Time to say thank you to all the energetic field organizers operating on very little sleep to make sure GOTV is a big success ... to all the team leaders who have given up the four days leading up to the election to make sure all runs smoothly ... to all the people canvassing ... to all the people phonebanking ... donating food to the volunteers ... driving canvassers and voters ... I could go on and on.

Here's to you and your hard work on the ground game that will make SURE that we will be celebrating America's first woman president!!!

#HILLYES

Hillary and Tim Kaine came to NE Ohio yesterday for a rally in Cleveland. I wasn't able to go, but I was excited about their visit and saw the event as a chance to give Hillary some of the good coverage she deserves, but our local press outlets don't seem eager to provide.

Instead our local press coverage was awful. On the six o'clock local news: "All anyone can talk about is her cough." (Yes, the news anchor actually said that.) Really? She holds a rally, and (as I learned later) spoke for 20 minutes, but all I hear from the folks who claim they will keep me informed is that she coughed. I also found out (thank you, Twitter) that the rally was also attended by Senator Sherrod Brown, Senate candidate Ted Strickland, Representative Marcia Fudge, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, among others. Why would anyone cover THAT in the news, I mean, really?

The vulgar talking yam also came to Ohio yesterday and spoke with a private audience elsewhere in Cleveland before talking with the folks in Canfield. Guess who got the bulk of the coverage in my local paper today--you guessed it. The vulgar talking yam (who apparently is "moderating" his immigration stance--which will be a big disappointment to the folks interviewed from Canfield, but I digress). But the paper DID mention that Hillary coughed at her rally.

I am so frustrated. I don't know what it will take to get the media to report on Hillary in any way useful to informing voters on what matters. Hillary's campaign has been up and running hard since the middle of summer, so the ground game is there. One thing we do know now is that she won't get any help from local media in this swing state.

Grassroots group Summit County Progressive Democrats are hard at work spreading the progressive message to the international media visiting the RNC. The group has planning for months to organize their message and had good success on the very first day of the convention, speaking with outlets from China, UK, and across the US. Their goal? To share all the good things that Democrats stand for and have accomplished and contrast that with the policy train wreck that is the RNC and their standard bearer.

They got good press coverage from the local Akron Beacon Journal:

http://www.ohio.com/news/break-news/summit-county-democrats-offer-media-access-to-akron-area-people-affected-by-national-issues-1.698109

A friend sent this article out to a whole bunch of us today from Daily Kos. It seems like a good day to post it and share it with you all. When it comes to the Clintons, there is always a SCANDAL and HINTS OF DISHONESTY OR HYPOCRISY. (Things that never, ever, ever happen to Republican candidates ... oh, wait--was that a pig flying by?)

I'm tired of "crooked Hillary" --"She's going to be indicted!" -- "She took money from Wall Street!"

This article addresses so much of the BS that surrounds Hillary. I read it and bookmarked it because I see it as a great resource for dealing with all of the crazy I know I will see while volunteering this fall:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/6/11/1537582/-The-most-thorough-profound-and-moving-defense-of-Hillary-Clinton-I-have-ever-seen

Personally, I would greatly prefer that my tax dollars go to some good use rather than relentless and pointless investigations of jack squat.

I am getting frustrated with the nonstop drumbeat of "don't gloat! The Bernie supporters are hurting!"

Why am I frustrated? The Bernie supporters have been misled and misinformed for months now. Hillary had the nomination after New York. If the situation had been reversed, M$M would have begun screaming for her to bow out and recognize that the nomination had been won by another. But the winner was Hillary ... so instead we heard that Bernie's "path to the nomination was very narrow" or the "math was difficult." No, the math was impossible. Bernie needed to win every state after NY by such a large margin it just wasn't happening. But Bernie supporters were told otherwise.

Now I hear over and over "voter fraud," "rigged primaries," and other such craziness. We DO have to worry about disenfranchising voters and the Republican efforts to suppress the vote in November, but the mindset that every time YOUR candidate loses it's a fraud and every time he wins it's a victory just doesn't cut it in reality.

In 2008, I supported Obama. NO ONE told me to be kind to all the people who had worked so hard for Hillary. Neither she nor her supporters got time to regroup. I could celebrate until the cows came home without being chided.

I also read that Obama should not endorse Hillary yet--things aren't over. Say what?

If I were a Bernie supporter and all this nonsense was being poured into my head regularly, I'd have trouble grasping reality, too. BUT the reality is that Hillary is the nominee, and our job NOW is to get it together and get her elected and work on all the races down ticket. We can't afford the Donald in the White House, and we need to return Paul and Mitch to the back benches where they belong.

Connie Schultz did a great column on celebrating this wonderful milestone in the face of all the nonsense we are hearing about "not gloating."



....



We keep getting told to be sensitive, but being classy and sensitive doesn't mean that we can't rejoice in the nomination of the incredibly qualified, smart, experienced WOMAN we will be working hard to put in the White House in January 2017.

https://www.creators.com/read/connie-schultz

Here in Ohio, known as the "wild west of charter schools" under the leadership (?) of John (I wanna be president) Kasich, higher education is also under fire. The test case that I am most familiar with is at The University of Akron, where a new, very Republican president has engaged in a two-year campaign to undermine academic programs, privatize student services, and fill the highest parts of the administration with very expensive cronies.

This past year rumors were flying that Akron was looking at partnering with the notorious for-profit college, ITT Tech. That apparently has fallen through, but not before the student newspaper put in a records request and learned that this planned partnership had connections to the highest levels of state government. Here is a link to the information, provided by a local monthly paper that has done fantastic work on the issues at Akron: http://www.thedevilstrip.com/home/documents-reveal-a-political-whos-who-of-ohio-supported-scarboroughs-itt-tech-plan/

I know that Ohio is not unique. Republican governors and legislatures are attacking public higher education. I just wanted to share our story with you all. We all need to be paying attention to what is happening all across the country. Public higher education is so important to our health as a nation.

I don't know how much coverage The University of Akron has been getting statewide, but anyone who lives in NE Ohio knows that in the past two years a right-wing president has been slashing and burning the education and student services components of the university while privatizing such areas as food services, student advising, and grounds and building maintenance. Full-time faculty are not being replaced, and what classes are being taught on site are being taught by more and more underpaid adjuncts. The push, however, is for more classes on-line and classes taught through another outside private agency.

This is frightening. A healthy university that EDUCATES its population makes for an economically healthy region. The current model being followed at Akron is privatize, take profits, and provide a substandard education.

In the news this past year was a move on the part of Akron to partner with ITT Tech, the national for-profit university currently under investigation for all sorts of illegal activities. The student newspaper put in a records request to learn more about it, and those records show that the highest levels of Ohio state government were interested in this merger. We need to pay close attention to these guys. The mess they made of K-12 education in Ohio is something they hope to duplicate in higher ed. Akron is their test case, apparently. Here is a link to the article that includes all the documents:

http://www.thedevilstrip.com/home/documents-reveal-a-political-whos-who-of-ohio-supported-scarboroughs-itt-tech-plan/

Someone I like and respect posted this piece on a local discussion board. I thought it was really cool, so got his permission to share it with you. Enjoy!

This comment comes a day after Susan Sarandon's Bernie harangue on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. It was obvious that she wanted to be there not so much to promote her new movie, but to rant on about Hillary. See, Hillary BETRAYED Susan--it's personal. Apparently Hillary is personally responsible for the War in Iraq (huh--I always thought the main responsibility there lay with Dubya and Cheney and Co., but what would I know, not being a famous actor and all), Hillary is personally responsible for international fracking, AND she is in it with Monsanto to poison our food. Okey-dokey.

Susan is all about a brokered convention. See, Bernie is going to win big in all the remaining primaries what with them being open and all (not really--I saw a DU post earlier today that kinda set the record straight). And she and Bernie are going to set us ALL straight on the platform. Again, okey-dokey.

She came across to me as a pathetic child who believes in leprechauns, unicorns, and sparkle ponies. She fervently believes that one 74-year-old guy from Vermont who is struggling to run a national campaign will single-handedly do EXACTLY what Susan wants. If he can't, I'm guessing there will be hell to pay. Hillary couldn't deliver unicorns and sparkle ponies to Susan 10 years ago, so now Hillary must pay. Sadly, too many of Bernie's supporters fall into that category. They think one man by himself can create magic. President Obama would be happy to explain otherwise. Hillary is experienced, tested, and a realist.