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“J.R. Majewski lying about fighting in combat absolutely disqualifies him from ever being able to serve in Congress.” 

Columbus, OH — In case you missed it, WEWS-TV in Cleveland shared the disappointment, anger and outrage of Ohio military veterans after a bombshell Associated Press report alleges J.R. Majewski lied about his military service record, including his record in Afghanistan. Majewski often uses his military service as a campaign talking point and ads by Majewski supporters used the words “Afghanistan War Veteran” on screen. Following the AP report, national Republicans pulled down ads they had scheduled for Majewski and now veterans across Ohio are demanding answers from Majewski. 

“He just does a disservice to his brothers and sisters. You don’t have to puff out your chest and say, ‘Well, I did this, but it’s a secret.’ No, it was not a secret,” said veteran Bob Shields in the story. 

Read more from WEWS-TV below and watch the interviews with Ohio veterans here: 

• Military veterans in Ohio are reacting with disappointment and anger following congressional candidate J.R. Majewski’s alleged misrepresentation of his Air Force service. Military documents obtained by the Associated Press do not tell the story that Majewski has been sharing on his campaign trail.
• The candidate from Toledo has been representing himself as an Air Force combat veteran who served in Afghanistan after 9/11. Northeast Ohio vets said he is acting against the Air Force honor code.
• “I’m disappointed that anybody should claim more than what they did,” 30-year veteran Bob Shields of Bay Village said. “Take pride in what you did.”
• Majewski’s military experience shows he was deployed but far away from any combat. He spent six months in Qatar loading planes, which Shields said is a valuable job but definitely not combat.
• “Integrity always,” Shields added, referencing the Air Force honor code. “If he’s claiming something that he cannot support, he’s going against his core values.”
• During a rally on Friday, the candidate doubled down on his claims.
• Both Republican and Democratic leaders seem to not be buying the story. The National Republican Congressional Committee announced it will cancel an approximate $1 million ad buy in the race.
• “He just does a disservice to his brothers and sisters,” Shields said. “You don’t have to puff out your chest and say, ‘Well, I did this, but it’s a secret.’ No, it was not a secret.”
• Veterans are asking for the documents that prove he was in Afghanistan, but until then, many are asking for an apology, saying this isn’t a party issue — but an issue of honesty and service.
• “J.R. Majewski lying about fighting in combat absolutely disqualifies him from ever being able to serve in Congress,” said Lucas County Marine veteran Ralph Green.
• The Majewski team reached out to News 5 to offer an interview with a service member it claimed would corroborate that Majewski served in Afghanistan. The interview would have to be conducted with the condition that News 5 not reveal who this person is, due to “concern about harassment,” according to a campaign spokesperson. News 5 declined that interview because it does not reach the station’s standards for providing anonymity.
• We asked for additional information, such as a supervisor who was stationed in Afghanistan whose records prove that they were physically there, or for an on-camera interview with full documentation, but those requests were not answered by the Majewski campaign.

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Columbus, OH — Today, Ohio Democratic Party Chair Elizabeth Walters and Ms. Diona Clark, a domestic violence survivor and advocate, held a virtual press conference to denounce disgusting Republican ads that lie about Rep. Emilia Sykes’ record. Rep. Sykes has been a leading champion of legislation that better protects victims of domestic violence and keeps Ohioans safe. 

“Rep. Emilia Sykes has spent her whole career championing the people of Ohio, leading on issues ranging from investing in working Ohioans to healthcare to public safety to standing up for victims of domestic violence. Republicans are scared of running against that record. So they simply make up lies. And the latest ad coming from the Republican camp shows just how scared they are,” said Chair Walters. 

“Rep. Sykes is really invested in domestic violence survivors. She really cared. I never really thought I would be working with someone who makes policies. Our friendship, it grew through that and I’m grateful for her,” said Ms. Clark. 

The false ads in support of Sykes’ far-right opponent distort Sykes’ record in a naked, partisan attempt to distract from her opponent’s extreme record on abortion and critical issues that matter most to working Ohioans. 

Here’s a sampling of Madison Gesiotto Gilbert’s extreme record:  

• She supports banning abortion at six weeks, before many women even know they are pregnant. 
• She’s endorsed by groups that want to outlaw contraception like birth control pills and emergency contraception like Plan B.
• Support no exceptions to her abortion ban, even in cases of rape, incest, or when the mother’s life is at risk.
• She said that “abortion is the number one killer of Black Americans” 
• And said the overturn of Roe v. Wade was ‘amazing news.’ 

Rep. Emilia Sykes has led bipartisan efforts to protect victims of domestic violence. She passed legislation through the Ohio House that would allow victims of dating violence to secure a civil protection order against their attacker. Before Emilia’s bill, only spouses, people living as spouses or people who shared custody of children could do so. She also sponsored a bill that would criminalize tracking another person without their consent. In an age where so much of our information lives online, we shouldn’t be enabling domestic abusers to use that information to track their victims online. 

Most recently, legislation supported by Emilia helped secure almost $3 million for the Summit County Sheriff’s office to help crack down on violent crime. But facts don’t seem to matter to the Republicans spreading these lies.

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Columbus, OH — In case you missed it, the Cleveland.com Editorial Board endorsed all three Democrats – Justice Jennifer Brunner, Judge Terri Jamison and Judge Marilyn Zayas – for the Ohio Supreme Court. 

The Cleveland.com editorials point to a robust record of Republican justices putting party interests over the rule of law, including the most egregious example of ruling in favor of clearly GOP-gerrymandered maps time and again from the bench. The Cleveland.com Editorial Board also took special care to point out the conflicts of interest that have been created by Pat DeWine’s refusal to recuse himself from cases involving his own father.

Ohio is the only state in the country with the opportunity to flip the Court from Republican to Democratic control. That’s especially noteworthy with so much on the line for Ohio in the coming months – from abortion rights to redistricting to rejecting extremism from statehouse Republicans. 

“Ohioans have an opportunity this year to reject the extremism of Republicans on the bench and put the Court back in the hands of judges like Jennifer Brunner, Terri Jamison and Marilyn Zayas who believe in the rule of law. For too long, we’ve seen the GOP-led court use the bench to play politics, and it’s time to restore integrity and justice back to the Supreme Court,” said Matt Keyes, spokesperson for the Ohio Democratic Party.

Read more from the Cleveland.com endorsement of Justice Jennifer Brunner HERE and below:

• Jennifer Brunner is the clear choice for chief justice.
• Brunner said her first instinct would be to try to restore cordiality simply by talking “with existing members of the court” about their ideas for moving forward.
• Brunner’s experience in a range of courts, from trial to appellate levels, and her managerial experience, make her the best-qualified candidate to lead Ohio’s judiciary in a collegial, constructive manner. Voters should elect Jennifer Brunner as chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court on the Nov. 8 ballot. Early voting begins Oct. 12.

Read more from the Cleveland.com endorsement of Judge Terri Jamison HERE and below:

• Appellate Judge Terri Jamison, 62, the Democrat seeking to unseat one-term Ohio Supreme Court Justice Pat Fischer, can be emphatically described as living the American dream. In her early 20s, when most future judicial candidates were deciding which law school to attend, the West Virginia native was working in a coal mine – deep underground as an assistant roof bolter and then material loader.
• Several years and several jobs later, she enrolled in Columbus’ Franklin University while working for an insurance agency, graduated with honors, and in 2004, at age 45, received her law degree from Capital University. After seven years as a public defender and then defense attorney, she was elected a Franklin County Domestic Relations judge in 2012, then last year won election to the 10th Ohio District Court of Appeals. Now here she is, running for a seat on the state’s highest court.
• Jamison seems more than up for the job. She is thoughtful, collegial and in command of the issues, with a strong commitment to equal justice, an end to racial disparities and criminal and civil justice reforms. 
• Terri Jamison would be an asset to the state’s highest court. Ohio voters should elect her to the Ohio Supreme Court in the Jan. 1 term on Nov. 8. Early voting begins Oct. 12.

Read more from the Cleveland.com endorsement of Judge Marilyn Zayas HERE and below:

• However, there can be no wiggle room on first-term Justice Pat DeWine’s decision to violate judicial canons by refusing to recuse himself in redistricting cases involving his father, Gov. Mike DeWine, a member of the Ohio Redistricting Commission.
• Now, the voters can weigh in. And when they do, they should elect 1st Ohio District Court of Appeals Judge Marilyn Zayas, a Democrat, in place of DeWine, 54, who seeks a second term.
• Zayas, 57, an engineer, switched careers in the 1990s to apply her reasoning skills to the law. She displays a well-honed instinct for ferreting out errors — and injustices. And she (politely) dings DeWine for more than just his recusal error. Zayas says it was DeWine’s 2017 vote, as a brand-new justice, to reconsider two recent high court rulings in which he had heard none of the arguments himself that made her start thinking about a high-court run. “The only thing that changed” in those cases, she said — one involving juvenile due process protections and the other an accurate weighing of drug evidence — “was the composition of the Supreme Court.”

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Columbus, OH – In a press call Friday, Black and Jewish leaders condemned J.D. Vance for his antisemitic and racist views on abortion and his support for a national abortion ban. 

After spending months trying to avoid saying whether he would vote for a national abortion ban, J.D. Vance confirmed his support this week for federal legislation that would impose new cruel restrictions on women. And if J.D. Vance had his way, there would be no exceptions for rape and incest victims.  

Read more below:

Cleveland Jewish News: Weinstein: Vance’s antisemitic, racist abortion comment ‘dangerous’
Courtney Byrnes
September 23, 2022

• Ohio Rep. Casey Weinstein, D-Hudson, said JD Vance resorted to the “oldest trick in the book: antisemitic conspiracy theories” in recently reported remarks on the candidate’s abortion stance.
• The USA TODAY Ohio Network reported Sept. 15 that in a January interview on the What’s Left? podcast with Aimee Terese and Oliver Bateman, Vance, who is running for the Ohio State Senate seat against U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, referenced an antisemitic conspiracy theory.
• “Let’s say Roe v. Wade is overruled,” Vance said in the January interview. “Ohio bans abortion in 2022 – let’s say 2024. Then every day, George Soros sends a 747 to Columbus to load up disproportionately Black women to get them to go have abortions in California. Of course, the left will celebrate this as a victory for diversity … If that happens, do you need some federal response to prevent it from happening because it’s really creepy? I’m pretty sympathetic to that, actually. Hopefully we get to a point where Ohio bans abortion and California and the Soroses of the world respect it.”
• Weinstein joined state Reps. Juanita Brent, Catherine Ingram, Terrence Upchurch and candidate Erika White Sept. 23 for a news conference in which they called Vance’s antisemitic and racist remarks dangerous and telling of who he is.
• “(The remarks) play into an old antisemitic trope that Jewish people are masterminds that are, in particular, rich and powerful, that are controlling world events behind the scenes,” Weinstein said during the conference. “It’s false, it’s gross and it has real world consequences, and it’s time to call him out on it.”
• He said the use of this antisemitic conspiracy theory was an attempt to distract from his “extreme” anti-abortion stance that does not support exceptions for cases of rape or incest. Weinstein also said the remarks show no respect for Jewish Ohioans and recalled the protests that took place outside his home in January.
• “I’ve both stood up to antisemitism before when I faced protests at my home, and JD Vance’s rhetoric is the exact kind of stuff that leads to these protests at my house on Sunday afternoons in front of my kids,” Weinstein said.
• Brent, president of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus – the oldest Black caucus in the U.S., led the conference to address the antisemitic and racist remarks as well as the candidate’s abortion stance. She called Vance’s comments out of touch and not in tune with the needs of the community.
• “Instead of him fighting to make sure that everyone has access, he’s encouraging that it’s going to be OK that there are going to be barriers within the state of Ohio,” she said.
• Upchurch, D-Cleveland, shared his outrage over Vance’s spreading of racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories and past comments comparing abortion to slavery.
• “The issue is over women having control over their own bodies, and inventing new conspiracy theories to explain why you want to force survivors of rape and incest to give birth is just gross,” Upchurch said, mentioning recent reports of minors who were victims of rape traveling across state lines for an abortion.
• White, a Democratic candidate running against Derek Merrin to represent District 42, spoke about the divisive nature of Vance’s remarks.
• “As we talk about struggling to find health care that women need and even crossing state lines to do so, that should be an outrage and when anyone like JD Vance calls this an amazing victory, we should be outraged,” she said. “We should come together as Ohioans and realize that women and women’s voices should not be downplayed or made into conspiracy theories to separate us.”

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Watch a Video of the Exchange HERE

Columbus, OH — This week, Dave Yost sat down with Karen Kasler for an interview on The State of Ohio. When asked about his despicable stunt of going on national television to cast doubt on the story of a ten-year-old rape victim, Yost only doubled down, smugly telling Kasler, “I don’t understand what you think I need to apologize for.” 

A judge in Hamilton County earlier this month said that Dave Yost should apologize for his disgusting comments and Ohio Democrats have called on Yost to resign. Yost, mere hours after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, went to court to implement Ohio’s extreme six-week abortion ban that forced this young victim to have to travel to Indiana for an abortion in the first place.  

“Dave Yost asked what he needs to apologize for. That’s quite a list, but at the top of it is questioning the story of a 10-year-old rape victim on national television and implementing the law that forced her to flee to Indiana for critical healthcare in the first place. Yost’s initial comments were disgusting and the fact that he continues to double down is despicable. These latest comments from Yost are a good reminder of why we’re calling on him to resign,” said Ohio Democratic Party spokesperson Matt Keyes.

Read the full transcript of the exchange below and find the full video of the interview HERE: 

KASLER: I have to start by asking you about a story that Democrats, including the judge hearing the case involving Ohio’s six week abortion ban in Hamilton County, were saying that you should apologize for–the case of the 10-year-old rape victim who went to Indiana to get an abortion. To quote you for an appearance on Fox News quote, “Every day that goes by the more likely that this is a fabrication. I know the cops and prosecutors in the state. There’s not one of them that wouldn’t be turning over every rock looking for this guy and they would have charged him. I’m not saying it could not have happened. What I’m saying to you is there’s not – there is not a damn scintilla of evidence.” And you said shame on the Indianapolis paper who ran the story and you said they had an obvious ax to grind. There was an arrest in the case. You said quote, “We rejoice anytime a child rapist is taken off the streets,” but you did not apologize. Why didn’t you apologize?

YOST: Karen, I don’t understand what it is you think I need to apologize for. What in that was untrue or inaccurate at the time it said it. By the way, you conflated two separate interviews.

KASLER: Well, yeah, there was a Fox News interview and then there was the statement that you made afterwards, true. But the [YOST: The following day] impression is that you denied the existence of this 10-year-old girl when there are 10-year-old rape victims and as a prosecutor, you certainly know that.

YOST: Of course, I know that. The quote you just read didn’t say that nor did anything else in that interview. Which I brought, helpfully, a transcript for you. Nothing in here was untrue. Nothing in here- we didn’t even know the identity, and still don’t, of that poor victim. So you’re asking me to apologize for saying what was true when I said it? Respectfully, that’s not very fair. And you’re misreading my comments.

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