Mike Gibbons will run for Portman's Senate seat

 

Earlier this week, Cleveland.com published Seth A. Richardson’s story about Mike Gibbons, who is running for Rob Portman’s Senate seat.  It begins:

Mike Gibbons, a Cleveland investment banker and real estate developer, announced Tuesday he would again run for Senate after unsuccessfully pursuing the office in 2018.

Gibbons becomes the fourth Republican to officially enter the 2022 race to succeed retiring Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican who announced in January he wouldn’t seek a third term. Gibbons has never held elected office, but ran for Senate in 2018 in an attempt to challenge Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, losing in the primary to Republican President Donald Trump’s hand-picked choice, then-Rep. Jim Renacci.

“I’m running for Senate because we need to get our economy back on track,” Gibbons said in a statement. “We need to rein in runaway federal spending. We need to secure our borders, stand for life, and defend our 2nd Amendment rights.”

Gibbons, a Cleveland native who grew up in Parma, is the senior managing director of Brown Gibbons Lang & Company, a Cleveland investment firm. He’s been active serving on boards in the community as well as in Ohio Republican politics, including as Ohio finance co-chair for Trump’s 2016 campaign.

. . .

Read the rest here.  It would be nice if Ohio did not replace RINO Portman with another establishment GOP – such as Josh Mandel or Jane Timken. 

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More on HR1 ~ now in the Senate

 

At the Patriot Post, Hans von Spakovsky explains why the mis-named “For The People Act” – HR 1, is bad news for Americans:

8 Ways That HR 1, 'For the People Act,'
Imperils Free and Fair Elections

It would not only eliminate basic safety protocols, but mandate new, reckless rules and procedures.

HR 1, the deceptively titled “For the People Act,” has arrived in the U.S. Senate after a party-line vote in the House of Representatives. It is without doubt the most dangerous and irresponsible election bill I have ever seen.

If it becomes law, it will interfere with the ability of states and their residents to determine the qualifications and eligibility of voters, to ensure the accuracy and validity of voter registration rolls, to secure the integrity of elections, and to participate and speak freely in the political arena.

HR 1 is an 800-page monstrosity that would usurp the role of the states. It would not only eliminate basic safety protocols, but mandate new, reckless rules and procedures.

Mr. von Spakovsky then enumerates the eight worst provisions of this ill-considered bill.  Click here for the full article.

I don’t know if it will do any good to call decepticon Sen. Rob Portman, but here’s his contact info anyway:

Sen. Rob Portman:  202-224-3353 or by email here

https://www.portman.senate.gov/meet/contact

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Portman’s Senate seat: A Decepticon’s decision

 

Sundance at Conservative Treehouse has an interesting take on Sen. Rob Portman’s announcement that he will retire when his term is up in 2023:

With four GOP senators having announced they’re not running (Burr, Johnson, Toomey, Portman) there’s essentially zero chance of the GOP retaking control of the Senate in 2022.  [20 R seats up & only 14 D seats that are in solid D strongholds] it is far more likely the Democrats will gain seats, so keep this in mind…. 

…When we think about forming a third party, the “you will split the vote” crew always peddles their vote split narrative.  However, the GOP doesn’t have a chance in hell to win 2022 given what the base of the Republicans think about these senate DeceptiCons now.

There has never been a better time for a New Party to launch and capture three or four seats from the retiring GOPe crew.  It would be great to see true MAGA representatives that can caucus with Republicans but hold ground on America First principles.

Sundance’s full report with links and commentary is here.

UPDATE:  Don Surber thinks a third party is still a bad idea.  See here.

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Sen Rob Portman votes against Trump's national emergency at the border

From Breitbart:

Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Mitt Romney (R-UT), Mike Lee (R-UT), Rand Paul (R-KY), Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Pat Toomey (R-PA), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Rob Portman (R-OH), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Roy Blunt (R-MO) voted in favor of eliminating Trump’s national emergency, which would make it harder to secure America’s southern border.

Not veto-proof but still sickening. 

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Sen. Portman’s finger to the wind

Either Sen. Portman has his finger to the wind, or he is stalling until he has enough cover to vote for the bill. Cleveland.com reports:

“I’m trying to come up with an alternative way to deal with this,” Portman told reporters on Tuesday. “I’ll make a decision next week, of course, when the issue comes before us, but I’m trying to get a result here. I know some in the media are very eager to see an immediate decision, but that’s not the way I look at this."

Portman, a Republican, says he supports Trump’s border security plan and wants to help him achieve it. But he wants it done in a way “that doesn’t lead to setting a bad precedent and having some of the funds be tied up in court.”

With that in mind, Portman says he’s seeking to change the wording of the House-passed resolution, to include language that would ensure the national emergency process is not being abused and to clarify that there is money from sources like drug seizures that Trump could use for the border wall.

“One way to handle this is to clarify that so there’s no need to go to an emergency,” said Portman. “And we’re looking at other ideas as well.”

Uh huh. Read the rest here. From the Wikipedia page:

Between the enactment of the National Emergencies Act in 1976 through February 15, 2019, 59 emergencies have been declared;[3] 27 have expired while 32 are currently in effect, each having been renewed annually by the president.

The list is here. Yes, Congress can vote to end an emergency, but the present southern border crisis is an emergency. Sen Portman, Sen. Mitch McConnell, et al, are once again just trying to obstruct President Trump's efforts.

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Trumpcare: Senate version -- is Portman against it

photo credit: Pat J Dooley Photography

Update: The photographer points out that the flying banner may be a message TO Senator Portman, not sponsored BY Sen. Portman. If so, apologies to the Senator, and here's hoping he considers it.

[Apparently] Senator Rob Portman hired an advertising plane this afternoon to circle the downtown Cleveland area. He is coming out of the gate opposed to the newly-revealed/leaked Senate version of President Trump and Secretary Tom Price’s healthcare bill. If Portman is opposed to the bill, it is probably a pretty good start to the process of repealing Obamacare.

Conservative Treehouse jogs everyone’s memory: 

The original (’09/’10) ObamaCare bill was 2,700 pages and most of the toxic takeover construct was intentionally and ambiguously deferred to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius where she added an initial 74,000 pages of regulatory and compliance rules and procedures. [Those HHS regulations now total 673,448+ pages and growing.]

Conservative Treehouse also has a fascinating analysis of the Trump healthcare plan. His blog post is worth reading in full, but here’s the very short précis:

Under Trump’s long-term (3 step) approach – the non-government healthcare market, the majority of the population, will break free from almost all of the ObamaCare government regulations; and the insurance market will be empowered to provide an insurance product that fits the individual needs of the person purchasing the insurance.

♦Dual System Approaches – Much like Secretary Mnuchin is proposing leaving government (via Dodd-Frank) attached to the “too-big-to-fail” group of banks and cutting all else loose from the regulations, so too is Secretary Price proposing to leave government attached to the “at risk population” (Medicare and Medicaid), the group 99% of all political talking points are structured around, and cut everyone else loose from the regulations.

•Step #1 establishes the ability (decouples ObamaCare).   •Step #2 allows HHS to frame the parallel system (deregulation). •Step #3 establishes the broader parameters for the non-government health insurance market.

The full pdf file of the Senate bill is here. 

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Sen. Rob Portman does not oppose Obama’s executive amnesty

art credit: politicususa.com

From Caroline May at Breitbart Big Government:

Many Senate Republicans are offering their support to the 26 states challenging the president’s executive amnesty programs. They’re filing an amicus brief to the Supreme Court arguing Obama’s November 2014 unilateral actions are in violation of the “spirit” of immigration law and a threat to the separation of powers.

“Given that the Executive has asserted that the acts challenged here are not even subject to judicial review, what is at stake in this matter is nothing less than an effort to supplant Congress’s constitutional power to ‘establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.’ Such an action stands in stark contravention to federal law and to the constitutional principle of the separation of powers,” the Senators’ brief reads.

It adds, “There is little doubt that the Executive adopted the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (‘DAPA’) program as part of an explicit effort to circumvent the legislative process.”

Led by Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), 43 GOP senators signed on to the brief. The names of 11 senators were noticeably absent from the list, many of whom are up for reelection in relatively tough November races, including Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) (R-CO), Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). . . .

Repeat. Sen.Rob Portman is up for reelection this November.

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