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Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor in chief. Coleman trained for 17 years as a reporter with the Call and Post Newspaper and is an investigative and political reporter with a background in legal and scientific reporting. She is also a former 15-year public school biology teacher.
COLUMBUS, Ohio- Ohio GOP Gov Mike DeWine (pictured), elected governor in 2018 following a heated campaign against Democrat Richard Cordray, is under attack by the far right wing faction of the Ohio Republican Party as three Republican members of the Ohio state legislature this week drafted articles of impeachment claiming the governor's handling of the coronavirus pandemic violates citizens civil liberties and that the governor has overstepped his bounds, and his authority in his efforts to regulate the outcome of the deadly virus in Ohio.
Drafted by GOP states Reps. John Becker, Nino Vitale and Paul Zeltwanger, the resolution includes 10 articles of impeachment against the embattled governor.
The resolution by the three state lawmakers says in relevant part that DeWine "has repeatedly proven his incompetence by providing wildly inaccurate forecasts and repeatedly misleading COVID-19 data and committed misfeasance and malfeasance with his policy prescriptions, which have proven to be far worse than the virus itself."
It also accuses DeWine of conspiring with Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose in delaying Ohio's primary election, tentatively set for March 17, Ohio 11th Congressional District Congresswoman Marcia Fudge, a Warrensville Heights Democrat whose largely Black congressional district includes Cleveland and a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus calling the governors' delay of the primary irresponsible, and incomprehensible.
“We all are concerned with the spread of the coronavirus, as are the governors in the states holding elections today as their laws dictate," Fudge said in a statement in March after DeWine canceled Ohio's March 17 primary. "Gov. DeWine’s decision to close the polls creates, rather than prevents, barriers to the ballot box."
Ohio lawmakers, per a new state law, later extended the primary to April 28 by mail-in-voting.
DeWine has said that he has done what is necessary to protect Ohioans against the virus, and he downplayed the articles of impeachment as nonsensical.
The otherwise likable governor, his stances on polices the Democrats aside despise, is a strong governor, pundits say, and he has friends and enemies across partisan lines, and en-roads to Ohio's Black community.
He is supported by Ohio Republican Chairwoman Jane Timken, among others.
The first woman to lead the ORP, Timken said in a statement that "it is despicable that anyone who considers them-self to be conservative would make an attempt to impeach Governor DeWine."
A President Donald Trump ally and a former U.S. senator and Ohio attorney general, DeWine, 73, is the most popular governor in the country relative to his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, polls show.
He took a coronavirus test as part of protocol prior to a scheduled meeting in Cleveland earlier this month with President Trump, who was campaigning in Northern Ohio, and the test came back positive, later and more effective testing revealing negative results.
During a press conference at the Cleveland Hopkins Airport during his visit the president, in the Cleveland area also to do fundraising as the Nov 3 presidential election nears and he faces an uphill battle against presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, said "we want to wish him [DeWine] the best, he'll be fine."
Such comments were later not needed, of course, since DeWine allegedly never had the virus ,rumor mills ripe with accusations that the governor did not meet with President Trump because he wants to distance himself from the controversial president who his taking heat for his response to the contagious virus for which there is currently no cure, and no vaccine.
The governor started out fine though, issuing orders in March after the pandemic broke-out in the United States under the recommendation of then Ohio Public Health Director Dr. Amy Acton, whose has since moved on to another job, orders for Ohio residents to stay-at-home aside from essential needs, to close k-12 schools and shut down businesses and community recreation centers, and to essentially put a halt to most normal-day activities across the board in Ohio.
And as the state began to reopen in early June, a re-spiking weeks later caused the governor to back track on some matters.
He has, however, approved high school sports this fall with limitations, and he handed authority to the Ohio Department of Education and respective school districts as to how they would operate Ohio's k-12 schools, and under certain guidelines.
Cleveland schools, like so many other Ohio school districts, opened solely on-nine via remote learning for the first nine weeks of the 2020-2021 academic school year.
Activists had repeatedly protested against the governor at the statehouse, saying his coronavirus are illegal, and unconstitutional on many levels.
But when the governor stopped liquor sales at bars and restaurants past 10 pm in Ohio this month, practically all but over the counter liquor stores, which generally close by 11 pm in Ohio, pressure mounted and a group of angry bar and restaurant owners out of Columbus responded by filing a lawsuit on Aug. 4, one of hundreds of lawsuits filed since March on issues across the spectrum regarding the governor and the crippling pandemic.
Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Kim Brown, however, denied the injunction request filed against DeWine and the liquor commission by lawyers for the bars and restaurants.
Pins Mechanical and 16-Bit Bar and Arcade, which has a location in Lakewood, a neighboring city to Cleveland, filed the lawsuit challenging DeWine's ban against liquor sales in bars and restaurants after 10 pm in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas Court, a general division court in Ohio that sits in Columbus, the state's capital.
A Democrat, Brown said in her ruling that the Ohio Liquor Control Commission has the authority to regulate the bars and restaurants and to determine operating hours, the argument offered by DeWine and state officials.
Masks must also be worn in public in Ohio, DeWine has ordered. another controversial mandate that critics say the governor had no authority to authorize.
Ohio has reported more than 116,000 confirmed cases and 3,986 deaths since March.
The deadly virus for which there is no vaccine has spread to all 50 states and Washington, D.C. and the nation has nearly 5.67 million reported cases and some 178,000 people dead, worldwide figures showing that there are 23.7 million cases globally and roughly 814,000 deaths.
More than 55 million Americans remain out of work due to the crippling pandemic.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
