Our senior senator has been rather busy lately and I want to bring everybody up to speed on the latest...
Let's start with ethanol... Senator Voinovich has signed a letter written by South Dakota senator John Thune requesting more research in to the use of ethanol blends higher than E10. Personally, I am not a fan of burning up food for fuel when we still have plenty of oil left...but I am not a sitting senior senator either. I've seen a couple of versions of this AP story, but we'll go with the Mansfield News Journal, on Voinovich's announcement of a government awarded 20-year lease for a VA clinic in the suburbs of Cleveland. No word on the price tag for this during a financial crisis, but I have been assured that this is a heck-of-a-lot cheaper than full-blown hospitals. It should also be noted that preventative medicine is always cheaper than surgeries down the road; long, extended hospital stays; etc., etc., etc... As with all of these stories involving federal giveaways, no reporter bothered to ask what Grandpa's grandkids might think of having to pay for all of this stuff... Don't get me wrong, I'm all for veterans and clinics, but I was under the impression that we were in a financial crisis and needed to curb spending. Voinovich was quoted in the Dayton Daily News as saying the following regarding DHL:Voinovich, meanwhile, said the delegation will "continue to be tireless in our efforts to ensure that state and local governments have the full federal resources needed to cope with this economic disaster."
"I'm sure all of us will urge the next administration to make extraordinary efforts to deal with what may be one of the worst economic dislocations that we've faced as a nation," he said.
Why not propose a Bailout, senator? They seem to be all the rage this year! If you read the source story for the last entry, you know that Senator Voinovich is on a Congressional Delegation (CODEL) trip to Europe. Here is an OPENERS piece on the subject of the trip and it includes this tidbit:U.S. Sen. George Voinovich and his wife, Janet, left Friday night on a week-long trip to Austria, England and France. A fancy trip at taxpayer expense? Or a wonky trip that would bore the daylights out of many?
Well, yes.
Which got me thinking that maybe Members of Congress ought not be jet-setting around Europe with their wives during a financial crisis, so I asked Team Voinovich about it and here is what spokesman Chris Paulitz had to say:"Mrs. Voinovich is part of the official delegation, just as the first lady accompanies the president on some trips. The delegation is taking a military plane and there was plenty of free seats. And, obviously, the hotel costs are the same whether she's there or not as the senator has his room already."
So I'm thinking that since she is "part of the official delegation" Mrs. Voinovich must be an expert in hydro-electric power stations, nuclear fuel processing facilities, oxide fuel rod assembly operations, OPEC, International Atomic Energy Agency, banking issues in Europe or the Russia vs. Georgia conflict. It's certainly possible...I didn't ask. (Cue email in 3...2...1.....)For the record, that last item was all about toughing up Team Voinovich for their 2010 run at re-election. I still think it is a bad idea, but if they are going to put us through it, I might as well do my part to make them as ready as they can be for a hostile press and a partisan electoral system in Ohio. ...Which reminds me: SurveyUSA has Voinovich at 51% approval rating as of October 23rd. That's up from 43% in September. Wonder which set of numbers is closer to reality... Probably the 46% he got in August... Side note on that last item: Voinovich has higher approval numbers than socialist senator Sherrod Brown. Yeah, I don't know how that happened either... I might have to start paying attention to this race a lit bit more now that Our Fate in '08 has been decided...
