Ohio suit to stand; Republicans must open calendars, campaign data

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1128160809325941.xml&coll=2

Hagan suit to stand; Republicans must open calendars, campaign data

Saturday, October 01, 2005

Columbus-Democrat Tim Hagan lost the 2002 governor's race but won the right Friday to begin forcing top-ranking Republicans to open their calendars and campaign coffers to unprecedented scrutiny.

A county judge denied Republican efforts to dismiss Hagan's lawsuit accusing the GOP of trading unbid contracts for campaign cash...

"I believe discovery will show that these defendants have used no-bid contracts to loot the state of Ohio of hundreds of millions of dollars, making the Bureau of Workers' Compensation fiasco look like small change."...


Filed in August 2004, the lawsuit alleges that Ohio's GOP-controlled government awarded billions of dollars in unbid state contracts to vendors who artificially inflated their prices to cover contributions they kicked back to Republican political funds...

Now, where have I heard THAT before?:eyes:

and don't hesitate!

...dontcha know...

do you mean "etc., etc., etc." . . . that's what I told my cat Patches. She was worried that you had a hairball.

It seem to be clear that rethugs nationwide must have had some secret seminar in the not too distance past where they were coached on the methods of looting public coffers because identical things are occurring all over the place - local, state and federal, the rethugs have controll of all levers of government. No wonder things are gathering momentum and how I hope that it will grind on and in timely occurence errupt into a massive scandal that sweep them all out!

This sounds a whole lot like what happened here in Illinois under George Ryan who is currently on trial by US Atty Pat fitzgerald. Shouldn't this be under criminal investigation?

http://www.super70s.com/Super70s/News/1973/October/10-Agnew_Resigns.asp

excerpt:

When it became apparent that Agnew was getting off with little or no punishment, law students at George Washington University used a class project to bring suit against the former Governor. Law School Professor John Banzoff allows his students to pick their projects and they initially sought the help of Agnew's successor in Maryland, Governor Marvin Mandel. Mandel, however, was not receptive and soon found himself in prison serving a three-year sentence for mail fraud and racketeering. The charges stemmed from a scheme where he received $300,000 as a quid pro quo to influence race track legislation.

The students, who were collectively known as Banzoff's Bandits, soon discovered a precedent under old English law that allowed an individual to bring suit when the government refuses to. It was the break they needed. They found four residents of the state of Maryland willing to put their names on the case and sought to have Agnew repay the state $268,482 - the amount he was known to have taken in bribes.

Somewhat surprisingly, the students won and after two appeals by Agnew, he finally resigned himself to the matter and a check for $268,482 was turned over the the Maryland state Treasurer William James in early 1983.

...more...

Petro, the AG, is up to his neck in the pay to play scheme. He refused to look into any of these charges, including Coingate.

against Tom Noe and try to distance himself from this stuff, hoping the public will forget that he stalled and pussy-footed around in the beginning long enough to let Noe hide assets in Florida and sell off as much as he could. Petro is just as involved as the rest of them,don't let the public forget!!!

<snip>

"...lawsuit alleges that Ohio's GOP-controlled government awarded billions of dollars in unbid state contracts to vendors who artificially inflated their prices to cover contributions they kicked back to Republican political funds..."
<snip>


This is happening on a federal level without restraints. I have always said that the GOP's campaign coffers were filled with kickbacks from over-inflated contracts to profiteers - the largest money laundering game on the planet.

Chaz

When I submitted a bid for a computer system to the military goernment, I was asked to raise the bid amount by at least 10%.

Wonder where that 10% was supposed to go? It was to go to the General who supervised the bid analysis and vendor selection.

Sheesh! At least they were open about it.

BTW, my company decided not to bid the contract at all after that.

I am almost dizzy with euphoria. It is wonderful that the blows of truth and justice continue to slam the repukelicans every day. The chain can not end anywhere below the WH. we are going to exterminate the cockroaches that have infested our country's government. I say get rid of all the corrupt politicians, whatever side of the aisle.

into campaign coffers, so whenever they award these no-bid contacts
with overblown fees, it's one for me and two for you, you are correct
in assuming it has to lead back to the WH, corruption on this scale
needs a mastermind, where's Lex Luther when you need him.

the Gov's "election" ?

Do you know where the BWC investment official who pushed both of Noe's "investments" - and who WROTE for Noe a response to the auditor of the fund after the first investment so that he could get the second investment is today? Robert Cowman - is now chief of investments for the Teacher Retirement fund in Ohio - which has a Gigantic amount of investment money compared to the BWC.

Being able to get data - cross reference timing of the granting of nobid contracts and political contributions (could they be using state tax payer money for a big political slush fund?) - Huge folks - this is HUGE not only for Ohio - but for giving the play book that should be investigated in Washington. This is Norquist/DeLay politics having been pushed playing out at the state level.

isn't it? We need a toteboard for the lawsuits, investigations and indictments.

:hi:

:yourock:

long until we see that almost every state in the country is as bad as Ohio?

Recommended.

when it comes to good governemt....

Outside of a few notable examples in the past, Ohio has always been a pay to play state....

It exploded at about the time Reagan took office and systematically started to devolve more responsibility to the state level....

But first, they cut block grants which allowed big city mayors, all of the democrats, to met out goodies to their constituents....

it's complicated....

But when the power to regulate and monitor the activity of business got down to the state level, the flood gates opened and money poured into the state and local GOP HQ's....

But please do not assume that if democrats take control of the state that there won't be cronyism and coruption...

It's our responsibility as people wanted the best government for the people to watch all our leaders......

Regardless of political affiliation...

Once those were enacted and the Repub pay to play scheme got started, it became virtually impossible for Dems to finance campaigns for new candidates to replace incumbents who were term-limited.

Soon, Dems who wanted to run for state rep or state senate (a job that pays about $40,000 a year) had to raise nearly nearly a million dollars to be competitive.

The system not only raised a lot of money for R candidates, it also allowed them to threaten anyone who gave money to Dem candidates.

Great Point.....

of its vast corruption.

"Money is corrupting the process. There is no question about it," Hagan said. "If you want to run, you have to go out and prostitute yourself to raise money. You are consumed by it, and you cannot be heard in this state unless you have a minimum of $5 million."

Yup, the repukes ARE WHORES.

Just show em the cash, and they take their clothes off.

This IS huge.

Truth is coming home to roost and it ain't pretty." I say.