A couple of weeks ago, we wrote a piece about how the left wing in Ohio has such a burning hatred for Governor John Kasich, that they will use any and every piece of news about him to launch an attack. Even when he makes a decision that is an act of compassion, they write some scathing critique, portraying him as evil incarnate. When he reduced Kelley Williams-Bolar’s crimes to misdemeanors, even the most reliably liberal Ohio personalities agreed he did the right thing. But the union supporting blog Plunderbund criticized his decision after they themselves had previously said she should eventually be pardoned. We summed it up as follows:

And yet they attack anyway. Personally, I could go either way on whether Williams-Bolar deserves leniancy or not. But I bring it up to show that when you’re this rabidly hateful of someone, I guess you will use every single possible thing he does as a reason to attack him. Even an act of compassion. Even if it means contradicting yourself.

Last week, however, they and the AFL-CIO sunk to a new low. Check out this headline they ran, quoting him: “Kasich on public employees: ‘we are at war with these people’.” The union webpage repeats the same story and quote.

Wow. That’s a pretty fiery statement by Kasich. Except, they have no proof he ever said it! Zero.

Hitler sign seen at an Ohio union protest – Photo courtesy Bizzy Blog

Do they have the governor saying this on video? No.

Do they have audio of Kasich saying this? No.

Are they quoting a piece from a reputable news source who was at the event where this supposedly happened? No.

Want to know where they got this supposed quote? You aren’t going to believe this. It came from one of those viral emails that gets forwarded around by hundreds of different people. You know, the ones where when you receive it, your first reaction is to check Snopes to see if it is a hoax or not. One of those emails. Some school superintendent named Mike Shreffler wrote an email saying “Kasich said this!” and all the We Are Ohio lefty union clones forwarded it to each other as if it were rock solid fact.

Let’s look closer into Plunderbund’s own post to see even more.

1. There are multiple versions of the letter. Yes, apparently people took to changing it as it was forwarded around. From the post:

I spoke with Mike this afternoon to verify that he did, in fact, write the letter. Supposedly, there may be multiple, slightly different versions of the letter floating around, but the one I’ve included below is the original.

Hey, it must be true! I got an email saying so!

2. For as many people as were at this event, they can’t find ONE other person to corroborate Shreffler’s story. Not one. Again, from PB’s own post.

Right now we don’t have video to back up Dr. Shreffler’s story and we don’t have another invitee to corroborate it. But knowing Kasich, and having heard many similar stories over the past few months, I’m going to take the word of this local school superintendent …

Really!? They actually justify not having any hard evidence by saying “yeah…but…knowing Kaisch, it MUST BE TRUE.”

He actually continues with this unbelievable line of logic.

Right now we don’t have absolute proof that Kasich said “we are at war with these people (i.e. public employees)” or that he promised to bring back parts of SB5 after it’s defeated, or that he promised to use the legislature to “ram it through”, but these statements are consistent with things Kasich has said in the past and it seems highly likely that Kasich would say something like this again, especially in a room full of people he thought were friendly to his agenda.

Well, thats it! I’m sold. Call the local news. That’s proof enough.

3. PB refers to an article by the Dayton Daily News. Yet, nowhere in the DDN article does the author repeat the supposed quote. Why? Because the DDN is a real news outlet, and has some standard of ethics. They wouldn’t dare quote Kasich as saying something so volatile on the word of one person, let alone make it their headline.

Let’s look beyond the PB post, and at some other reporting on the incident. At the Daily Record, Marc Kovac and Amanda Rolik interviewed 2 people that were at the same event. And they say Kasich said no such thing.

Sharon Ray, community service director at Wadsworth Municipal Court and a former Medina County commissioner, said Kasich did not use the kind of language or say the kinds of things Shreffler claims.

“I don’t have a clue what this guy’s talking about,” Ray said. “He talked very little about Issue 2 at all. … There was not a lot of time spent on it.”

Tom Decker, a retired police officer from Parma also attended, agreed.

“I think this guy’s a pundit for the teachers’ union …,” he said. “What he’s saying here is really attacking Kasich without cause, because Kasich didn’t say some of those things. … I really think this individual who wrote this letter, his attendance at the meeting gave him the opportunity to get his agenda out.”

Then they talked to Shreffler himself. Here’s what he said.

He added, “This is my personal opinion of what I heard. … This letter was in no way, shape or form intended for either side of the aisle to use for their advantage or disadvantage. It was not intended for someone against Senate Bill 5 to use me or use my words.“

Yet, that’s exactly what Plunderbund and the AFL-CIO are doing.

Notice how Shreffler walks back his own story. He doesn’t say “I stand by what I said and Kasich did say that.” He says “This is my personal opinion of what I heard.” It sounds like someone who didn’t expect his original story to be quoted, and now is qualifying what he said.

There is no evidence at all to support their inflammatory headline. None. The liars over at AFL-CIO and Plunderbund posting these Kasich smears should absolutely be ashamed of themselves. Their hate, and their desperation to preserve their power over the taxpayers has driven them to abandon even a shred of the credibility they might have once had.

Originally posted at Third Base Politics, a conservative Ohio-based political blog