Free Republic

The Sashi Brown era in Cleveland is over. Brown, who ran Cleveland’s personnel department the last two years, was fired this morning, according to ESPN.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, posted to Facebook her call on Franken to resign Click here to see the list of Senators calling on Franken to resign. A top Senate Dem says he expects Franken to resign Thursday shortly after Franken’s office said he would be making an announcement Thursday. Democrat Senator Ron Wyden tweeted,”I expect that Senator Franken will announce his resignation tomorrow. It is the right thing to do given this series of serious allegations.”

HUBBARD, OH – The former mayor of an Ohio town faces dozens of charges for allegedly raping a 4-year-old girl, the Youngstown Vindicator reports. Richard Keenan, former Hubbard mayor from 2010 to 2011, was indicted on eight counts of rape and 12 counts of attempted rape and gross sexual imposition. Keenan was booked into the Trumbull County Jail and released on $75,000 bond. According to court documents, the victim told Keenan’s wife about the sexual abuse that began when she was 4-years-old and lasted for three years. When Keenan’s wife confronted him about the allegations, he responded, “I did it.”...

Republican Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor said Thursday she would not drop out of the governor's race after the bombshell announcement that Attorney General Mike DeWine and Secretary of State Jon Husted would join together on a ticket. DeWine and Husted are both the fundraising and polling leaders in the GOP primary to succeed term-limited Gov. John Kasich. The two announced Thursday they would combine forces with DeWine running as governor and Husted as his number two. Speculation mounted that Taylor, who has lagged DeWine, Husted and U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci in campaign cash, would announce she was dropping out of...

The messiness of the long-proverbial "mess in Washington" stands out this post-holiday week like a picked and evacuated turkey carcass. To itemize: 1) The tax debate, so-called. 2) The furor over who's to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau -- assuming you've heard of this enterprise, which is disliked by many on account of its claimed self-sufficiency and virtual non-accountability to the rest of the government. If we didn't know before that the federal government is too big for Republicans or Democrats, either one, to bring under control, my, oh, my, we should know it now. Let me rehearse the...

A profile in The Times of Tony Hovater, a white nationalist and Nazi sympathizer in Ohio, elicited a huge amount of feedback this weekend, most of it sharply critical. Here’s how the piece came about, why we wrote it and why we think it was important to do so. The genesis of the story was the aftermath of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in August, the terrifying Ku Klux Klan-like images of young white men carrying tiki torches and shouting “Jews will not replace us,” and the subsequent violence that included the killing of a woman, Heather D....

Wapakoneta could be making room for a new manufacturer, and over 100 new jobs that would come with it. Wapakoneta City Council passed resolutions to help packaging company Pratt Industries build a new plant at the shovel ready site on the south side of the city. The State of Ohio needs to approve the deal in the beginning of December for the project to move forward. If approved, Pratt will invest around 250 million dollars for their first phase of their project, which would create around 100 jobs with an average pay of over 25 dollars an hour, with the...

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) on Sunday said he hopes politicians “won’t play those kind of games” on dueling appointments to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). “My hope is, you know, that we won’t play those kind of games," Portman told NBC’s “Meet the Press” when asked about dueling appointments by Cordray and President Trump for interim directors of the independent agency. Portman backed Trump's authority to decide who will lead the agency, which is now without a director. Portman also criticized exiting CFPB director Richard Cordray for trying to "circumvent" the president in appointing a new leader of...

A Cleveland police union president criticized for having his organization endorse Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy and incendiary comments about NFL player protests has been ousted. The Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association is the city’s largest police union. President Steve Loomis lost Tuesday by 38 votes to former president Jeff Follmer. Most of the union’s 1,243 members voted. The head of an association representing 200 black officers tells Cleveland.com some of its members questioned Loomis’ provocative statements and his decision to endorse Trump. Black Shield Association President Lynn Hampton says black officers were dismayed to see Loomis taking stances that created negative...

Today is the anniversary of the birth of James A(bram) Garfield (1831-1881), 20th President of these United States, in Moreland Hills, Ohio. Born to a widowed farm wife, Garfield worked at a series of menial jobs but eventually attended Williams College, graduating in 1856. He entered politics as a Republican and served in the Ohio State Senate until the outbreak of the Civil War, in which he saw combat as a Union major general. In 1862 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and served in that body until 1880, after 1876 as Republican Leader of the House....

Ohio Supreme Court Justice Bill O'Neill, a Democratic candidate for governor, apparently trying to head off any criticisms from his opponents, revealed what he says are his sexual escapades over the years on a Facebook post. A post on O'Neill's official Facebook said he was speaking up "on behalf of all heterosexual males" after allegations against Democratic U.S. Sen. Al Franken came to light Thursday. O'Neill, a Chagrin Falls native, said he had been "sexually intimate" with "approximately 50 very attractive females." O'Neill said he was disappointed by the "national feeding frenzy about sexual indiscretions decades ago" and wanted to...

An Ohio lawmaker who routinely touted his Christian faith and anti-LGBT views has resigned after being caught having sex with a man in his office. Wes Goodman, who is the Republican state legislator for Ohio, is married to a woman who is assistant director of an annual anti-abortion rally known as March for Life. The right-wing legislator, who pushed “family values”, was reportedly witnessed having sex with a man inside his office who was not employed by the legislator. According to the Columbus Dispatch, the observer told Ohio House Chief of Staff Mike Dittoe what had happened on Tuesday afternoon....

With Video ----------------------- Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) admonished Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) for accusing Republicans of writing the tax bill "for the rich" at a late night hearing on amendments and markups. "With all due respect, I get sick and tired of the rich getting richer," Brown said in a diatribe against Republicans. "I come from the poor people, and I have been here working my whole stinkin' career for people who don't have a chance, and I really resent anybody that says I'm doing it for the rich. Give me a break. I...

Several House Democrats introduced articles of impeachment targeting President Trump on Wednesday, asserting that Trump has violated the Constitution. Democratic Reps. Steve Cohen (Tenn.), Luis Gutiérrez (Ill.), Al Green (Texas), Adriano Espaillat (N.Y.), Marcia Fudge (Ohio) and John Yarmuth (Ky.) said the five articles of impeachment come out of concern for the country's national security. "We believe that President Trump has violated the Constitution, and we've introduced five articles of impeachment," Cohen said at a press conference.

FAIRBORN, Ohio (AP) - An Ohio firefighter-paramedic driving an overdose patient to the hospital needed rescue himself. Fairborn Fire Department officials say the man wasn't seeing or feeling right, and his partner jumped to the front to stop the ambulance Thursday evening. The partner then administered the overdose-reversing drug naloxone, and he drove the firefighter-paramedic and the woman they had been transporting to a hospital in Beavercreek southwest Ohio.

WASHINGTON — Roy Moore could do more damage to the GOP brand than an Alabama Senate seat is worth. NBC News has not confirmed that (sic) allegations; the woman didn't file a police report or bring a civil suit. Moore, now 70, called the charges "completely false" in a statement released by his campaign Thursday. It's a "no-win situation through and through" for the GOP, said Doug Heye, a former Senate and House Republican aide. "He's not worth it," Heye said. The question of how to handle Moore has both political and moral components, said Republicans who spoke to NBC...

NEWARK, OH (WCMH) — Newark police say a man from Wisconsin has been charged with kidnapping after he traveled to Ohio to meet a 12-year-old girl he met online. According to the Newark Division of Police, at about 6:30pm, Monday, officers were called to the 600 block of W. Main Street on the report of a missing person. Family members told police a 12-year-old girl had left the residence between 3:00 and 3:30pm to go on a bike ride, but never returned home. This was an odd behavior for the girl, according to her family, who always came home on...

Health-care technology company CoverMyMeds plans to hire hundreds of support team employees in its Columbus and Cleveland offices, beginning immediately. The company doesn’t have a specific number other than “hundreds,” said Laurie Boogaard, CoverMyMeds’ director of user support. “We’re just looking to fill these open positions with qualified people in Cleveland and Columbus,” she said. The full-time positions serve as “the product expert for providers, nurses, pharmacists and their staff — handling incoming calls, emails and chats — answering real-time questions throughout the prior-authorization process,” she said. Founded in 2008 by Alan Scantland, Matt Scantland and Sam Rajan, CoverMyMeds’s prior-authorization...

MIDDLETOWN, Ohio (AP) - An Ohio high school football coach has resigned after two seasons, saying he received death threats after his teams lost 18 straight games. Lance Engleka resigned Saturday from his position as the head football coach at Middletown High School. Engleka wrote in a letter to the principal that he refuses to tolerate the online death threats, attacks from parents and verbal abuse leveled at his family and coaching staff.

A fashion rental service is looking to set up a distribution center in Obetz, which would create 400 new jobs. Fashion service Le Tote Inc. plans to open the center at the CenterPoint Business Park, taking 250,000 square feet, or about half of the space of the CenterPoint #6 building at 5465 Centerpoint Parkway. The company said it will invest about $1.1 million in the project and create $10.5 million in new payroll. “We chose the Columbus Region for its prime access to our customers and to global retail brands,” said Brett Northart, president and co-founder of Le Tote, in...