Tag Archives: Sherrod Brown

Sherrod’s Socialist Record, 2005-2010

Posted in ohio, politics on January 16th, 2012 at 1:13 pm
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Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) hasn’t been rated America’s most liberal senator two years running by accident, nor as a result of some sudden leftward shift. If Sherrod’s votes from 1993-98 and 1999-2004 weren’t convincing enough, take a gander at recent reasons he should be a single-term senator.

Following are some of Sherrod’s notable votes from the list tracked by the American Conservative Union (ACU).

  • 2005: Sherrod voted to block oil drilling in ANWR, hike fuel efficiency standards, and spend taxpayer funds on embryonic stem cell research. He voted against bankruptcy law reform, Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac reform, tying UN funding to UN reforms, and requiring parental notification to transport a minor across state lines for an abortion.  ACU Rating: 4
  • 2006: Sherrod voted to impose Net Neutrality. He voted against a capital gains tax cut, a death tax cut, and ending the offshore oil & gas drilling moratorium.  ACU Rating :25
  • 2007: Sherrod voted to ban incandescent light bulbs, expand SCHIP, and spend tax dollars on embryonic stem cell research. He voted against death tax repeal, Alternative Minimum Tax repeal, extension of the Bush tax cuts, and improved earmark disclosure.  ACU Rating: 0
  • 2008: Sherrod voted for more risky Fannie & Freddie lending, two separate $4 billion Fannie & Freddie bailouts, the auto industry bailout, TARP, and a tax hike on energy companies. He voted against missile defense, an earmark moratorium, and a discretionary spending cap.  ACU Rating: 8
  • 2009: Sherrod voted for Obama’s “stimulus,” Cash for Clunkers, Obamacare, and Eric Holder’s confirmation as Attorney General. He voted against medical malpractice reform, D.C. school choice, and de-funding ACORN.  ACU Rating: 0
  • 2010: Sherrod voted for New START, the DREAM Act, and Craig Becker’s appointment to the NLRB. He voted against an earmark moratorium, D.C. school choice, death tax repeal, and a fence on the southern border.  ACU Rating: 0

Sherrod Brown isn’t just a rubber stamp for President Obama’s failed policies – his entire career has been a tribute to stifling central government and weaker national defense.

Now in his twentieth year in Congress, Sherrod deserves no small share of the blame for the fiscal and moral bankruptcy of 2012 Washington. Seeing Sherrod Brown defeated in Ohio this November should be a priority for conservatives everywhere.

Cross-posted from Big Government.

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Sherrod’s Shameful Record, 1999-2004

Posted in ohio, politics on January 10th, 2012 at 8:41 pm
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Last week we looked at the first 6 years of Senator Sherrod Brown’s (D-OH) time in Congress. His early House voting record should alarm fiscal and social conservatives alike, but let’s see whether the decisions he made from 1999-2004 were better!

Don’t get your hopes up; Sherrod’s lifetime American Conservative Union (ACU) rating is 7.77.

  • 1999: Sherrod voted against impeachment proceedings, a broad tax cut package, medical savings accounts, and education block grants. He voted to delay missile defense implementation, and to continue funding the United Nations without demanding UN reforms.  ACU Rating: 0
  • 2000: Sherrod voted against banning partial-birth abortion, eliminating the death tax, and cutting taxes to alleviate the marriage penalty. He voted to lift the embargo on Cuba, increase the federal minimum wage, and impose the federal minimum wage on the states. ACU Rating: 4
  • 2001: Sherrod voted against making it a crime to kill an unborn child while committing another crime. He voted against school vouchers. He voted to allow taxpayer funding for abortions in federal prisons, lift the embargo on Cuba, tighten SUV mileage standards, and maintain the ANWR oil-drilling ban. ACU Rating: 4
  • 2002: Sherrod voted against extending welfare reform, eliminating the death tax, banning partial-birth abortion, capping medical malpractice suits, and a broad 1% domestic spending cut. He voted to limit free speech in the months preceding an election, and to allow Homeland Security employees to unionize. ACU Rating: 4
  • 2003: Sherrod voted against a partial-birth abortion ban, medical malpractice reform, class action lawsuit reform, death tax repeal, and DC school choice vouchers. He voted to fund abortions at military hospitals, keep ANWR closed from drilling, allow human cloning, and allow negligence suits against gun manufacturers when a gun is used to commit a crime. ACU Rating: 16
  • 2004: Sherrod again voted against making it a criminal offense to kill an unborn child while committing another crime. He voted against medical malpractice reform, allowing small businesses to buy health insurance as a group, drilling in ANWR, and a 1% cut in non-defense discretionary spending. He voted to fund abortion at military hospitals, block “bunker-buster” development, and cut military spending in favor of green energy programs. ACU Rating: 4

Based on Sherrod’s 1993-2004 record, he was one of America’s worst representatives on pro-life issues, taxes, school choice, entitlements, and national defense. During his first 12 years in Congress, Sherrod Brown proved himself a worthy torch-bearer for the Progressive cause.

Think he’s improved in the years since? We’ll see next week!

Cross-posted from Big Government.

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Obama Visits Ohio, Sherrod Brown Skips Town

Posted in ohio, politics on January 5th, 2012 at 10:30 am
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When President Obama pronounced the Constitution legally dead at a Cleveland campaign stop, Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) was nowhere to be found. Did the president reach a partisan bridge Sherrod refused to cross? Or was Sherrod’s “scheduling conflict” as politically motivated as President Obama’s latest stunt?

The president has a 41% approval rating in Ohio, where Sherrod Brown faces reelection this fall. Last November, Ohioans voted to block Obamacare – for which Sherrod was the deciding vote – by a margin of more than 1 million.

In other words, Sherrod’s absence didn’t indicate a change of heart from the class warfare he spewed on the Senate floor when Republicans blocked Rich Cordray’s appointment to CFPB:

Chris Dodd and Barney Frank could hardly ask for a more devoted apologist! Sherrod’s “cop on the beat” quip wouldn’t be disgustingly deceptive if police also made up laws as they went along

Sadly, Obama’s Cleveland speech veered Sherrod’s direction; who needs the Constitution when you can strike a populist pose while installing a powerful new bureaucrat?

But when Congress refuses to act and as a result hurts our economy and puts people at risk, I have an obligation as President to do what I can without them. I have an obligation to act on behalf of the American people. I will not stand by while a minority in the Senate puts party ideology ahead of the people they were elected to serve.

Emphasis mine. Obama’s “do what I can” seems to get redefined daily. The proletariat cannot wait for the machinations of Wall Street swine and their purchased politicians!

From a safe distance, Sherrod strummed the same class warfare strings in a press release:

Ohio families deserve a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – complete with a Director – that can stand up to the special interests and look out for Ohioans’ interests.  We asked for a fair up or down vote on Richard Cordray’s nomination. But too many senators are willing to stand instead with Wall Street, blocking a qualified nominee for the first time in the history of the Senate based on opposition to an agency’s very existence.

Never mind that 15 of the 20 biggest “special interests” give most of their campaign cash to Democrats. Sherrod cries foul over any GOP delay to Obama’s agenda, but he’s indifferent to Obama’s abuse of the Constitution.

While avoiding an event where he might be photographed next to an unpopular leftist, Sherrod is a leading spokesman for the president’s most contemptible Progressive policies.

Obama justified the illegal appointment of a new czar by citing regulations that should be pursued by the legislature. Remember the legislature? It’s one of those other branches of the federal government… but unfortunately for President Obama, not every senator is a radical statist like Sherrod Brown.

Regardless of geographic proximity, Sherrod Brown and President Obama are peas in a Progressive pod. Based on his love for stifling central government, we might assume Sherrod learned the wrong lessons from the Russian Studies program at Yale!

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Sherrod’s 20th Year in Congress

Posted in ohio, politics on January 1st, 2012 at 10:53 pm
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As we kick off 2012, we end Sherrod Brown’s second decade in Congress. Senator Brown (D-OH) served 7 terms in the House – starting in 1993 – before his election to the Senate in 2006. I’m 28, and Yale graduate Sherrod Brown has been peddling his blue-collar class warfare elixir in Washington since I was in 4th grade.

Ranked as the leftmost senator in 2009 and 2010 by National Journal, Sherrod has a lifetime 7.77 rating from the American Conservative Union (ACU). What sort of 19-year voting history gives someone a record left of Dianne Feinstein and Harry Reid?

Here are some of the lowlights of Sherrod Brown’s first 6 years in Congress, accompanied by his ACU rating each year:

  • 1993: Sherrod voted for the Brady Bill, D.C. statehood, missile defense cuts, preventing employers from replacing strikers, and Clinton’s “Emergency Stimulus” spending and tax hike package. He opposed school choice funding and missed a debt ceiling vote. ACU Rating: 9.00
  • 1994: Sherrod voted for the assault weapons ban, a $30 billion Omnibus Crime Bill jammed with pork, and a motion to kill the House Post Office ethics investigation. ACU Rating: 14.00
  • 1995: Sherrod voted for “family planning” funding ultimately given to Planned Parenthood, and for enforcement of vast EPA and FDA regulations. He voted against the partial-birth abortion ban, welfare reform, tax & domestic spending cuts, and the “Mexico City Policy” restricting U.S. dollars spent on abortion in foreign countries. ACU Rating: 32.00
  • 1996: Sherrod voted to increase the minimum wage and in favor of killing school choice vouchers. He voted against the GOP budget, welfare reform, repealing the assault weapons ban, overriding Clinton’s partial-birth abortion ban veto, and making English the official language of the U.S. government. ACU Rating: 0.00
  • 1997: Sherrod voted for national education testing and B-2 bomber budget cuts. He voted against the Hyde Amendment, tax & domestic spending cuts, school choice, and converting federal housing programs into block grants. ACU Rating: 12.00
  • 1998: Sherrod again supported national education testing, and voted to allow a minor to be transported across state lines by a non-parent for an abortion. He voted against tax cuts, the partial-birth abortion ban, D.C. school vouchers, opening impeachment hearings, and ending racial preferences. ACU Rating: 4.00

With a few commendable lapses, Sherrod Brown spent 1993-98 as a foe of fiscal prudence, the Second Amendment, and national defense. Sherrod was an equally consistent supporter of Big Labor, bigger central government, and the abortion lobby.

Next week we’ll look at Sherrod’s record from 1999-2004 to see if the late ’90s and early 2000s prompted any shift towards common sense. I hope my previous mention of his lifetime 7.77 ACU rating doesn’t wreck the surprise!

Cross-posted at Big Government.

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J Street’s Favorite Senator

Posted in ohio, politics on December 20th, 2011 at 8:30 am
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Sherrod Brown (D-OH) is the favorite senator of “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobbying group J Street. Submitted into evidence: Sherrod is the only senator endorsed by J Street for 2012. Skim J Street’s list of House endorsements and you’ll find Democrat dignitaries such as John Conyers, Charlie Rangel, and Keith Ellison.

For the group funded by George Soros and founded as a Progressive counter to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the nation’s most Progressive senator is a perfect fit. Curious about the policies promoted at the 2011 J Street conference, where Sherrod Brown was one of just three senators in attendance? Hear from several of the event’s participants in this video:

Where would these folks get the idea J Street welcomes their radically anti-Israel beliefs? From a J Street founder, for one:

If we’re all wrong, if we’re all wrong and a collective Jewish presence in the Middle East can only survive by the sword, it cannot be accepted, it’s not about what we do. Sound familiar? They hate us for what we are, not what we do. If that’s true, then Israel really ain’t a very good idea.

Emphasis mine. That obscure quote suggesting Israel shouldn’t exist if she has to defend herself is from… the 2011 J Street conference.

J Street is a vehicle for every leftist argument against Israel, routinely pushing moral equivalence between Israel and the enemies eager to push Israel into the sea. In less than 4 years, J Street has lobbied for a UN judge who libeled the Israel Defense Forces as war criminals, hosted a speaker best known for suggesting Israel may have caused 9/11, and lied extensively about the sources of their funding.

Jennifer Rubin reports that Sherrod has already received more than $86,000 from J Street in a summary at her Washington Post blog:

This is the outfit that called on President Obama not to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel, organized 54 of the most virulently anti-Israel House members to sign the “Gaza 54” letter urging a lifting of the Gaza blockade, provided assistance to Richard Goldstone (and opposition to a congressional resolution condemning the Goldstone Report) and voiced support for continued funding of UNESCO despite its admission of “Palestine” as a member state.

If President Obama’s Israel policies aren’t far enough left for you, J Street’s endorsement and fundraising are great reasons to support Sherrod Brown next November. Otherwise, add this to the list of reasons Sherrod’s got to go.

Cross-posted from Big Government.

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Sherrod Touts Ted Kennedy’s Morals

Posted in ohio, politics on December 12th, 2011 at 8:30 am
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Left-of-everyone Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) has a leg up on the layman in matters of faith: Sherrod labored alongside Ted Kennedy for a government big enough to drown us all in its generosity. Sherrod is so charitable with your money, he fought for a “public option” in Obamacare!

At a September 2009 Organizing for America rally in Columbus, Ohio, Sherrod promised to pass a health care bill with a public option — because Saint Teddy knew it was good for us:

When discussing the late Ted Kennedy, “He easily could have walked away” is an unfortunate choice of words.

As we saw last week, Sherrod Brown’s take on Christianity features a central government equal parts asphyxiating and unaffordable. If citing Ted Kennedy is Sherrod’s idea of bolstering a faith-based argument, Sherrod is not a person we should defer to on “moral issues.”

Aside from the implication that Jesus hates limited government, why should we resent the Ted Kennedy standard for socialist healthcare? Teddy himself said it best after the 1969 drowning of Mary Jo Kopechne: “I regard as indefensible the fact that I did not report the accident to the police immediately.”

Ted Kennedy was a contemptible man whose name yielded Progressive victories logic and basic mathematics should have rendered impossible. Whether his failings are glossed over by the likes of Sherrod Brown out of Christian forgiveness or partisan convenience, Kennedy should serve as a moral gauge for no one.

OFA rally footage from YouTube user jmknapp. Clip transcript:

SENATOR SHERROD BROWN: But, what struck me is the kind of life that Ted Kennedy could live and was living… and he didn’t need to stay in public service for 47 years. He easily could have walked away. But, you know, like Pastor [??], Ted Kennedy understands that Progressive government and social justice and economic issues and health care are moral issues.

And as Pastor [??] hap– he and I happen to same, uh, share the same faith, as Lutherans – Pastor [??] talked about, Senator Kennedy understood that part of his faith was the question, the moral questions, and the issue of equal justice, and the issue of health care for all. That’s why he never quit, that’s why nobody in this crowd is quitting, that’s why we’re gonna get health care with a strong public option.

Cross-posted from Big Government.

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According to Sherrod, Union Reform is Unchristian

Posted in ohio, politics on December 5th, 2011 at 9:57 pm
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Sherrod Brown (D-OH) isn’t merely the most extreme Progressive in the U.S. Senate, he’s also a religious scholar. Week in and week out, Sherrod preaches the Gospel of Progressivism: Greater love hath no man than he who gives generously from his neighbor’s purse.

Sherrod delivered a stirring speech on the Senate floor during the smear campaign against public union reform in Ohio:

In order to meet the week’s quota, Sherrod was obligated to say government union reform goes “against workers on behalf of the richest people in our country.” Too invested to stop at his usual class warfare, Sherrod had the audacity to attack Governor Kasich, Governor Walker, and Governor Christie for failing to meet what he claims as a Catholic standard.

Not to put too fine a point on it, Sherrod’s sermon about “fairness, and equality, and egalitarianism” has nothing to do with any of these things – and everything to do with union power.

This clip only gets more outrageous with additional context: Sherrod Brown is an ardent supporter of government-funded abortion. Paraphrasing Sherrod, I’m not gonna judge his faith – but I’m appalled at my senator’s willingness to cite Catholic literature for a partisan attack on conservatives. A certain carpenter would have something to say about the blameless guy throwing the first stone.

I don’t recall adherence to the AFL-CIO line as part of my Methodist confirmation. My maternal grandparents’ Lutheran church has never mentioned unsustainable government spending as a moral obligation (though in fairness I’ve only been there for Christmas Eve services).

Help me out, Catholic readers: Does Sherrod have a point, or is this just another low in a career of union pandering?

Transcript of the above C-SPAN 2 clip:

SHERROD BROWN: The Bible talks a lot about poverty, and a lot about fairness, and equality, and egalitarianism, if you will, and for them to go against workers on behalf of the richest people in our country – and that’s really what they’re doing in the governor’s office in Columbus, in Madison, in, in Trenton and other places. It runs counter, at least to my faith; I’m not gonna judge their faith, they can – they worship what god they worship, and they read what scripture they read – but, when you look at what, what my faith means, and whether – I’m, I’m, as I say, I’m a Lutheran, I’m not a Catholic, but you look at Leo the 13th and, and, and what he said about what Catholicism means for workers and fairness, uh, you know it’s, it’s, it’s uh, point, match, whatever – point, set, match.

Cross-posted from Big Government.

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Sherrod Smears Big Labor’s Critics as McCarthyists

Posted in ohio, politics on November 30th, 2011 at 10:30 am
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Always happy to attack Big Labor’s enemies, Sherrod Brown (D-OH) did so from the Senate floor during the debate over Craig Becker’s appointment to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). After being placed during a recess, Becker has driven NLRB’s lurch to the Progressive fringe, shoring up the power of key Democratic Party donors at the expense of workers and businesses across the country.

The Progressive fringe is Sherrod Brown’s wheelhouse (he is, after all, America’s left-most senator), so here is Sherrod’s response to complaints about Becker’s work for the union bosses NLRB oversees:

Whining that conservatives call his Socialist beliefs Socialist is a well Sherrod visits often, and Becker has helped Sherrod look ridiculous yet again. Poor, moderate, sensible Becker, before his recess appointment and subsequent bureaucratic rampage, was described thus by The Hill:

He is an adamant supporter of card-check legislation — a proposal that allows unions to form more easily, supported by the White House — and has done considerable work for the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union.

Republicans pointed to Becker’s glaring conflicts of interest, and Sherrod Brown’s rebuttal was to cry foul and call names. Anyone following the NLRB for the past two years knows how that turned out.

C-SPAN 2 clip transcript:

SHERROD BROWN: If, if no arguments work, it’s time to trot ACORN out and tie Craig Becker right to ACORN, whatever ACORN is. And, it’s just, it would be amusing if they didn’t use it time, after time, after time. “He must be a bad nominee because he worked with somebody from ACORN,” or, “He worked with somebody from the Service Employees International Union,” or, “He worked with Governor Blagojevich in Illinois!” That’s, that’s the kind of guilt-by-association that I thought this institution stopped doing 55 years ago when Joe McCarthy was censured.

Cross-posted at Big Government.

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Sherrod Brown Loves Obama’s “Green” Boondoggles

Posted in ohio, politics on November 29th, 2011 at 9:42 pm
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Sherrod Brown (D-OH) is a doctrinaire Progressive in every respect. His fringe-left antics aren’t limited to slandering Big Labor’s enemies and pushing wildly unaffordable entitlement spending – Sherrod Brown also loves dumping taxpayer money into “green” energy.

Like Barack Obama, Sherrod Brown thinks America’s problem is too little bureaucracy and not enough power centralized in Washington, D.C. Here’s Sherrod addressing an early 2010 meeting of the Greater Ohio Policy Center:

You can see Sherrod Brown plead with President Obama to waste more money on “green” energy and wrap American manufacturers in more red tape in a video I posted earlier this year at Big Government. If only the federal government could be more like China, command-and-controlling its ignorant populace to a shiny new world!

View the source video for the above clip, from GreaterOhio on YouTube. Clip transcript follows:

SHERROD BROWN: It’s clear that we need a real national commitment; we need federal and state partnerships, but we need a national commitment on what we’re gonna do on clean energy. We’ve never had a manufacturing policy in this country – some people in the White House and both parties have said, “That’s picking winners and losers, we shouldn’t do that,” but we’re the only major industrial country in the world with no industrial policy, with no manufacturing policy. The president’s starting to take steps in that direction, I think not quickly enough but more quickly than we’ve seen in the past. I think there’s real opportunity there.

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Sherrod’s Shameful Mediscare Routine

Posted in ohio, politics on November 26th, 2011 at 11:11 am
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Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) doesn’t have a voting record ranked as far left as Socialist Bernie Sanders by accident; Sherrod thinks a bigger central government is the answer to every problem. In this video, Senator Brown applies his trademark class warfare to the issue of Medicare, instructing a gathering of teachers’ union members to indoctrinate their family, friends, and students against cruel conservatism:

Like the first half of Sherrod’s answer to a question about whether privatization of government programs is a Wall Street conspiracy, there is so much stupid in this clip that it’s tough to begin. To his credit, Sherrod Brown is consistent! Sherrod consistently glosses over exploding federal deficits, consistently attributes the worst motives to anyone who tries to limit government’s power, and consistently brags about the wonders of failed Progressive governance.

Even with crippling tax hikes, the government programs whose praises Sherrod sings will bankrupt the nation by mid-century. Even if Medicare did amazing things for every American it served, only a fool or liar would fight reforms to a collapsing system.

This is why I ask, earnestly, my question from the end of the video: Is Sherrod Brown an idiot, or a dishonest idealogue? The brutal effects of Washington spending on America’s economy are plain to see, and unfunded entitlement liabilities total in the tens of trillions. Yet, as our fiscal canoe sloshes toward the falls, Sherrod Brown attacks with a straight face anyone who dares paddle backwards.

Sherrod’s mathematically outrageous and transparently political scare tactics are, like most every policy Sherrod has ever pursued, wrong for Ohio and wrong for America. Next November, Ohio should send Obamacare champion Sherrod Brown packing… along with the guy that awful legislation is named for.

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