Brown’s old letters cited by GOP in Senate race

Get ready for a history lesson in the 2018 U.S. Senate matchup between Republican state Treasurer Josh Mandel and incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown. That’s “history” as in what Brown said as long ago as 1970, when he was student council president at Mansfield Senior High School.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee wants Ohio voters to know, for instance, that a letter to the editor of the Mansfield News Journal that Brown wrote as a high-schooler — and published five days after four students were killed at Kent State University —protested the U.S. incursion into Cambodia. It harshly criticized President Richard Nixon’s move, saying America is fast approaching “a fascist police state.”

And in 1971, Brown, who was then a freshman at Yale, wrote a letter to the newspaper criticizing Nixon for demanding that North Vietnam release all American POWs before withdrawing U.S. troops.

The committee also notes that one of Brown’s letters pointed out how some Communist propaganda in Vietnam “happens to be true,” in contrast with Americans’ statements that U.S. bombings “are in the name of freedom.”

What does all this have to do with a Senate race nearly five decades later?

“I think these give a glimpse into Brown’s longstanding world view,” said Bob Salera, deputy communications director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

“He remains an unapologetic liberal, who uses the same over-the-top bombastic rhetoric. … That identity as one of the country’s leading progressives is going to be one of the chief narratives in the 2018 race.”

‘Rainy day’ fund remains untouched

Last week we noted how Republican senators went against Gov. John Kasich’s wishes to leave the state rainy day fund untouched for the two-year state budget that will be resolved this week.

But by the time the Senate passed its final version of the budget, the fund was no longer tapped for $2.5 million to help fund a six-week taxamnesty program.

How many states hacked still an issue

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted continues to express frustration about a Bloomberg News story (published on Page A1 of The Dispatch on June 14) citing a source saying there were attempts to penetrate elections systems in 39 states.

Previous reports said only 21 states (not Ohio) showed possible Russian hacker activity; the most significant were attempts to access voter registration files in Illinois and Arizona. Bloomberg did not mention Ohio as a hacking target in the June 14 story.

“We have been in regular contact with the FBI and Homeland Security over these issues, and there has been nothing,” Husted said. “Where these stories come from, and where the facts are, I would love to know. But there is no evidence of it happening anywhere, anyplace in Ohio.”

Matt Masterson, an Ohioan who heads the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission, said as far as he knows the “official” number is still 21. A Department of Homeland Security official told Congress last week the agency still believes only 21 states were targeted.

Ohio gets company in opioid litigation

In what is sure to be a growing trend, Missouri joined Ohio and Mississippi last week as states filing lawsuits against opioid manufacturers in connection with the drug-overdose epidemic.

The Show Me State’s litigation mirrored those of the first two, accusing the drugmakers of knowing about the addictive nature of the products they were pouring into states, but fraudulently trying to convince medical professionals and consumers otherwise.

The Missouri lawsuit names three drug-makers; Ohio’s and Mississippi’s both name five.