Taylor Swift’s decision to break her silence on politics triggered a storm on Monday, with fans and commentators divided over whether one of pop music’s biggest stars should have spoken out.

Swift, 28, has notably stayed out of the U.S. political fray in contrast to her more vocal peers, like Democratic supporters Katy Perry and Beyonce, and Republican backer Kid Rock.

But on Sunday Swift told her 112 million Instagram followers that she was backing — and would vote for — two Democrats running in Tennessee in the U.S. congressional midterm elections on Nov. 6.

“In the past I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now,” Swift wrote.

The “Speak Now” singer said she was a supporter of gay rights and women’s rights, and against racism.

“I cannot vote for someone who will not be willing to fight for dignity for ALL Americans, no matter their skin color, gender or who they love,” Swift wrote, saying she would vote for Democrats Phil Bredesen for the U.S. Senate and Jim Cooper for the House of Representatives.

Bredesen, a former Tennessee governor, is facing Republican Representative Marsha Blackburn in what has become an extremely close race for the Senate seat being vacated by Republican Bob Corker.

Swift said in her comments that while she typically tries to support women running for office, Blackburn’s voting record “appalls and terrifies me.”

Swift’s comments got 1.5 million likes on her Instagram page. But they enraged many conservatives, especially those in the country music community where Swift got her start as a teenager and went on to win 10 Grammys.

“What I used to love about Taylor Swift is she stayed away

from politics,” Charlie Kirk, founder of the conservative non-profit student organization Turning Point, said on Fox News television on Monday.

Some sought to play down Swift’s influence outside her predominantly young girl fan base.

“So @taylorswift13 has every right to be political but it won’t impact election unless we allow 13 yr old girls to vote,” tweeted former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who twice sought the Republican presidential nomination.

Former “Star Trek” actor George Takei was among those welcoming Swift’s declaration ahead of what are expected to be polarizing elections in November.

“Guys, things have gotten so dire that even Taylor Swift had to say something,” Takei tweeted.

Model Chrissy Teigen, actress Blake Lively and singer Perry were among those adding “likes” to Swift’s Instagram post.

Swift is currently on a world tour to support her top-selling 2017 album “Reputation,” and will perform live at the American Music Awards show in Los Angeles on Tuesday.

“Respectfully, be quiet and sing!” wrote a Twitter user named Janice @theemporersnew. “I guess you’re more pop than country now anyway. You’re country fans are gonna be disappointed.”
…

U.S. President Donald Trump asked a federal judge on Monday to dismiss adult film actress Stormy Daniels’ lawsuit challenging the validity of a $130,000 hush money agreement over a tryst she claimed they had more than a decade ago.

In a filing with the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Trump’s lawyer said the lawsuit by Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, is moot because Trump never signed the agreement and has said he will not try to enforce it.

“There is no actual controversy between plaintiff and Mr. Trump,” the president’s lawyer Charles Harder wrote.

Michael Avenatti, who represents Daniels, has said keeping the case alive serves the public interest, and wants Trump to give sworn testimony.

“This was anticipated and we are not concerned about it,” Avenatti said in an email, referring to the dismissal request.

Daniels has claimed to have had a sexual liaison with Trump at a 2006 celebrity golf tournament at Lake Tahoe, which straddles the California-Nevada border.

Trump has denied having had sex with Daniels. A hearing on his dismissal request is scheduled for Dec. 3.

The case is separate from Daniels’ defamation lawsuit against Trump over his April tweet challenging as a “total con job” her claim that an unknown man threatened her in a Las Vegas parking lot in 2011 if she went public about the alleged tryst.

U.S. District Judge James Otero, who oversees both lawsuits, appeared poised at a Sept. 24 hearing to dismiss the defamation case.

He called Trump’s comment “hyperbole” that appeared to be protected free speech under the Constitution’s First Amendment.

The judge has yet to rule in that case.

Daniels had struck the hush money agreement with Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen shortly before the 2016 presidential election.

Cohen pleaded guilty on Aug. 21 to campaign finance violations, saying Trump told him before the election to arrange hush money payments to Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who claimed she had an affair with him.

Trump has denied having an affair with McDougal.

Avenatti has become a frequent critic of Trump and has said he may run for the White House in 2020.

The case is Clifford v Trump et al, U.S. District Court, Central District of California, No. 18-02217.
…

While President Donald Trump celebrates a major victory, the elevation of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, Washington is bracing for political fallout after a bruising Senate confirmation process that concluded one month before midterm elections. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports, the mobilization of liberal voters who opposed Kavanaugh could be matched by an awakening of conservatives who rallied to defend him.
…

The bitter battle over Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court has exacerbated the nation’s political divide and left many Americans emotionally raw. It’s also given new definition to the high stakes of November’s election.

Until now, the fight for control of Congress has largely been viewed as a referendum on President Donald Trump’s first two years in office. But the turmoil surrounding Kavanaugh has transformed the midterms into something bigger than Trump, with implications that could endure long after his presidency.

The election is suddenly layered with charged cultural questions about the scarcity of women in political power, the handling of sexual assault allegations, and shifting power dynamics that have left some white men uneasy about their place in American life.

Both parties contend the new contours of the race will energize their supporters in the election’s final stretch. Both may be right.

Republicans, however, may benefit most in the short term. Until now, party leaders, Trump included, have struggled to rev up GOP voters, even with a strong economy to campaign on. The president’s middling job approval rating and independent voters’ disdain for his constant personal attacks have been a drag on GOP candidates, particularly in the more moderate suburban districts that will determine control of the House.

But Republican operatives say internal polling now shows Kavanaugh’s acrimonious confirmation has given the party a much-needed boost, with GOP voters viewing Democrats as overzealous partisans following the public testimony by Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, who accused the judge of trying to rape her while they were both in high school. Ford said she was “100 percent” certain that Kavanaugh was her attacker; Kavanaugh steadfastly denied her allegations.

The Democrats’ “strategy to capitalize on the ‘Me Too’ movement for the political purposes backfired on them,” Republican strategist Alice Stewart said. “The fact that they were willing to use Dr. Ford’s story that was uncorroborated to launch character assassinations on Judge Kavanaugh did not sit well with voters. A lot of people looked at this as a bridge too far.”

The surge in GOP enthusiasm could recalibrate a political landscape that was tilting toward Democrats throughout the summer. Though Democrats still maintain an advantage in competitive House races, the past two weeks appear to have shifted momentum in the fight for the Senate majority back to the GOP.

In North Dakota, Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer has pulled comfortably ahead of Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, who voted “no” on Kavanaugh. GOP operatives say they’re also seeing renewed Republican interest in states such as Wisconsin, where Democratic candidates for both Senate and governor have been polling strong.

“It’s turned our base on fire,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Saturday, moments after the Senate confirmed Kavanaugh.

To be sure, some tightening in the race was likely inevitable this fall. Wavering voters often move back toward their party’s candidates as Election Day nears, and most of the competitive Senate races are in states that voted for Trump by a significant margin.

With just over four weeks until Election Day, there is still time for the dynamics to shift again. And the political headwinds from the Kavanaugh confirmation are unlikely to blow in just one direction.

To Democrats, Kavanaugh’s ascent to the Supreme Court in spite of decades-old sexual misconduct allegations will only deepen the party’s pull with female voters, including independents and moderates who may have previously voted for Republicans. Democrats point to the flood of women who have spoken out about their own assaults following Ford’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Party operatives also believe the optics of the all-male GOP panel that presided over the hearing struck a chord with female voters.

“Kavanaugh’s confirmation will leave a lot of outraged and energized women in its wake,” said Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster.

Democrats argue that some of the same tactics that have helped energize Republican voters also motivate their base, particularly Trump’s attacks on Ford. During a campaign rally in Mississippi, the president mocked Ford for not remembering key details of the alleged attack, including the date and location of the party she says she and Kavanaugh attended 36 years ago.

“You’ve seen some shifts, but I still think that we’re in a strong place,” said New Mexico Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, who heads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “I still think that it gives us a lot of enthusiasm on our side because there are a lot of people out there that are really upset, not just with the testimony that came from Judge Kavanaugh but the way the president was even mocking (Ford) days ago.”

Trump remains the fall campaign’s biggest wild card. White House advisers and Republican senators are encouraging him to keep Kavanaugh in the spotlight in the campaign’s final weeks. But they’re well aware that the president often struggles to stay on message and can quickly overshadow his political victories with new controversies.

Given that, Stewart said Republicans can’t assume that this burst of momentum will sustain itself through Election Day.

“The question is whether this is the October surprise or the calm before the storm,” Stewart said.
…

The rancor over the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh as a U.S. Supreme Court justice roiled Washington again Sunday, hours after he was sworn in to fill the vacancy on the country’s highest court.

Senator Susan Collins, the Maine Republican whose support for Kavanaugh was key to him winning Senate approval by a 50-48 count, told CNN she concluded that Kavanaugh did not sexually assault a teenage girl more than three decades ago, an explosive allegation by university professor Christine Blasey Ford against Kavanaugh that threw his nomination into turmoil in the last three weeks.

“I do not believe Brett Kavanaugh was her assailant,” Collins said.

“I’m not saying she was not assaulted,” the lawmaker said. “I believe she was assaulted by someone.”

But Collins contended there “was no corroborating evidence” that it was Kavanaugh, a claim that drew a sharp rebuke from Hawaii Senator Mazie Hirono, a Democratic opponent of Kavanaugh, who called Collins’s conclusion about lack of corroborating evidence “insulting” to Ford.

Contemporaries of Ford and Kavanaugh whom Ford alleged were at the 1982 suburban Washington house party where she says the attack occurred said they had no recollection of the incident. But Hirono said that Ford, years before President Donald Trump nominated Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, had told her husband and a therapist about the attack and passed a lie detector test about the incident.

Ford told lawmakers two weeks ago she was “100 percent” certain it was Kavanaugh who had attacked her, while Kavanaugh said he was equally certain he had never attacked Ford or any other woman.

One of Kavanaugh’s most vocal supporters, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, told Fox News, “I’m happy because the effort to railroad and humiliate this man failed…Those who tried to destroy his life fell short…I had never been more pissed [angry] in my life.”

Kavanaugh could give conservatives a solid 5-4 ideological edge on the country’s top court and shape rulings for decades.

Chief Justice John Roberts administered the oath of office to the 53-year-old Kavanaugh in a private ceremony just hours after the Senate voted in favor of his life-time appointment to the nine-member court.

Kavanaugh’s nomination, one of the most contentious in U.S. history, had captured the U.S. political scene for weeks. He appeared headed to certain confirmation until Ford made her allegations against him in a Washington Post story in mid-September. But in the end her accusations did not derail the appointment of the appellate court judge one level up to the high court.

The narrow Republican majority in the Senate nearly unanimously supported his appointment to become the country’s 114th Supreme Court justice while all but one Democratic lawmaker opposed his nomination.

President Donald Trump, who now has won Senate approval for two appointments to the court, said on Twitter, “I applaud and congratulate the U.S. Senate for confirming our GREAT NOMINEE, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, to the United States Supreme Court…. Very exciting!”

On Saturday night, Trump portrayed his successful confirmation vote on Kavanaugh as a reason voters should elect Republicans in next month’s nationwide congressional elections, when the political control of Congress is at stake.

“You don’t hand matches to an arsonist, and you don’t give power to an angry left-wing mob,” he said. “Democrats have become too EXTREME and TOO DANGEROUS to govern. Republicans believe in the rule of law – not the rule of the mob. VOTE REPUBLICAN!”

Kavanaugh replaces retired Justice Anthony Kennedy, a conservative jurist who often cast the deciding swing vote on ideologically divisive issues, upholding abortion and gay rights and the use of affirmative action aiding racial minorities in college admissions. But independent court analysts say Kavanaugh is likely to lean toward more conservative rulings, giving the court’s four-member conservative bloc a 5-4 edge over the court’s four liberals.

As the senators voted, protesters in the Senate gallery screamed, “I do not consent,” and, “shame,” forcing Vice President Mike Pence, who was presiding over the chamber, to repeatedly call for order.

The Senate narrowly voted Friday to limit debate on Kavanaugh’s nomination, advancing it to Saturday’s final confirmation vote. Senators have been confronted by protesters who oppose the Kavanaugh nomination and police at the U.S. Capitol have arrested hundreds of demonstrators.

Another woman who accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct during his time at Yale, Deborah Ramirez, said in a statement Saturday that the senators discussing the impending vote brought her back to the moment of the alleged misconduct.

“As I watch many of the Senators speak and vote on the floor of the Senate I feel like I’m right back at Yale where half the room is laughing and looking the other way. Only this time, instead of drunk college kids, it is U.S. Senators who are deliberately ignoring his behavior,” Ramirez said. “This is how victims are isolated and silenced.”

Shortly before the vote, Trump said Kavanaugh “will be a great justice of the Supreme Court.”

“He’s just an extraordinary person… and I think he’s going to make us all very proud,” Trump added.
…

President Donald Trump celebrated the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court on Saturday, dismissing allegations of sexual misconduct and declaring he was “100 percent” certain his nominee was innocent.

Trump was aboard Air Force One, traveling to a campaign rally in Kansas, as the Senate voted on an extraordinarily fraught nomination that sparked angry protests, nail-biting votes and a national reckoning about sexual assault allegations and who should be believed.

Trump invited reporters traveling with him to watch the final vote in his private office, delivering a thumbs up from his desk as the confirmation was made official.

“Very, very good,” Trump said. “Very happy about it. Great decision. I very much appreciate those 50 great votes and I think he’s going to go down as a totally brilliant Supreme Court Justice for many years.”

​Trump: No taint on Kavanaugh

Trump, throughout the day, insisted Kavanaugh would not be tainted by the sexual assault allegations from Christine Blasey Ford and others that nearly tanked his nomination. Kavanaugh vigorously asserted his innocence.

“When these allegations first surfaced,” a reporter asked the president, “you said there shouldn’t even be a little doubt. Are you 100 percent certain …” Trump interrupted and began speaking as the question continued, “ … that Ford named the wrong person?”

“I’m 100 percent. I’m 100 percent. I have no doubt,” Trump said.

Trump went on to say: “One of the reasons I chose him is because there’s nobody with a squeaky-clean past like Brett Kavanaugh because he is an outstanding person and I’m very honored to have chosen him.”​

​Mocking Ford ‘had great impact’

Trump continued lashing out at Democrats when he rallied supporters in Topeka, telling them the opposition party conducted a “shameless campaign of political and personal destruction” against Kavanaugh. He said “radical Democrats” have become “an angry, left-wing mob” and “too dangerous and extreme to govern.”

Aboard Air Force One, Trump said Kavanaugh had withstood a “horrible, horrible attack” that “nobody should have to go through.”

And he revealed that he believes a rally speech in which he mocked Christine Blasey Ford’s Senate testimony had been turning point for the nomination.

“I think that the Mississippi speech had great impact,” he said, calling it “a very important thing.”

Advisers and Senate leaders had urged Trump not to attack Ford publicly, worried such a move would anger on-the-fence senators. But Trump went after her anyway, mocking her testimony and gaps in her memory as a rally crowd laughed and cheered.

White House officials now say they view the speech as a turning point that changed the momentum as it appeared Kavanaugh’s nomination was at risk.

​Rally for Kobach, Watkins

Trump campaigned in Kansas for Kris Kobach, secretary of state and the Republican nominee for governor, and Steve Watkins, the GOP nominee in the 2nd Congressional District of eastern Kansas. Retiring Republican Rep. Lynn Jenkins holds the seat, and Democrats hope to flip it.

Trump has been holding rallies across the country as he tries to boost Republican turnout in November’s midterm elections that will determine which party will control the House and Senate during the second half of Trump’s term.

He said he thinks Republicans “are going to do incredibly well” in the midterm elections after Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

“I think we have a momentum that hasn’t been seen in years,” he said.
…

The U.S. Senate has voted 50-48 to confirm Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, ending one of the most bruising and closely watched confirmation battles of modern history. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports that the outcome is a major victory for President Donald Trump, with potentially far-reaching political impact one month before America’s midterm elections.
…

U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told Reuters on Saturday that the political brawl over Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation would help Republicans retain control of the Senate, calling it a

“seminal event” leading into the November elections.

“We’d been trying to figure out how to get the base excited about this election, and nothing unifies Republicans like a court fight,” McConnell said in a phone interview just before the Senate confirmed Kavanaugh in a 50-48 vote. “It’s been a seminal event leading into the fall election.”

The intense debate over sexual misconduct allegations against Kavanaugh gripped the American public for weeks, bringing protesters out in force on Capitol Hill and across the country, including near the homes of lawmakers.

“We’ve literally been under assault by the mob,” McConnell said.

Unifying force

But he claimed the intensity has proved to be an aid to Republican unity in the Senate, as the party prepares to take the issue onto the campaign trail.

“This has all really helped me, No. 1, unify my conference, and No. 2, underscore the significance of the Senate,” the Kentucky Republican said.

McConnell even welcomed the acrimony of the political brawl: “I don’t want it to dissipate over the next four weeks, I can tell you.”

Republicans are trying to cling to a narrow 51-49 Senate majority in congressional elections that will be held on Nov. 6. Several Democrats are running for re-election in states that Republican President Donald Trump won in 2016, making for an uphill fight for them to win a Senate majority.

“We fully intend to be talking about this going into the fall election,” McConnell added. “The energy level is high. We’ve seen the numbers in the races shifting in our direction. This has been good for us politically.”

FBI probe

Kavanaugh’s confirmation appeared to be in trouble a week ago, when three Republican senators, along with Democrats, demanded a supplemental FBI investigation into allegations brought against the nominee by women, including psychology professor Christine Blasey Ford and a former Yale University classmate, Debbie Ramirez.

McConnell credited a meeting to discuss the Federal Bureau of Investigation probe with undecided Republican Sens. Jeff Flake, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski as proving critical to the success of Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

“The scope of the FBI’s … investigation was determined not by the administration but by us, this group,” he said. “I think that was the key moment.”

Flake and Collins voted in favor of Kavanaugh’s confirmation, while Murkowski opposed it but asked to be recorded as “present.”
…

The contrast was stark.

Christine Blasey Ford was calm and careful as she testified to U.S. senators last week that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her as a teenager. Then Kavanaugh sat at the same table and angrily denied the allegations. He talked back to his questioners; he called the process “a national disgrace.”

Kavanaugh’s behavior triggered a new line of debate in his bid to be confirmed to the nation’s highest court — whether he is temperamentally suited for the job. As senators prepare to take their final vote on his lifetime appointment, his fury that day — and how women’s and men’s anger are perceived differently in politics and beyond — has been front and center in the national conversation.

“Powerful white men in this country have often been able to use anger to emphasize the seriousness of the points they want to make,” said Rebecca Traister, a political writer whose book Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger, came out this week.

“Women are told if they want to be taken seriously, believed, respected, they must not speak out of anger or use angry tones,’’ she said. “If they do, they’ll sound irrational, unserious, emotional, and not trusted or respected in a public or political sphere.”

Kavanaugh was able to choose anger as a tool in his own defense, “but that tool wasn’t even on the table for Christine Blasey Ford,” Traister said in an interview at VOA in Washington.

Collective anger

At the same time, she said, women’s collective anger has often been the catalyst for real social change. Her book details how U.S. movements from abolition and suffrage to civil rights, gay rights and women’s rights in the 1970s revved up when women came together in anger about perceived injustices.

“If you look at the history, though we’ve never really been told their stories, there are furious women at the beginning of all those movements,” she said.

That may be happening now as well. Women protesters flooded Senate office buildings and marched to the Supreme Court this week, calling on senators to vote against Kavanaugh. 

WATCH: Kavanaugh Confirmation Battle Opens Space for Women’s Anger

The he-said-she-said testimony, with little to gain for Ford, was just the latest in a series of events that have upset American women, especially those who support Democrats, since Hillary Clinton lost the presidential election to Donald Trump almost two years ago. On the day after his inauguration, Jan. 21, 2017, millions took to the streets of Washington and cities across America and the world for the “Women’s March,” igniting political action that has led to record woman candidates in the midterm elections Nov. 6.

Anger is a motivating, propellant force for all kinds of political activism,” Traister said. “There is a vast and rich history of women coming together in frustration and resentment and anguish and fury around the world, and in working to change the structures that contain and subjugate them.”

​Individual anger

For one woman protester last week, activist and sexual assault survivor Ana Maria Archila, getting angry and letting it show changed the conversation. She was one of two women who challenged Republican Senator Jeff Flake in an elevator, demanding that he take survivors’ testimonies into account in his decision on Kavanaugh.

In an interview, Archila said she was reacting to reports that Flake was going to give his unconditional support to Kavanaugh, and she decided to show how she really felt.

“I was reacting to how that felt in my body, what that meant for my children, and I think I was not going to try to censor myself, not going to try to be obedient and behave well,” she said. “I was really going to try to help him understand the message that he was sending to women across the country.”

After the interaction, which was caught live on CNN and widely viewed around the world, Flake and Democratic Senator Chris Coons delayed the confirmation process by asking Republican leaders for an FBI investigation of the Ford allegations.

That report was completed Wednesday, and senators had the chance to read it Thursday. Susan Collins, the Republican senator from Maine who was reported to be unsure about whether she would vote for Kavanaugh, confirmed Friday she didn’t find reason in the report not to support him.

For his part, Republican Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell blasted the crowds of angry women turning out to oppose Kavanaugh.

“Can we be scared by all these people rampaging through the halls, accosting members at airports, coming to their homes? Trying to intimidate the Senate into defeating a good man. Are we going to allow this to happen? In this country?” he said on the Senate floor Thursday.

Even as Kavanaugh is likely to join the high court, Traister and Archila both say this most recent episode may help shift the power dynamic between men and women in Washington.

“We are usually not alone, and connecting and being curious about other women’s anger, perhaps at the same things, is one of the pathways forward,” Traister said.
…

Brandy Corwin likes that she can now wear makeup and nice clothes to work. That is because she is no longer working on the assembly line at the General Motors plant in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

“I was laid off multiple times, and having a family, you can’t rely on that,” she said.

For the past five months, Corwin, 28, has been working at Credit Adjustments, Inc. (CAI), a debt collection agency headquartered in her hometown of Defiance, Ohio, an hour outside the city of Toledo.

Corwin was a third-generation manufacturing worker and thought the assembly line was her fate. But now, she no longer has to work overtime and weekends to make ends meet. “I finally have a good work-to-home life balance,” she said, “and I didn’t have that before.”

Her two children “love seeing me come home dressed up,” Corwin said. “My son, he compliments me all the time: Wow, Mommy, your hair looks really nice,’ or ‘Wow, Mom, I love your dress,’ because I’m not walking home in dirty jeans and steel-toe boots.”

CAI opened its first area call center in downtown Toledo last January, providing 60 new job opportunities, with the goal of adding 150 more over the next year and 500 in the area over a three-year span.

“There’s been intentional investments in Toledo,” said Hayley Studer, CAI Chief Mission Officer, adding that much of the company’s regional workforce comes from health care, call centers, and customer service-based jobs.

As a result of the new investment, downtown Toledo is undergoing a “renaissance,” says Wendy Gramza, President and CEO of the Toledo Regional Chamber of Commerce, although the unemployment rate at 5.3 percent exceeds the national rate of 3.9 percent.

​Brighter days for manufacturing

Ohio lost more than 100,000 manufacturing jobs in the Great Recession that began in 2008 and its wake.

But employment numbers have improved considerably in the past three years.

Ohio has the third-largest statewide manufacturing workforce in the country, and the region’s advanced manufacturing industry has generated more than 4,900 jobs since 2015, along with $2.2 billion in capital investment, according to Regional Growth Partnership, an economic development group serving Toledo and northwest Ohio.

“We all believe that President [Donald] Trump has led the charge for this,” said Tim Copsey, director of new business inquiries at Paragon Tempered Glass, in Antwerp, Ohio. “We’re getting back onto a level playing field.”

“There was an optimism on January 1 of 2017, [shortly after Trump’s election victory],” said Larry Manz, director of sales and marketing at InSource Technologies, a Paulding-based contract manufacturing and engineering company. “People started buying capital equipment. They started investing. They started consuming goods, and all these things came together.”

Blue-collar workers in Ohio’s northwest manufacturing stronghold along Lake Erie helped propel Trump to presidential victory over former secretary of state Hillary Clinton in 2016 with 52.1 percent of the state’s vote.

Voters will be watching “who is for and who is against” Trump’s policies in the upcoming November election, Copsey says.

One such voter, Jason, is back at work after being laid off from his job as a maintenance worker in the aftermath of the recession.

“I was looking for a job every damn day,” Jason recalled. He asked VOA not to reveal his last name out of privacy concerns.

For several months in 2011, the 37-year-old performed a delicate balancing act, cutting everyday expenses — on the brink of having his water, gas and electric shut off — while searching for a decent-paying job to provide for his wife and children.

Now, the father of three is an automotive parts maintenance worker at Okamoto Sandusky Manufacturing in Sandusky, Ohio, working roughly 60 hours a week.

Jason credits both Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump for having a “part to play” in reversing the industry’s misfortunes. He believes manufacturing success stemmed from economic growth that started in the Obama administration, and has under Trump benefited from a fortified global economy, an increase in domestic demand and tax incentives for businesses.

With no particular political affiliation, he voted for Trump in 2016. His mind is not entirely made up on this November’s midterm elections, but: “I haven’t heard anything from the Democratic side that would really sway my vote at this point.”

He does have strong feelings about politicians: “We don’t care who it is, just don’t screw us over,” he said. “Don’t lie to us. Don’t screw us over.”

Less certain future

Across the region, manufacturing officials who spoke with VOA said while they increased hiring in 2017, it has since leveled off. Among their concerns: stiff competition for skilled labor, a housing and infrastructure shortage in rural areas, and rising health care costs.

Gramza notes that growth in regional manufacturing hasn’t translated to extensive new job creation in the sector. 

“A lot of our companies are innovating and automating,” Gramza told VOA. “While we’ve added new companies and new jobs, the number of people that are needed to work in the companies are keeping our overall count pretty stable.”

Democrat Jim Maldonado, an industrial electrician at a Chrysler manufacturing plant in Perrysburg, Ohio, is not optimistic about his industry’s future. His concern: tariffs on Chinese goods and a tax cut-induced rising deficit.

“Right now, [Trump’s trade war] is in its infancy,” Maldonado said. “Do I know if I’m going to lose my job? No, I don’t.”

A self-described “realist … not a dreamer,” Maldonado says electing candidates that “support working people” is his top priority this November, adding that no one in his plant likes being told who to vote for. Six years from retirement, his concern lies beyond 2018, even though he will pocket an additional $2,000 due to Republican tax cuts passed last December.

“Somebody is going to pay for that,” Maldonado said, concerned that entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare could eventually bear the brunt.

“[Trump] doesn’t need Social Security, and the people with him don’t need it, but who’s going to be dependent on that?” he asked emphatically. “I am — at some point!”

Changing workforce

Jerry Zielke, President of Northwest Ohio Regional Economic Development (NORED), describes one tactic for retaining a younger workforce: “Make awareness of what’s there, [and] try to get them engaged.”

“Getting beyond the idea that working a factory job is dirty and not very profitable and looked down upon, the factories — many of the ones I go into — are very clean, and it’s high tech, and they’re well lit, and they try to create family environments,” added Tami Norris, training coordinator at Northwest State Community College’s Advanced Manufacturing Training Center.

Toledo-native Marcus Odoms, 40 years old and a recent graduate of Northwest State’s Industrial Automation Maintenance certificate program, left the production side of manufacturing in part to relieve stress on his body, while gaining “hands on” experience with machinery.

When he began the program 12 months ago, Odoms said the starting wage was $18 to $21 per hour for industrial maintenance technicians. Now, he says, it’s up to $24.

Recently wedded with a newborn son and a certificate in hand, he says the decision will pay off. “We make a better case for raising my family in northwest Ohio,” Odoms said.

And the election?

Trump is planning to visit Ohio on October 12 to generate support for vulnerable congressional candidates. Only a few of Ohio’s congressional seats appear to be in play in this November’s election, and none are in the northwestern part of the state.

While congressional races in Ohio’s northwest seem to be reliably red, Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, appears comfortably headed for re-election. And Ohio’s race to replace Republican Governor John Kasich is pretty much tied, having just become the most expensive in the state’s history.

It will take “a mixture of the right Democrats with the right Republicans” to keep positive momentum going, says Copsey of Paragon Tempered Glass.
…

Allegations of sexual assault against U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh have mobilized women across the country to share their own stories of sexual assault and hold elected officials accountable. VOA’s congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson speaks with Ana Maria Archila, the sexual assault survivor whose personal challenge to Senator Jeff Flake last week may be a turning point in the #MeToo movement.
…

A U.S. judge Friday blocked the Trump administration from placing conditions on public safety grants to further its crackdown on illegal immigration, and he ordered the grant money to be released to California “sanctuary cities.”

However, while Judge William Orrick in San Francisco found that the conditions placed last year on public safety grants by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions were unconstitutional, he stayed a nationwide injunction pending appeal.

The U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment.

The grant conditions required recipients to provide Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents access to jails and prisons, provide notice when detainees were being released and certify that information was being shared with federal authorities.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra sued the administration in August 2017. The state argued that putting the conditions on the $28 million in federal funds it expected would undermine law enforcement and deter police cooperation by immigrants, a major population in the state.

Scores of jurisdictions around the United States have adopted some form of “sanctuary city” policies, which generally prohibit cooperation with immigration officials. U.S. President Donald Trump had made a removing illegal immigrants a key campaign pledge, and he often criticizes the sanctuary cities.

Chicago, Philadelphia and Los Angeles have successfully sued the Trump administration over the conditions on the public safety funds, known as a Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant, and those cases are pending appeal.

The use of nationwide injunctions by U.S. district courts has been a major roadblock to numerous Trump policies, and the appeals in the sanctuary city cases may provide an avenue for the administration to curtail their use by lower courts. 
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