Thursday, June 16, 2005

Strange Happenings in Ohio

So my sister is in town from Chicago, and last night I was having dinner with her and of course we started talking politics. And she shares with me this bizarre story she had heard about out of Ohio. It seems that Ohio Republicans (they control the Governor's Mansion and both legislative bodies) entrusted tens of millions of dollars of the Ohio Workers Compensation Fund to an investor who deals in rare coins, art and collectables. Yes, that's right, the State of Ohio is the ONLY state in this nation to invest public funds in rare coins and collectables (yeah, like baseball cards and similar items). And things get worse. About $12 million of the funds are now missing. Hundreds of the rare coins (2 of them worth $300,000) are missing and other investments are unaccounted for. Now here's the kicker. The investor to whom the money was entrusted is a major contributor to the Republican Party both at the state and national levels. It seems that the reason he was hired to make these investments in the first place was as a "thank you" for his financial support over the years. But the real twist is that it was recently revealed that some of the missing assets have been missing since as early as 1993. So it appears that this loyal investor was stealing from Ohio State funds, and turning around and giving it to Ohio Republicans as donations for election campaigns (including the campaign of the current governor of Oio)! And now many of those very Republicans are balking at the suggestion that they personally return that money to the Ohio Workers Compensation Fund. O.K., I couldn't believe it myself, so here's the story from the Toledo Blade if you want to check it out yourself.

I suppose $12 million is chump change though compared to the $200+ million lost from the very same fund as a result of mismanagement by an investment firm headquartered right here in my home town of Pittsburgh, PA. It seems that the Governor's Office may have attempted to cover up those losses, and is now being investigated in this regard as well. Looks like the Republicans have some real damage control to do in Ohio. They better work fast if they want to retain control of the state, which they need to do if they want to steal the election there in 2008 like they did in 2005.

2 Comments:

At 7:41 AM, Blogger Herge Smith said...

Hold on, hold on... I'm just a dumb country boy, from a dumb country... but are you suggesting, that the Republican party is corrupt - Whhooaaa!!

Hold on there fella, that would mean that your noble President is also corrupt, in some way...

Seriously man, don't let anyone else here that, it may damage the great reputation that Bush has in all our thick-as-pig-shit countries, which he intends to take control of at some stage...

This is problem with the Democratic Party, they need to get much more amoral in their approach to gaining power - the Reps will do ANYTHING, you just don't get that vibe with the Dems.

But what do I know? I'm English - all we care about is Cream Tea and Cricket.

 
At 11:56 AM, Blogger Faltanus said...

Well you know Herge, honestly, the Democrats are probably just as corrupt. But you know what they say, it's not nice to kick someone when they're down. Plus with all the kicking of others that the Republicans have been doing (if you aren't a white, fundamentalist christian, watch out!), they deserve a few good kicks to their collective asses.

 

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