Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Tom Noe: "Systematic and Pervasive Corruption"

You must see THIS STATE at You Tube. Some creative person made a film of about the Ohio Republican scandals. The film is funny, but, unfortunately, sad and true.

The Ohio Republican corruption story will not go away. As GOP fundraiser Tom Noe prepares to go to trial, more information is being revealed. Here are some excerpts from an article in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette:

A prominent GOP fundraiser who pleaded guilty to funneling $45,000 to President Bush’s re-election campaign should get more prison time than originally recommended because he made other illegal contributions to candidates in Ohio, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Tom Noe, a high-level fundraiser for Bush’s campaign, was involved in a “systematic and pervasive corruption of the federal and state election process,” prosecutors said in a court filing Tuesday. He used friends and associates to give money illegally to three candidates for the Ohio Supreme Court and two who were running for governor, prosecutors said....

...This year, Douglas Talbott, a former aide to Gov. Bob Taft, pleaded no contest to taking money from Noe and combining it with his own to make contributions of $1,000 each to three Ohio Supreme Court justices.

And in June a prosecutor said that Noe might have used former state Rep. Sally Perz to put money into Taft’s re-election campaign in 2002....

...He is to be sentenced Tuesday for the Bush donation scheme, and prosecutors had recommended a sentence of two years to 2 1/2 years after he pleaded guilty to three charges, including exceeding federal campaign contribution limits. The maximum he could face is five years.

He admitted in May to arranging a contribution scheme to fulfill his promise to generate $50,000 for a Bush fundraiser.

Noe, a rare-coin dealer, still is charged in an ill-fated $50 million coin investment that he managed for the state workers’ compensation fund. The scandal led to ethics charges against Taft, who pleaded no contest for failing to report gifts such as golf outings.

The coin investment has been a major embarrassment for Ohio’s ruling Republicans and has given Democrats a better shot at winning state offices this year, including the governor’s office that has been under GOP control since 1991.

Of course it is a major embarrassment for Ohio's ruling Republicans! It makes Ohio voters wonder how much corruption the Republicans have used in the state to get elected and hand out state contracts. Where is the $13 million dollars still missing from the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation? If Republicans are elected to office this November, it would allow the continuation of the culture of corruption. The only way to stop the mismanagement of the state is to elect Democrats.

By the way, Republican Ken Blackwell and Democrat Ted Strickland had their first debate yesterday. Blackwell said that Strickland is part of the status quo. Is Blackwell kidding? The Republicans control the entire state and they are doing a horrible job!!!