to spot the woke spin – it was the size of an EF-5 tornado.
Of course, the real story was Professor Claudine Gay had to resign as Harvard president after nearly 50 credible accusations of plagiarism in her work surfaced.
That was after she stunned lawmakers by refusing to say in her testimony before Congress whether calls for the genocide of Jews violated Harvard’s code of conduct.
The headline accusing conservatives of “weaponizing” plagiarism was so ludicrous that AP was subjected to a barrage of ridicule as soon as it posted the story on X.
Comments in community notes quickly illustrated how far AP had strayed from reality. Elon Musk accurately observed that AP had a bad case of woke mind virus.
The AP was shamed into changing the headline a day later (Plagiarism charges downed Harvard’s president. A conservative attack helped to fan the outrage) but without issuing a correction notice or posting any explanation.
A spokesperson for AP merely said, “The story doesn’t meet our standards,” without bothering to explain or apologize.
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A veiled prediction that Ohio will turn from red to blue.
Or bluer.
Bluish, maybe.
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Charles Dickens, Governor Thomas Corwin. and former U.S. Chief Justice Salmon Chase star in our President’s Podcast Christmas story.
Join us for a ghosts of Christmas past stagecoach ride of a Christmas tale told by Chris Matheney, the Historic Site Manager for the Ohio Statehouse.
Charles Dickens originally had an Ebenezer Scrooge opinion of Ohio in the mid-1800’s, but like his main character in “A Christmas Carol,” his thoughts softened over time.
Today’s live streamed holiday choirs, and LED adorned tree lighting ceremonies of Christmas present, make us thankful for the Christmas spirit that was covered softly by the gas lighting, no pun nor pudding intended, of the 19th Century.
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The Save Women’s Sports Act is about something much bigger than sports.
It’s about protecting the most fundamental right in America – equality under the law.
It’s about ensuring equality and fairness for every girl and woman in Ohio.
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This week the Ohio Senate passed House Bill 68, which does two things.
It protects women’s sports, by making sure women compete against women. And it protects children from radical sex change procedures.
That’s it.
But if you just read the headlines from Ohio’s newsrooms and didn’t know anything about the bill you’d think the legislation banned athletes from sports and banned treatment for children suffering from behavioral disorders.
That would be a lie.
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If you’ve been looking to buy a house you’ve seen some of the challenges in Ohio’s housing market from a very personal level.
Those challenges range from limited homes for sale, condition, and the climbing cost of home ownership.
If you’re renting, you’ve probably seen many of the same issues.
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“The Ohio General Assembly could be in for its least productive year, in terms of passing bills into law, since at least 1955, state records show.” – Cleveland Plain Dealer, November 10, 2023
And now for the real news.
The last two General Assemblies under Senate President Matt Huffman have been extraordinarily productive by any objective standard.
More than seven out of ten bills passed with bipartisan support last General Assembly – that’s risen to 85% this term.
The current General Assembly is investing an unprecedented $86.1B to build an extraordinary foundation for the state's bright future.
There is a wealth of beneficial but unpublicized features in House Bill 33, the FY24-25 Main Operating Budget, passed by both chambers.
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The widespread media reports of the death of Senate Bill 83 were greatly exaggerated.
In fact, the Ohio Higher Education Enhancement Act took a major step toward becoming law on Tuesday when it was approved by the House Higher Education Committee.
We now look forward to Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens bringing SB 83 up for a floor vote so it can be approved by a majority of representatives and become law as soon as possible.
I sponsored this legislation to meet an urgent need to restore basic freedoms and education fundamentals at Ohio’s 14 public universities and colleges.
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The Ohio Senate enthusiastically welcomed Brian Chavez as the new senator for Ohio's 30th District on Wednesday. Chavez is an extremely accomplished executive in the energy industry who lives in Reno, Ohio.
Chavez will serve the remainder of former Senator Frank Hoagland's term and then run for a full four-year term in November of 2024. Senator Hoagland retired December 1st.
“I’m humbled and honored to have been selected to serve the hardworking people of Ohio’s 30th Senate District," said Chavez. "I’ve long admired Senator Frank Hoagland, and I hope to build upon his successes. Our area of the state has unique challenges and opportunities."
"I look forward to working with my new colleagues in the Ohio Legislature to focus on the job of representing this region, and I’m ready to get to work!”
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Ohio's Republican Senators understand the affordable housing challenges facing people who live in the country are far different than those experienced by people in our cities.
That’s why Senator Michele Reynolds, who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Housing, decided to hold a series of meetings around Ohio.
Committee members are traveling across the state to hear directly from the people living in the countryside to the cityscape about the particular housing issues and challenges they face.
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We have an extraordinary opportunity right now to help secure a great future for our children and untold generations of Ohioans to come.
It is right in our hands. All we have to do is turn the key.
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In October, Senator Cirino and Senate President Matt Huffman welcomed trustees from all 14 of Ohio’s public universities to the first Ohio Public University Trustee Governance Symposium at the Ohio Statehouse.
Watch our series of stories featuring professors and experts in higher education talk about the danger of DEI mandates in faculty hiring.
Diversity has all but disappeared in the form of intellectual diversity on campus as group think has turned into discriminatory practices of alienating and cancelling those with opposing viewpoints as outcasts and racists.
Watch respected Ohio University Professor Richard Vedder highlight the need for trustees to utilize a professional outside of the president’s office to help make independent and objective decisions for the future of their universities.
Hear from Senator Cirino and President Huffman about the mission of the General Assembly is helping reform higher education to make sure it is truly working for the people of Ohio.
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We are witnessing a major reason Senate Bill 83 is needed in Ohio now.
Kristallnacht on campus is dangerously close to becoming a reality.
The nationwide support for Hamas on campus and in the streets after the attack on Israel has been a shocking wakeup call for liberals.
They are especially stunned to find so many fellow leftists supporting the attackers.
Liberals ask themselves, how did such a virulent antisemitism become so widespread within the ranks of the left?
DEI is a prime reason.
The practice of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion has become gospel on campus. It is more like a cancer, according to someone who should know.
Tabia Lee wrote, “As a black woman, I was the perfect person for the job” as director of the DEI department at Silicon Valley’s De Anza College.
But Lee ran into a brick wall when she tried to address rampant antisemitism on campus. She was called a “dirty Zionist.”
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The Tusky Valley community is suffering immense grief after a horrific accident killed six people.
Traveling to Columbus so that band members could perform at the Ohio School Boards Association Conference, three students from Tuscarawas Valley High School in a charter bus were killed in the crash on Interstate 70 in Licking County on Tuesday, as were three adult chaperones affiliated with the school. 15 students were hospitalized.
Investigators believe a tractor-trailer struck a vehicle, causing a chain reaction accident involving the bus carrying more than 50 people, an SUV carrying chaperones, and other vehicles. The crash and resulting fire were so horrendous that nearly two dozen fire crews and numerous police agencies responded.
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Ohio’s statewide judicial elections needed a change: clarity for voters.
I sponsored Senate Bill 80 with Senator Cirino last General Assembly because Ohio Supreme Court and district courts of appeals races lacked basic transparency. The bill ensures a candidate’s party affiliation is next to their name on the ballot, whether they be a Democrat, Republican, or Independent.
Before SB 80 took effect, Ohio was the one of the only states in the country that ran partisan primary elections for judicial races but “non-partisan” general elections.
That old system was dishonest and deceptive to Ohio voters.
Judicial races are partisan. Candidates must win partisan primaries, and parties endorse candidates and give them resources to win. These candidates go to Republican or Democrat dinners and knock on doors alongside other party members.
Ohioans care about these facts. The average voter is aided at the ballot box by knowing the party affiliation of a potential Ohio Supreme Court justice or appellate court judge.
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When the legacy media narrative becomes the story.
This week, a must watch President’s Podcast focusing on election night.
Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman talks about the passage of Issue 1 and Issue 2.
His statement on Issue 1 caused quite a social media meltdown as the legacy media read meaning into the statement that simply wasn’t there.
Plus, what he thinks will happen at some point that’ll change hearts and minds about abortion in Ohio.
Then, what changes are coming to Issue 2, Ohio’s new recreational marijuana law.
President Huffman talks about some of the big changes the Senate may make to the newly passed statute that big marijuana won’t like, from removing sweetheart deals on tax rates to defining a poorly written section of the statue requiring a minimum amount of THC of 35% rather than a cap of 35%.
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Ohio Senator Frank Hoagland announced his retirement from the Senate with his resignation to take effect December 1st.
“It has been an honor to serve with my colleagues in the Ohio Senate,” said Senator Hoagland. “From serving my country as a SEAL in the United States Navy, to serving my neighbors in the 30th Senate District, my heart will always be loyal to my country and to my state.”
Senator Hoagland spent a career in the U.S. Navy and continued to fight for his fellow veterans by securing funding for key mental health and rehabilitation programs in the state budget.
“I’m honored to call Senator Hoagland a colleague and a friend,” said Senate President Matt Huffman. “Frank brought a unique understanding to the job which was very helpful and enlightening to our caucus on a range of topics. In addition to his expertise, he brought a genuine caring and sense of humor that we will miss," said President Huffman. "He is a true hero in every sense of the word."
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Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman has been named a Defender of Limited Government by the Institute for Legislative Analysis (ILA).
A spokesperson for the Institute says "it is very rare for leadership to get awards from us" and calls this the "the most comprehensive analysis ever conducted on the Ohio legislature."
"I've stood for limited government and have fought to defend our Constitution my entire career," said President Huffman.
"Ohioans are reaping the rewards of the legislature cutting regulations, supporting educational choice, and promoting and protecting individual liberties,” he added. “This award demonstrates these successes, and we look forward to many more here in the Buckeye State."
Limiting government by cutting bureaucratic red tape has helped President Huffman and his GOP colleagues in the Ohio Senate pursue their goal of making Ohio the best place to do business.
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While most Americans grieve and reel in horror after the brutal massacre of Israelis, a shocking number of students and faculty on our college campuses are cheering on Hamas – while oppressing, alienating, and verbally assaulting Jewish students.
These are the fruits of DEI indoctrination on campus. The far left’s hateful bigotry is becoming clear for all to see, and it is stunning many who had no idea how bad it has become.
Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) have coordinated multiple protests across dozens of American university campuses. SJP’s national chapter called Hamas’ terror attack a “historic win” for the “Palestinian resistance.”
These students have the absolute right to speak freely. But the rest of us are free to judge them based on their words and deeds. These protests and other actions at our colleges show that anti-Semitism is a growing threat on campus. Many of our Jewish college students are alarmed.
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The Ohio Senate held the first Ohio Public University Trustee Governance Symposium this week at the Ohio Statehouse. University trustees from around the state were reacquainted with the idea that the faculty and president of a university works for the trustees and not the other way around.
Watch our two stories highlighting an eye opening panel of respected leaders and professors who talk about the censorship of those who dare disagree with accepted liberal orthodoxy, and what the Senate wants to do to make sure trustees have the resources needed to truly make their universities accountable to the people of Ohio.
Click on this story to see the links to the videos.
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The Ohio Senate hosted the very first Ohio Public University Trustee Governance Symposium at the Ohio Statehouse in October. Trustees from all 14 of Ohio’s Public Universities attended and listened to important panel discussions and debates ranging from protecting intellectual diversity on campus, hiring practices and what needs to change to make sure trustees are actually making the best decisions for their universities that serve the people of Ohio.
Watch our new video with Professor Richard Vedder, Distinguished Professor of Economics Emeritus at Ohio University as he reinforces the idea of why policies and procedures need to be updated to make sure trustees are getting all of the relevant information needed to make vital decisions for the future of their campuses.
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I know we must be doing something right when coastal elitists, statehouse liberals, and the billion-dollar abortion industry generate a national media hit piece attacking our little online newsroom, On The Record – The Views the News Excludes.
It took just five editions of OTR to generate a national story by the Associated Press hinging on three transparently far-left sources accusing us of “unprecedented” misinformation.
What stories could possibly generate this type of meteoric meltdown of breathless indignation?
Abortion. Specifically, the radical attempt to enshrine abortion on demand in Ohio’s Constitution, driven by the real misinformation of the Issue 1 campaign supporting the ballot initiative.
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Editor’s Note: Even though the vote on this issue did not go our way, we are keeping this piece posted on OTR so readers can see for themselves whether the author's predictions following the vote come true.
We have a professional duty and a moral obligation as members of the Ohio State Senate to explain our ideas, actions, and policies to voters.
We can’t do that effectively if the state media censors us.
The newspapers claim they don’t censor us – but they don’t tell you about the editorials they refuse to run. Critics say the papers won’t run our editorials because they have “misinformation.”
Really? The Columbus Dispatch refused to run an editorial that expressed our belief that men can’t have babies. Does that sound like misinformation to you?
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Editor’s Note: Even though the vote on this issue did not go our way, we are keeping this piece posted on OTR so readers can see for themselves whether the author's predictions following the vote are coming true.
Abortion is killing the black community.
The abortion industry has nefarious roots in hatred and racism. Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was a eugenicist who systematically targeted “inferior races” for decades. She opened her first clinic in a black neighborhood in Brooklyn.
This horrific moment was just the beginning. Abortion is still a lucrative business scheme in America.
Since 1973, this predatory industry has claimed the lives of 20 million black children in the nation.
Ohio’s black women and babies have felt this evil year after year. And it continues today.
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Editor’s Note: Even though the vote on this issue did not go our way, we are keeping this piece posted on OTR so readers can see for themselves whether the author's predictions following the vote are coming true.
The proposed constitutional amendment Issue 1 on the November ballot would give Ohio the most radical pro-abortion law in the nation.
This is why I rose to speak on the Senate floor last week in support of Resolution 215, which opposes Issue 1 on the November ballot.
If Issue 1 becomes a constitutional amendment it would permanently:
- Remove virtually all limits on abortions.
- Legalize abortion on demand at any stage of pregnancy.
- Give Planned Parenthood the power to make life and death decisions.
That’s because this proposal has a catastrophic defect: it is not specific enough to identify what will actually happen if it becomes law.
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Editor’s Note: Even though the vote on this issue did not go our way, we are keeping this piece posted on OTR so readers can see for themselves whether the author's predictions following the vote are coming true.
Issue 1 is not only the most radical pro-abortion proposal in our nation’s history – it has hidden dangers permitting atrocities that would make it the most gruesome law we have ever seen.
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The Senate approved Senate Resolution 215 this week, expressing the chamber’s opposition to Issue 1, a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot this November that would remove the current laws protecting children, women, and families.
It would also permanently enshrine in our state’s constitution abortion-on-demand through all nine months.
The resolution was co-sponsored by Senators Kristina Roegner and Michele Reynolds.
"Human life is precious – at all stages – and must be protected," said Roegner. "Issue 1 is dangerous and irresponsible. It would undermine the current rights and protections of unborn children, women and parents."
"The abortion industry has dark roots in hatred and racism, resulting in 20 million black children’s lives being taken since 1973. The black community accounts for just over 13% of Ohio’s population, yet according to the Ohio Department of Health, 48.4% of abortions in Ohio were performed on Black women," Reynolds said. "This issue has a profound impact on black children and families. We must remember protecting life is about equal protection under the law and the right to live." Watch Senator Reynolds' moving floor speech.
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Editor’s Note: Even though the vote on this issue did not go our way, we are keeping this piece posted on OTR so readers can see for themselves whether the author's predictions following the vote are coming true.
The $30 billion-dollar commercial marijuana industry is following Big Tobacco’s model of maximizing profits by getting more and more people addicted to its products. Ohioans now find themselves in the marijuana industry’s crosshairs—with a choice to make.
After the marijuana industry wrote its own law to legalize marijuana for recreational use, then paid to get it on the state’s Nov. 7 statewide ballot, Ohioans will be the ones who decide if casual, non-medical marijuana use should become legal and if new marijuana farms and stores should be allowed to open across the state.
Do we go the way of states like Colorado and Washington that legalized recreational marijuana almost a decade ago and are now suffering the consequences or join the recent wave of states that have rejected it, after learning the lessons of the earlier states’ failed experiments?
My 22 colleagues in the Ohio Senate and I believe this blatant cash grab should be rejected. That is why we voted for Senate Resolution 216, urging citizens to join us in rejecting this sweetheart deal for the marijuana industry.
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There are moments in our lives when we will always remember exactly where we were and how we felt when the unthinkable happened.
The Greatest Generation will always remember Pearl Harbor.
Years later, 9-11 burned an image into our hearts and rallied every neighborhood from coast to coast to fly the American Flag from their homes as the Global War on Terror began.
Saturday’s ambush terror attack by Hamas on Israeli families was truly evil. Imagine armed terrorists storming your neighborhood, executing your neighbors, killing moms and dads, brothers and sisters, and defenseless babies.
If you’re furious you should be. This week the Ohio Senate condemned the attacks conducted by Hamas and supported by Iran in the strongest terms by unanimously passing Senate Resolution 214.
The message was sent to the United States Congress and to the President of The United States expressing our steadfast support of Israel.
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My heart is broken for our friends in Israel. The terror launched upon the innocent families, mothers, fathers, children, and defenseless babies is pure evil. I’m proud that my colleagues in the Ohio Senate passed a resolution standing firm with the sovereign nation of Israel and with our Jewish neighbors here at home.
Just last year I joined a trip with members of the Ohio General Assembly to Israel. I learned so much, as our hosts revealed to us the latest in Israeli ingenuity in everything from medical technology to defense systems, and how they educate their youth.
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On Saturday, October 7th 2023, Hamas carried out an unprovoked attack on the state of Israel.
Terrified Israelis awoke that morning to terrorists executing an intricately planned, coordinated attack by land, sea, and air.
The Senate unanimously passed Senate Resolution 214 this week, condemning the unprovoked attack on Israel by Hamas and those supporting their invasion and atrocities.
This resolution declares our unwavering and unequivocal support for the Israeli people as they defend themselves against this unjustifiable and atrocious attack.
The stunning reports of atrocities, including the kidnapping of civilians, the rape of girls and women, and beheading of babies has revolted the entire civilized world.
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Editor's Note from John Fortney: The following column is republished with permission of the author and was originally published online by Newsweek. Mark R. Weaver is an attorney and communications consultant who previously served as the Deputy Attorney General of Ohio.
Most law students like to argue. But there are some who, after cheering recent atrocities by Hamas terrorists, argued themselves out of a job. As proof that irony is taught in law school even though it's not a listed course, one law student claimed that Israel "bears the full responsibility" for the butchery of Israeli women and children but now seems unwilling to take responsibility for her own statement. So a law firm did it for her and revoked her job offer.
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The Senate passed Senate Resolution 216 this week detailing our opposition to Issue 2, the proposed initiated statute on the November ballot that would legalize the use and retail sale of recreational marijuana.
Issue 2 was written by the commercial marijuana industry to put their profits over people. Ohio already leads the nation in opioid overdose deaths. Drug overdoses are the leading cause of death by injury in Ohio, and 33,000 Ohioans have died of drug overdoses since 2011.
Issue 2 will allow the marijuana industry to capitalize on addiction and turn it into profit.
"This statute was written by the marijuana industry to line their pockets, not help Ohioans," Romanchuk said. "This proposal adds fuel to the fire of our current addiction crisis, and we know from other states that have legalized marijuana use that traffic deaths, crime, and workplace accidents rise. Issue 2 is a bad deal for Ohio."
"They must've been smoking dope when they wrote it," said Senator Johnson who is a doctor and former county coroner.
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As the primary sponsor of SB 147, effectively known as The Voter Registration Modernization Act, I am committed to delivering results for my constituents. This voter friendly bill was inspired by new American voters in my district who raised the question of how to declare party affiliation in Ohio. Many of them, who are excited to participate in free and fair elections, didn’t understand why the only way to become a Democrat or Republican in Ohio is to choose a partisan ballot in a primary election in even numbered years.
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10/12/2023
Who's the Real Fascist?
This cleveland.com podcast "Today in Ohio" featured the following quotes from the paper’s editor yesterday.
“Typical Jerry Cirino. Trying to grab headlines and not really doing the work.” Translation: Typical of the paper’s editor who just likes to hear the sound of his own voice, and puts zero work into learning what the facts are.
“You know he’s got the bill that ... would turn college campuses into almost fascist states.” Translation: The editor wouldn’t know the difference between fascism and freedom if he was educated in a gulag.
The truth is Senate Bill 83 addresses the silencing of opinions by campus organizations or faculty and truly provides for a freedom of thought on campuses, regardless of what the editor of a newspaper tries to censor.
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You might be surprised to learn that woke billionaires George Soros and Bill Gates, and other rich leftists, are paying journalists to write fake news about Ohio politics.
And this fake news can end up on a Cleveland television news website and in the biggest newspaper in the state.
Communications Director John Fortney introduced us to some of these tentacles of the Soros-Gates octopus last week in his story, “Legacy Loss.”
Here's how it works – the fake news money trail in 5 steps:
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The vacuum left by the loss and downsizing of legacy print and broadcast newsrooms has emboldened privately funded far left groups to fill the void with newsrooms in name only.
These are nothing more than on-line attack blogs aimed directly at conservative legislatures and elected officials.
In Ohio, that operation is called the Ohio Capital Journal.
Influence Watch pointed out the online publication’s self-described “left leaning” slant that offers “principled progressive commentary.”
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If you, like so many others, question whether your local newspaper is relevant to your neighborhood and your life, look no further than what the Cleveland Plain Dealer and its online arm cleveland.com announced this week.
The editor wrote a column outlining a new directive requiring reporters to retrieve race-based research on the people they interview. I’m not kidding. Read all about it here.
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Editor's Note: We submitted this column to the Toledo Blade three weeks ago. We never heard back from them.
When I first became a state representative 7 years ago, I preemptively met with my local school officials to discuss their issues and concerns for our children, including getting our kids active and engaged in their futures by investigating career options.
Consequently, I became involved in education, never thinking that severe problems existed within the Ohio Department of Education (ODE). I was wrong.
I next sat down at ODE to learn how our education system works. There, I was stunned to discover Ohio’s abysmal remediation rate. 1 in 5 Ohio students need math or English remediation when they head to college, meaning these new adults do not have the skills they need to succeed in college or life.
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The media’s so-called experts were wrong. Again. Defying their predictions of gloom and doom, the Ohio Redistricting Commission passed new state legislative maps unanimously with a bipartisan vote on September 26.
Prior to that, the media had trotted out its panel of self-appointed “experts” from its unanimously liberal corner to weigh in on the subject. God save us from self-appointed experts. Who are these paragons of virtue always ready with an opinion on all things political? What makes them experts, other than self-acclaim? Let's look at three of the loudest voices in the liberal corner regarding redistricting.
First, we have former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor. O'Connor, who finds herself suddenly on the fast track to canonization by the Democrats, is suddenly an expert on redistricting. She has even proposed a remedy and I would urge everyone to read it. It is what those of us with an agricultural background would call a "pig's breakfast." The more you know what's in it, the less you like it.
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As a proud grandfather, it’s been my pleasure to witness some of my 37 grandkids begin attending Ohio’s best universities. Higher education can bestow countless rewards for the next generation—including critical thinking skills, pathways to fulfilling employment, and an overall better quality of life.
But the cost of college can put a nearly unbearable burden on our students. Enormous student loans have become the new norm because of an egregiously expensive four years. Ohio is the 11th state in the nation for student loan debt load. We need to look at the root of the problem: what factors are driving the exorbitant cost of a modern education?
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It was beneath the dignity of the New Yorker Magazine to spend 6,800+ words on the half-truths and blatant falsehoods in a hit-piece on Ohio’s political leadership in the article “State Legislatures Are Torching Democracy.”
Making matters worse, the Plain Dealer (owned by the same company as the New Yorker) thought it wise to promote the magazine’s misrepresentations by doing its own story on the article, titled, “Ohio’s gerrymandered legislature draws unfavorable national media attention.”
Even more egregious, Editor Chris Quinn offered a full-throated endorsement of the New Yorker article in the Plain Dealer’s podcast on August 10, claiming, “This is a good piece,” and, “Everything in the article is true.” That is demonstrably false.
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Ohio, we have a problem.
Our public universities have become hotbeds of censorship and bastions of cancel culture.
Too many of our students are living in fear of retaliation if they dare speak their minds.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression recently released their 2024 College Free Speech Rankings. This yearly study uncovers how open students are to expressing their thoughts on campus.
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The left loves to call the right extremists. Radicals. Outside the mainstream. Just one problem with that in Ohio. Voters keep electing Republicans. Does that make Ohio voters extremists, too? Don't laugh — that's exactly what leftists think.
In his column after another GOP landslide victory last November, the Plain Dealer's Brent Larkin bitterly lectured voters, "Ohio's legislature is one of the nation's most extremist." But, who are the real extremists?
The vast majority of Americans who embrace traditional values or the party that thinks men can have babies?
- The party that thinks boys should compete with girls in sports?
- That babies are born racist?
- That concerned parents are domestic terrorists?
- The party that teaches sexual politics to kindergartners?
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Narratives instead of news. That's the headline that best describes most of today's mainstream media.
They will not tell you the real story.
So, we will.
Everyone knows the reporting in Ohio's major newspapers has a left-wing bias. Their editorials read like Democratic Party press releases attacking and smearing Republicans in the General Assembly.
Worse yet, we now find it increasingly difficult – nearly impossible – to get those papers to publish editorials by Republican state senators representing our side of policy debates. The editorial boards' woke gatekeepers make conservatives face additional and ever-changing standards designed to keep us quiet.
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The editor of the largest newspaper in Ohio has called for the arrest and imprisonment of the President of the Ohio State Senate.
Repeatedly.
His alleged crime? Doing his job. As defined by the state Constitution. Our media finds that intolerable.
While this would strike any reasonable person as absurd, it is the inevitable result of the delusions that have increasingly infected much of the so-called mainstream media for decades. It was only a matter of time until they called for the criminalization of conservatism. They are taking their war nuclear. It's time to fight back.
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You expect criticism in politics. It comes with the turf. But this is something new. Something disturbing. Something dark.
Criticism of politicians was mostly confined to the issues back when journalists valued objectivity and generally stuck to facts. Politicians made their case and critics made their rebuttal, all based on the issues. Not anymore. Now it’s personal. Even here in Ohio, the heart of it all.
The state media’s penchant for character assassination has been growing for some while but their strident opposition to Issue 1 caused them to really lose their marbles. Our woke media mavens ripped off the mask and began screaming in your face. Leftists used to say the personal is political. Now the political is personal.
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Editor’s Note: The Cleveland Plain Dealer refused to publish this editorial because it was too critical of their reporting and commentary. Senate Bill 83 was passed in the Senate and awaits approval in the House.
We sure touched a sore nerve when I introduced my Higher Education Enhancement Act designed to protect academic integrity and free speech on campus at Ohio's public universities and colleges.
Ohio Senate Bill 83 immediately became the target of hysterical and hyperbolic screams of anguish in the form of editorials in the Columbus Dispatch and Youngstown Vindicator, and a thinly disguised opinion piece masquerading as a news story in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Let's set the facts straight.
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Don’t miss this week’s President’s Podcast.
Senate President Matt Huffman is joined by Representative Bill Seitz, whose floor speeches and service to the people of Cincinnati have reached legendary status.
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Early reporting shows 25 counties decided Issue 1. The turnout in metropolitan counties trumped the no votes in the other 63. Ohio's Constitution is an easy target for special interest groups.
The Issue 1 campaign spent $35 million and counting, funded by wealthy out of state special interests to saturate the airwaves and social media channels with its narrative to sell a very broadly written constitutional amendment that, according to analysis from the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, will make abortion available at any stage of pregnancy.
Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman said on election night, "Life is worth fighting for. As a grandparent of eight, the life of a baby is always worth the fight. The national abortion industry funded by wealthy out-of-state special interests spent millions to pass this radical language that goes far past abortion on demand. This isn't the end. It is really just the beginning of a revolving door of ballot campaigns to repeal or replace Issue 1."
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Thank you for the great response to our debut of On The Record.
A special thanks goes to the legacy media for their meltdown and hit pieces.
You did exactly what we expected.
Thank you for the promotion.
Hugs.
Now on to our second edition.
