This came from a friend in The Democratic Party

There’s been a lot of media coverage about organized mobs intimidating lawmakers, disrupting town halls, and silencing real discussion about the need for real health insurance reform.

The truth is, it’s a sham. These “grassroots protests” are being organized and largely paid for by Washington special interests and insurance companies who are desperate to block reform. They’re trying to use lies and fear to break the President and his agenda for change.

Health insurance reform is about our lives, our jobs, and our families — we can’t let distortions and intimidation get in the way. We need to expose these outrageous tactics, and we’re counting on you to help.

Five Facts About The Anti-Reform Mobs:

1. These disruptions are being funded and organized by out-of-district special-interest groups and insurance companies who fear that health insurance reform could help Americans, but hurt their bottom line. A group run by the same folks who made the “Swiftboat” ads against John Kerry is compiling a list of congressional events in August to disrupt. An insurance company coalition has stationed employees in 30 states to track where local lawmakers hold town-hall meetings.

2. People are scared because they are being fed frightening lies. These crowds are being riled up by anti-reform lies being spread by industry front groups that invent smears to tarnish the President’s plan and scare voters. But as the President has repeatedly said, health insurance reform will create more health care choices for the American people, not reduce them. If you like your insurance or your doctor, you can keep them, and there is no “government takeover” in any part of any plan supported by the President or Congress.

3. Their actions are getting more extreme. Texas protesters brought signs displaying a tombstone for Rep. Lloyd Doggett and using the “SS” symbol to compare President Obama’s policies to Nazism. Maryland Rep. Frank Kratovil was hanged in effigy outside his district office. Rep. Tim Bishop of New York had to be escorted to his car by police after an angry few disrupted his town hall meeting — and more examples like this come in every day. And they have gone beyond just trying to derail the President’s health insurance reform plans, they are trying to “break” the President himself and ruin his Presidency.

4. Their goal is to disrupt and shut down legitimate conversation. Protesters have routinely shouted down representatives trying to engage in constructive dialogue with voters, and done everything they can to intimidate and silence regular people who just want more information. One attack group has even published a manual instructing protesters to “stand up and shout” and try to “rattle” lawmakers to prevent them from talking peacefully with their constituents.

5. Republican leadership is irresponsibly cheering on the thuggish crowds. Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner issued a statement applauding and promoting a video of the disruptions and looking forward to “a long, hot August for Democrats in Congress

I’ve been reading about The Drum Major Foundation. It has a web-site that scores legislators on how they vote on pro middle class legislation. The Foundation gives Mike Turner, OH-3, a grade of 50% , Steve Austria, Oh-7, a grade of 25%, John Boehner, OH-8, a grade of 0%, and Dennis Kucinich, OH-10, a grade of 94%.

The Foundation has a great name and a great history. Wikipedia says: “The Drum Major Foundation (later Institute) was founded in 1961 during Civil Rights Movement by Harry Wachtel, a New York City lawyer who was an adviser to Martin Luther King Jr..

“Dr. King often used the phrase “drum major instinct’ meaning the instinct to be a leader. In his sermon at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, on February 4, 1968 he said: ‘If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice, say that I was a drum major for peace, say that I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter… I just want to leave a committed life behind.’”

The primary focus of the Foundation is “on the economic issues of the middle class and the idea that government can be a force for good.”

The Drum Major Foundation has a web-site that I just discovered today. At Middleclass.org it analyzes congressional votes and grades representatives and senators on how their votes helped the middle class. I was not surprised to see the Dennis Kucinich made a grade of “A”, but I was surprised to see that Mike Turner has a grade of “C”. I had guessed it would be “F”.

According to the Foundation’s scoring, over the last couple of years, Turner has really turned his grades around. His grade for 2003 was “F”, for 2004 his grade was “F”, then another “F”, another “F”. Then in 2007, he made a “D”, then, in 2008, he made a “C”. And according to the Foundation, in 2009 his current score is 50%. Turner is the highest scoring Republican in the Ohio Delegation The Foundation evidently grades on the curve — it gives a score of 50% a grade of “C”

Here are Foundation’s scores for the Ohio Delegation:

Austria, Steve(R-OH, District 7) 25%
Boccieri, John(D-OH, District 16) 100%
Boehner, John(R-OH, District 8) 0%
Driehaus, Steve(D-OH, District 1) 100%
Fudge, Marcia(D-OH, District 11) 100%
Jordan, Jim(R-OH, District 4) 0%
Kaptur, Marcy(D-OH, District 9) 100%
Kilroy, Mary Jo(D-OH, District 15) 100%
Kucinich, Dennis(D-OH, District 10) 94%
LaTourette, Steven(R-OH, District 14) 38%
Latta, Robert(R-OH, District 5) 0%
Ryan, Timothy(D-OH, District 17) 100%
Schmidt, Jean(R-OH, District 2) 13%
Space, Zachary(D-OH, District 18) 100%
Sutton, Betty(D-OH, District 13) 100%
Tiberi, Pat(R-OH, District 12) 40%
Turner, Michael(R-OH, District 3) 50%
Wilson, Charles(D-OH, District 6) 93%

Richard Sheridan, a former longtime head of the nonpartisan Legislative Budget Office who has studied Ohio budgets for more than three decades, in the latest “State Budgeting Matters” publication, says that Ohio’s Governor Ted Strickland an his Budget Director, J. Pari Sabety, “have thus far earned a well-deserved ‘A+’ when it comes to financial management.”

Sheridan says, “His (Strickland’s) first budget was enacted on time and with almost unanimous bipartisan support — a feat which none of the last six governors were able to achieve. The budget provided for the smallest increase in GRF spending in half a century and continued the phased-in tax reductions enacted just before Governor Taft left office. When it became clear that GRF revenues were not going to meet expectations for the biennium, swift action was taken to make targeted reductions in authorized appropriations. An easier course of action, and one frequently taken in the past, would have been to simply order an “across-the- board” percentage decrease in all budget constitutionally-protected spending objects. Instead each separate line item — not just agency — was scrutinized and cuts ordered based on the continuation of state spending priorities.”

But Sheridan tempers his praise by pointing out a big concern about one decision made by Strickland and the Ohio legislature. Sheridan writes:

“For reasons that are less than clear, the legislature did not provide additional requested appropriation authority to pay for the costs of the Medicaid program in FY 2008. Instead of returning to the legislature to seek legal appropriation authority to pay Medicaid bills owed in FY 2008, the administration chose to hold those bills and pay providers the day after the fiscal year ended. That action had several negative effects. First, it inflated the FY 2008 unobligated balance by that amount,making FY 2008 appear far better than it was. Second, it will improperly inflate spending in FY 2009. And third, it sets a dangerous precedent violating the cardinal budgeting principle that, by definition, an appropriation sets the maximum amount of money that can be disbursed for a defined governmental purpose.”

“To the credit of OBM, the June monthly report clearly and openly states what they did. Although it would be difficult to prove, the same kind of thing has probably happened in the past — but without being so openly revealed.
Nonetheless, such action of questionable legality serves as a blemish on what is otherwise a remarkable record of financial management by the Strickland administration.”