On the Renacci-Joyce wingers; Pete Crossland, Rob Portman, Steve King

Now that we won't have  Republican congressmen to kick America  around for at least five weeks, I want to fill in a few blanks from the past week's immigration vote debacle:

Your two GOP representatives from northern Ohio - Jim Renacci and David Joyce - joined the heavy seas'  Cruz revolt by voting for a nonsensical grandstanding substitute bill with zero chance of getting past the Senate.  Both congressmen  have occasionally  been called ''moderates" in the  mainstream  media.. But a glance at their records show they come down squarely on the hard-wrong nutsy side that so pleases the Cruz mob.

So let's not continue the phantom portrayal of them as anything but lockstep wingers.

Renacci is opposed in a Republican designer district by Democrat Pete Crossland.  And when you mention this long-time party  loyalist and officeholder to other Democrats, some just shrug.   Let me tell you about shrugging:  The Democratic Party owes him.  He assumed the party's face-saving role when no other Democrat - even at his urging - would agree to accept the challenge. He didn't think an area with so many Democrats should leave the ballot space blank.  That, alone should wave off the shrugs, unless you are referring to the County Democratic Party these days.

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So how did Sen. Rob Portman view his party's collapse in the House to the Cruzers?

He flew out of Washington and eventually turned up Friday at the Ohio State Fair, which has always been a welcome managerie for politicians.  There, the Dispatch reported, he did what comes naturally for GOP pols these days: He blamed President Obama for the humanitarian crisis.    But as with so many of his cautious non-answers about other issues he  said he favored  a policy shift on immigration. Considering that he belongs to a political group on Capitol Hill  that's  frozen in place, that would take years.  Besides,   wasn't it  President Bush who signed the document in 2008 that gave migrants time to state their cases for remaining in the U.S?

(Portman, lest we forget, was Bush's budget advisor, and you know how that turned out.)

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And now for some really heavy lifting:

Daily Kos reports that a  House bill to honor Pope Francis for "inspirational statements and action" in advance of  his 2015 visit to the U.S. has met with tepid response from Republican congressmen.

Of the 221 co-sponsors only 19 are Republicans.  According to a Republican supporter of the measure, some of his collegues believe the Pope sounds  too much like Obama,  particulalry when he wants to help people in ways that are "more humane, noble and fruitlful, and which bring dignity to their presence on the earth."

Daily Kos also reminded us that Rep. Steve King, one of Cruz's wacko dittos,  said the U.S. needs the strongest of immigration laws because the border was created by God and any attempt to violate it is  "disrespectful of God".  

King, by the way, lives in Kiron, Iowa (pop. 279) and belongs to the Odebolt Chamber of Commerce.  For God's  sake, if you want to know more, look it up!

Today's business mode at a newspaper's checkout counter

Adding a lighter touch to the darker side of the upheaval of ownership at today's newspapers, Daily Kos posted Jimmy Fallon's  insightful take on the recent  transaction at the Washington Post:

"Jeff Bezos, the CEO if Amazon.com, bought the Washington Post for $250 million.  He just walked into the Post's headquarters and said: 'Add to the cart.'"

Youngstown Vindicator offers words to Mandel

Today's recommended viewing of another Josh Mandel gem:

It's the film clip of Mandel's interview by the Youngstown Vindicator that is posted on-line by Daily Kos.    During a testy discussion of the auto bailout, which Mandel opposes, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate snapped at the paper's editorialists, "Please, sir, don't put words in my mouth." To which the editor replied:  "Somebody's gotta put words in your mouth because all you do is talk in circles."

It's also newsworthy that when a conservative newspaper like the Cincinnati Enquirer endorses  a liberal Democrat like U.S.Sen. Sherrod Brown over Mandel, the enthusaism for Mandel's candidacy continues to take a beating -  if ever there were any enthusiasm in the first place other than the right-wing high rollers who have put nearly $20 million into the Whiz Kid's campaign.

The Williams-Bolar case goes national

THANKS TO Kymberli Hagelberg's Fairlawn-Bath Patch home page for alerting us to a national movement in support of Kelley Williams-Bolar. (See my post below). Hagelberg reports that a social action site, Change.Org, has a web-based petition to get Williams-Bolar's sentence reduced. Another site, Daily Kos, says more than 1,000 signed the petition in eight hours. Among other things, Change.Org is seeking donations for Williams-Bolar's legal defense. .

Two of three Republicans: Obama's a Socialist

THE NEXT TIME THAT you have lunch with three Republicans, you should know that two of them believe President Obama is a Socialist. That's the finding of a poll by Research 2000, a well grounded independent pollster that ran the survey for the Daily Kos, a liberal Blog. The survey reported 66 pct. believe Obama is a lefty who dreams of owning General Motors and such.

Want more from the folks who support that other party that keeps talking about bipartisanship and human values? More than half of them don't believe that Obama was born in the U.S, or, like the Republican lieutenant governor of Tennessee, aren't sure. There were a lot of other things in the Republican profile from the survey that was anti-gay, and pro-Sarah Palin. It also reaffirmed what has been known in certain religious quarters many times before. Two thirds of the Republicans say the only way to get to Heaven is through Jesus Christ.

By the way, your luncheon partners may uneasily dismiss the results. But that's not how they will vote in the privacy of the booth. Fair warning.