Cranley Refuses to Stand Up to Trump's Racism

As a Mayor who won election only because he got the overwhelming support of Cincinnati Republicans John Cranley can't risk pissing them off. Because of that, he is failing to take a stand and fight racist-in-chief Donald Trump and declare Cincinnati as a Sanctuary City. Instead John makes a lukewarm reminder that he likes immigrants. He just doesn't want to do anything about those who are here but don't have legal status.

This is typical Cranley. He gets free rein at the Enquirer to publish this column that uses the word immigrant and refugee, but takes no stand on the actual issues and ignores his past. The issues are about Trump's racist and religiously bigoted act of restricting people from certain countries the ability to come to America, but allowing Christian refugees. It is also strongly about Trump's actions to force local cities to carry out his fascist edicts and round up Mexicans without legal status.

This is gutless and hypocritical. Cranley's past contain instances where he knowingly played into the hands of conservative voters who don't like non-white people coming into this county.

In 2015 Cranley came out against having any Syrian refugees in Cincinnati.

In 2006 when Cranley last ran for the US House Ohio 1st District, he attacked his Republican opponent on not being strong enough on illegal immigration.

So ,here we get an unchallenged column in the Enquirer, and we'll have some Dems pretending this is a good thing to promote, when it really doesn't do much, but make Cranley appear to be doing something, when he is hiding from the real issue.

Two times now Cranley has stayed on the sidelines when given the chance to stand up to Trump. Once here and once when thousands of people marched for women's rights the day after Trump inauguration.  Will the number of times Cranley cowers before Trump be higher than the times Trump lies?  Likely no, with Trump's propensity for lying, but I'll be taking note of the times Cranley refuses to stand up to the new fascist state Trump is building.

John Cranley Appoints Top Donor Manuel Chavez III to Port Authority Board

Once again, campaign donations can be tied to John Cranley's actions as Mayor. The Cincinnati Business Courier has the story outlining how Cranley appointed his top donor Manuel Chavez III to the board of the Port Authority.

Cronyism is taking shape and Coranley is flaunting it now.  I guess he thinks the stereotypical low information Trump voter will stick with him. One might conclude he already has the Saylor Park vote sowed up.

Charlie, What's in the Box?

I know you were thinking about this when the stories (Enquirer & Business Courier) broke yesterday about Charlie Winburn's boxes that were sized by the FBI.

What was in them?  Turns out it was a whole lot of Charlie's angst towards Mayor John Cranley and his staff.

Updated List of Current Cincinnati Council Candidates

Here is an updated list of candidates. The GOP still only has two officially named candidates, 1 reported candidate and Smitherman, so they are far from even pretending to get a majority on council.  If everyone on this list runs for office, that will make 25. That is not a record.  It would be a record low for Republicans.


Incumbents:
P.G. Sittenfeld
David Mann
Chris Seelbach
Christopher Smitherman
Wendell Young
Amy Murray

Returning Candidates:
Laure Quinlivan
Greg Landsman
Michelle Dillingham
Brian Garry
Theo Barnes

New Candidates
Ozie Davis III
Kelli Prather
Tamaya Dennard
Tamie Sullivan
Cristina Burcica
Jeff Pastor
Derek Bauman
Cedrick Denson
Tonya Dumas
Henry Frondorf
Manual Foggie
Leslie Jones
Beverly Odoms
Orlando Welborn

If anyone has any other names please send them my way (cincyblog@aol.com) or if anyone named above wants to confirm they are not running, I'll remove them future postings of this list.

Cranley Reportedly to Name His Campaign Treasurer to SORTA Board Seat

Helen "Heidi" Black is being reported by the Enquirer to be John Cranley's next pick for the SORTA Board.

Who is Helen "Heidi" Black, you may ask? Well in the Enquirer article you get a nice bio of a professional who they state is the wife of Cranley's campaign manager, Jay Kincaid. That makes this a controversial pick. It makes this appointment a political favor. It is political cronyism. If anyone else appointed the spouse of their campaign manager, this would have been a banner Enquirer headline with editorials on how ethics matter and the appearance of cronyism is horrible for our political system.  More over the Enquirer would call for Cranley to appoint someone else.

Instead we get an article more puff piece than political story. It has a quote from Cranley in it as if someone in his campaign issued a press release on this. It's like Cranley is knowlingly picking a crony for a political appointment and does not care he is doing it.  It's like he thinks his Trump or something.

What lacking in the article and to this whole story are two things. Firstly it names the appointee as Heidi Black instead of her legal name Helen Black. Secondly it fails to mention one MAJOR element as this screenshot illustrates:

In case you can't read the graphic it states "Paid for by John Cranley for Mayor, Helen Black Treasurer."  This is from the bottom of the front page of John Cranley's campaign website.

Yes, Helen "Heidi" Black is the Treasurer for John Cranley's Mayoral campaign. He's about to appoint a member of his ACTIVE CAMPAIGN STAFF, to a board that governs the Streetcar operation and Metro. Cronyism run amok!

Oh and thanks to the Inquirer who didn't report this fact in their article. Thorough reporting there. Helen also ran for the 17-B seat on the Democratic Central Committee in March of last year, but lost. They didn't report that, either.

Finally, how do I know Helen is Heidi?  A public records search is sufficient to confirm and it's not any type of secret, it was just omitted from this Enquirer article for some reason.

John Cranley and Denise Driehaus Skip Cincinnati Women's March

The world took notice as millions of people across the globe came together Saturday to rally and march for women's rights, including but not limited too, reproductive rights.  Here in Cincinnati 10,000 to 14,000 people rallied and marched.  Many, many issues were discussed: religious freedom, the right to affordable healthcare, social justice, and the right of women to not be considered property of men, just to name a few. Many local elected politicians attended, including representatives from the State Legislature, Hamilton County and the City of Cincinnati. Both female and male elected officials were in attendance.

Many locally also took notice of who was missing.  Two local politicians were no present for the Women's March:  Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley and newly elected Hamilton County Commissioner Denise Driehaus.

Why were they not there?  In the case of Cranley, Vice-Mayor David Mann claimed Cranley was going to a funeral.  I think that funeral was at best a last minute add for Cranley, once it was announced that this was event was expressly a pro-choice and pro-Planned Parenthood event.  John is anti-choice and needs the votes of the GOP in Cincinnati, and needs avoid the optics involved with openly linking himself to a very progressive movement.  Also, he knew he wasn't going to get the option to control the event, so he stayed home instead.

Where was Denise Driehaus?  We'll she's fresh off her December vote as outgoing Ohio member to ban abortions at 20 weeks, an unconstitutional bill, but one she still voted for.  This is after she repeatedly told progressives after her alleged conversion to a pro-choice stance during the 2012 primary when she "moved" across town to the newly formed 31 District. She moved swiftly to hide her endorsement from Cincinnati Right to Life as well for nearly 4 years, but in the end did their bidding, even when she didn't need to for political cover.

At the event Saturday fellow Democrat, Todd Portune represented the County Commission.  A Democratic woman who has claimed to be for women's rights skipped one of the biggest protests in Cincinnati history. Don't let her forgot that she stayed home when women came out in force to take on Trump.

Cincinnati Women Marched Saturday For Rights and Against Trump Oppression

An estimated 10,000 to 12,000 people rallied and marched through Over-the-Rhine and Downtown Cincinnati Saturday joining Millions of other people standing up for women and a wide number of issues relating to freedom and liberty but focused on reproductive rights, healthcare for all, social justice for all, religious freedom for all, and the right for women not to be treated as the property of sexual predators like Donald Trump.

The crowd was massive, far greater than expected.  Speakers consisted of local activists and politicians who voiced issues that will be be made worse under Trump and his crew of fascists who took over the White House last week.

This was a totally peaceful march and showed that women clearly know best how to get people to come out to protest.  The world wide count was around 5 Million people turned out to oppose Trump's  plans to turn the clock back to a time in American when women's rights were a distant dream.

The clearest sign that Trump does not have deep support lies in the numbers he tried to dispute.  Experts stated that three times as many people went to Saturday's Women's March than when to Trump's Inauguration the day before.  That demonstrates the reality that Trump and Republicans seem to ignore, they are only in power due to gerrymandering, voter suppression, and interference of the FBI and Russia in the election process. They don't have a mandate, they are seizing control as a minority party and will likely do as much damage as they can while the country wakes up and pushes them out of power.

Hopefully this turnout will translate to the 2017 location elections and then next year for the midterms.  Logically, those who cared enough to come out to protest at an event like this care enough without question to come out and vote.  That is how we can counter the right wing fascist power grab.  We can't rely on sensible Republicans to protect the county, we must get people to wake up and get control of the election process back.