Evelyn Pringle August 11, 2004
In December 2003, the Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act of 2003, was passed. Bush signed the bill into law at the White House in a room filled with senior citizens who honestly believed that they were finally going to get help with the escalating costs of prescription drugs. Less than a year later, they realize they were duped, and that they are still victims of the high-price whims of the drug industry.
The health care advocacy group, Families USA, recently went on what it called a "Medicare Roadshow" to learn what seniors knew about the drug bill. "What we've learned from this experience is, the more seniors learn about the new Medicare law, the more unhappy they are," said Executive Director Pollack.
One of the biggest errors of the Bush presidency will turn out to be underestimating the intelligence of senior citizens. They know a scam when they see one. Rep Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, says he has met with many seniors and that, "there is an intuitive understanding that this bill was written by the drug and insurance industries."
Seniors make up 13% of the population, which means 13% percent of the most active block of voters in the country will be voting against Bush. The ill-conceived Medicare scam may just cost Bush the election.
What's Wrong With The Bill?
The bill was supposed to make drugs more affordable for seniors, but numerous studies indicate that it has done just the opposite.
The actual so-called benefit from the bill will not go into effect until 2006, so in the meantime, Bush came up with the idea for a prescription drug discount card program intended to reduce prescription drug costs for senior citizens between now and then. To that end, Bush selected roughly 70 private companies to administer the program and provide discount drug cards to seniors, at a fee of up to $30, for use at their pharmacies.
In reality, the drug card program has actually contributed to the problem of high drug costs because, (1) it specifically bars Medicare from negotiating for better prices on behalf of its 40 million members; (2) it prohibits importation and consumer access to lower cost drugs from other countries; (3) companies can change the drugs they offer or the prices they charge whenever they please, but seniors can only change cards once a year; and (4) all cards are not accepted at all pharmacies.
Most of the companies that Bush selected are either large insurance companies or prescription benefit managers (PBMs), and not surprising, most are top Republican campaign contributors. Many lawmakers, from both sides of the isle, say the card program will benefit the drug and insurance industries far more than the elderly.
In 2003, to ensure the passage of the industry's preferred version of the legislation, drug companies, HMOs, their trade associations and industry-funded advocacy groups spent nearly $140 million, and deployed over 900 lobbyists to do their bidding in Washington.
Topping the list of lobbyist spending by interested card providers, was industry giant Merck, at $8 million. But other companies were close behind. Blue Cross also dropped close to $8 million; Aetna spent $2.9 million; Wellpoint Health Networks coughed up $1.5 million; Pacificare put up $1.42 million; and United Healthcare dumped $1.2 million.
In addition, the industry gave more than $3 million in political contributions to the 11 elected officials largely credited with crafting the bill (9 Republicans).
But nobody raked in more campaign cash than Bush. To date, 21 industry executives and lobbyists have achieved "Ranger" or "Pioneer" status, which means they have raised at least $200,000 or $100,000, respectively, during the 2000 or 2004 campaigns. These 21 Rangers and Pioneers have collected at least $3.4 million for Bush.
According to the Public Citizen report entitled "The Medicare Drug War," this group include 5 executives from brand-name drug companies, 6 officials from HMOs, the CEO of a pharmacy services company that runs a PBM, the head of a direct-mail pharmacy, and 8 Washington lobbyists who represent drug companies and HMOs.
Its no wonder that Republican Senator John McCain, has described the new prescription drug bill as a "a living, breathing testimonial to the political influence of the pharmaceutical companies."
Ron Pollack, leader of the health care advocacy group, Families USA, says there is no need for a card program, that Medicare should be allowed to bargain for lower prices like the VA does. "Other than political pressure from the drug lobby, there is no sensible reason why Congress and the president refused to take this far more effective step," he said.
Senator Edward Kennedy agrees, "A genuine discount program would provide a single discount card for Medicare, and the [HHS] secretary ... would negotiate large savings and fair prices for senior citizens, just as the secretary of Veterans Affairs does for veterans. We need to end this shell game and find honest solutions to the crisis of excessive costs of prescription drugs," he says.
The industry also scored big by getting a bill passed that bars seniors from importing prescription drugs from other countries. That's why busloads of seniors are forced to take trips to Canada every month to buy prescription drugs that cost 40% less than in the US.
This year alone experts at Boston University estimate that Americans could save $59.7 billion by paying Canadian prices, and yet, Republicans and Bush refused to include a provision that would have provided seniors with this much needed assistance.
Another major problem with the bill is that once they chose a card provider, seniors are locked into that card for a whole year, while the companies can change the drugs offered, and their prices, whenever they want. Democrats tried to include a provision in the law that would have at least stopped companies from raising prices more often than once a month.
However, typical of the caring guy that he is, Bush got his allies in Congress to defeat the provision because in his words, "price stability is not a requirement of the drug benefit." Well that may be, but I think a little price stability might be nice for those seniors on fixed incomes.
Without the provision, Pollack believes that companies will get seniors to buy their cards, by offering great savings on certain drugs, and then cut the discount, or worse yet, stop offering the drugs altogether. "The potential for bait-and-switch is enormous," he said.
How Did Bush Ever Come Up With The Idea For Card Program?
Trust me, Bush is definitely not the brain behind this complicated scheme.
His good friend, David Halbert, the CEO of AdvancePCS, one of the companies that Bush approved to administer the program, is the guy responsible for coming up with key portions of the legislation.
On Dec 11, 2003, only two days after Bush signed the new Medicare bill into law, he came forward and released the details about this great discount drug card program, right at about the same time that the Center for American Progress (CAP) released a report detailing the longstanding political and financial relationship between Bush and David Halbert.
CAP called attention to the fact that Halbert was allowed to help craft the very part of the bill that would have seniors buy discount drug cards from his company, Advance.
The next day, on December 12, the Boston Globe published an article that warned that a Texas company owned by Halbert, a campaign contributor and former business associate of Bush, would profit if Medicare endorsed the drug card program.
Other media sources noted the connection between the Medicare legislation, Bush and Halbert as far back as July 18, 2001, only 6 months after Bush took office. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that, "AdvancePCS has been working with the White House to create a nationwide private discount card program ...David Halbert, AdvancePCS' chief executive, said the Bush administration contacted his company about 2 months ago." When Bush announced the original plan, "Halbert stood next to the president in the Rose Garden" and he said "it was quite an experience."
We're not talking here about a new friendship. Halbert even helped boost Bush into politics. In 1994, when he was running for governor and needed cash, Bush turned to Halbert and he came through. According to the CAP, Halbert and his family members gave Bush $14,500.
Their ties go all the way back to Bush's days in the oil industry. According to an August 8, 2002 article in the Star-Telegram, "before starting what would become AdvancePCS, Halbert helped clean up a deal with Harken Energy (Bush's failed oil company) that had prompted an SEC investigation of Bush."
Shortly after the SEC investigation ended, Halbert asked Bush to invest money in his then new company, Advance Paradigm. Bush made a small investment in the company, and walked away with a six-figure bonanza a few years later in 1998 when he sold his stock.
Of course as we now know, by 1998 Bush had decided to run for the presidency and it would not have looked too good if he openly held on to shares in a drug company in the light of the plans that him and Halbert had concocted in the event that Bush ended up winning.
So, it should come as no surprise that all of the predications about the 2 cronies came true. Advance was approved to administer the cards and David Halbert is set to make a bundle.
David Sirota, author of the Progress Report, says, "The president needs to explain why he allowed his longtime Texas crony and benefactor to help write key pieces of Medicare legislation that guarantees nothing for seniors but billions for his friend's business," he said. "The White House is supposed to be the people's house, not the drug industry's corporate headquarters," Sirota added.
As usual, Bush refuses to address the issue. When reporters raised questions about the connection between Bush and Halbert, White House Spokesman Trent Duffy, said ''I'm not going to be able to say anything about specific conversations the White House had in crafting this legislation.''
How Did This Bill Ever Get Passed?
Initially AARP, the nation's largest lobbying group for seniors, threw its 35 million member support behind the bill and described it as "a historic breakthrough and important milestone in the nation's commitment to strengthen and expand health security for its citizens."
However, since the bill was passed, AARP's decision to support the bill has led to damning repercussions. According to AARP CEO, Bill Novelli, "15,000 members have told the organization to cancel their membership because of the endorsement."
AARP has since acknowledged that the rising drug costs have wiped out any savings that may have resulted from the discount card plan. It conducted a study that showed that the prices of many brand name drugs commonly used by seniors rose sharply in the first few months of 2004, immediately following the enactment of the bill.
In fact, the study found that the overall annual rate of increase rose to 7.2% for the 12 months preceding March 2004. Which indicates that the industry already knew about the card program and was raising prices in 2003 in anticipation of it being implemented.
According to reports by both Families USA and AARP, the price hikes offset any savings on drugs bought with the cards. A report by the Wall Street Journal says companies raised prices on the most popular drugs "nearly 3.5 times faster on average than overall inflation." And it gets worse. In 2003, the price of 14 brand-name drugs that are most commonly used by seniors, increased by more than 5 times the rate of inflation.
Senator Kennedy summed up the drug card scam correctly. "For many medicines, price increases in just the last 12 months have already wiped out any savings that these cards may provide," he said, "the Bush Medicare bill is a sweetheart deal for big drug companies and a raw deal for senior citizens."
Bush Finds Ways To Con Congress Into Passing The Bill
The political plots behind the passage of the prescription drug legislation will likely be written about in history books in years to come. First off, Republican congressional leaders violated House rules by extending the voting period on the bill by 3 hours after the initial vote count came up short.
Then Rep Nick Smith (R- MI) disclosed that Republicans had attempted to sway his vote, with threats and bribery attempts, which included a promise of a $100,000 donation for his son's political campaign.
Next, Bush waged a $9 million deceptive TV ad campaign in attempt to sell the legislation to seniors (handled by the same media firm managing Bush's reelection campaign), and spent another $3 million for print, radio and Spanish speaking ads.
Then, shortly after the bill was passed, it became known that the administration had intentionally lied to members of Congress by quoting a $395 billion price tax for the bill, when it had known for 5 months that it would cost well over $500 billion.
It then came out that Bush's top negotiator on the bill, CMS Administrator Tom Scully, had threatened to fire the government's top expert on Medicare costs, Richard Foster, if he revealed the true cost of the bill to members of Congress, before they was voted it.
A March 23, 2004 Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, quotes Foster as saying that the higher projection was known before the House and Senate votes but that Scully told him, "We can't let that get out."
During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing, Foster said that as early as June, 2003, he had shared his analysis that the legislation would exceed its target spending goal with Bush administration officials.
According to the NYTs, Foster's analysis revealed that the legislation "would cost 25% to 50% more than the Bush administration's estimates." And that Foster said, "The range of our estimates was $500 billion to $600 billion all the way through the process."
Foster's figures would have definitely threatened the passage of the bill because 13 Republicans had vowed to vote against it if the cost went over $400 billion. Even at the lower cost, the bill initially only passed the House by 1 vote. A later House-Senate compromise passed by only five votes. Had members of Congress known the truth, the bill would have been doomed.
But why would Scully do this? Intentionally withhold information from Congress and tax payers regarding the cost of legislation ready to be voted on involving 100 billion dollars?
Well it helps to know that within a days of the bill being passed, Scully told reporters that he had been negotiating future employment with 3 lobbying firms and 2 investment companies. An investigation by the watchdog group Public Citizen, revealed that those 5 firms either represented, or have major stakes in 41 of the companies that would be affected by the new law.
So where does Scully work now? In the end, he accepted employment with 2 of the companies, the lobbying firm Alston & Bird and the private investment firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe. Since Scully joined the company, Alston & Bird has signed up over a dozen new health care clients, including industry giants Abbott Laboratories and Aventis Pharmaceuticals.
As it turns out, Foster was right. Estimates from the Office of Management and Budget released after the bill was passed showed that it would cost $534 billion, $134 billion more than the amount presented to Congress before they voted on the measure.
All of this was bad enough, but the icing on the cake came when the GAO recently announced that it had determined that Bush broke federal law by running the phony TV ads that concealed the fact that the news footage segments featured actors who were pretending to be reporters, and who were paid with federal funds to read scripts written by the administration.
The GAO concluded that the segments were "not strictly factual news stories," that they contained "notable omissions and weaknesses" about Medicare changes, and that running the ads constituted a "misuse of appropriated funds" in violation of federal law. So in a nutshell, Bush spent more than $12 million tax dollars to con the elderly.
What a guy. Bush may be the son of Barbara's every dream, but he's got to be every grandmother's nightmare.
How Were These Companies Chosen?
What qualifications were needed? That question requires a one word answer - money.
In order to protect the profits of the already most profitable business in the US, the drug industry made more than $44 million in political contributions since 1999, with 78% to Republicans and 22% to Democrats.
It also spent millions of dollars more hiring a multitude of lobbyists that outnumber the members in Congress; and funneled millions more to "front groups" that do the industry's bidding under more politically-palatable sounding names such as, "Citizens for a Better Medicare" and "United Seniors Association."
And of course the loyal guy that he is, Bush rewarded his top contributors. The top 7 executives and lobbyists from approved companies have raised, or pledged to raise, $100,000 or more for the Bush campaign. They are Wellcare executives Todd Farha and David Hart; Blue Cross executive Michael Hightower; United Health CEO William McGuire; Medco President Alan Lotvin; Express Scripts board member Samuel Skinner; and PacifiCare lobbyist Tom Loeffler.
Of the companies chosen, at least 20 have a history of being involveded in fraud charges, that include bilking Medicare and overcharging consumers. For instance, Best Buddy, David Halbert's company Advance, faced lawsuits last year over market manipulation, and its failure to disclose the extent of its financial ties with drug makers. AARP also sued Advance and accused the company of illicitly diverting seniors from AARP's drug-discount plan, and of actually putting seniors at risk for dangerous drug interactions.
Another Bush approved company, Medco Health Solutions, had to pay $29 million to settle claims by 20 states that it pressured doctors to switch the brands of their patient's medication to benefit Medco financially. It has also been charged with defrauding the federal employees' health plan.
In fact, Advance and Medco are both listed as defendants in a current lawsuit with 2 other approved companies, Caremark and Express Scripts. The suit alleges that they engaged in anti-competitive practices that harmed pharmacies, and that they entered into secret deals with drugmakers in return for kickbacks and other undisclosed incentives.
Yet even with its long history of corruption, Bush entrusted Medco to administer drug discount cards to our seniors. Why? $$$ A few weeks after Bush approved the company, Medco President, Alan Lotvin, co-sponsered a $100,000 fundraiser for Bush, according to a report by the Associated Press.
I know, I know. I should quit nitpicking. What are friends for right?
But Medco is not alone in paying huge fines. Many other companies that Bush approved have histories of paying large sums of money to settle fraud claims. According to the 2002 Medicaid Fraud Report, United Healthcare paid $4 million to settle allegations that it charged both Medicaid and Medicare for the same patient services.
In 2003, WellPoint paid over $9 million to settle charges that its Blue Cross subsidiary defrauded Medicare by auditing more claims and cost reports than it actually did.
Another example is Humana Health Plan. Between 1992 and 2000, it paid over $22 million to settle fraud claims that it billed both Medicaid and Medicare for the same services, and had received duplicate payments for the same patients.
Top lobbyists who raise big bucks for Bush also represent companies involved in fraud. Bush Pioneer, Tom Loeffler, is a lobbyist for PacificCare, a company that paid $87.3 million to settle charges of violating the federal False Claims Act in 2002.
The latest industry fraud case just became public on August 6, 2004, when New York City filed a lawsuit against 44 drug companies and their subsidiaries, accusing them of "deceptively inflating the cost of their drugs and defrauding taxpayers out of tens of millions of dollars," the NYTs reports. According to the LA Times, almost every major US drug company is listed in the suit. We'll have to wait and see what the gang was up to in that case.
Of course I'm convinced that all of the above legal problems are probably the result of an 8 year period of honest mistakes. So by all means, let's throw open the door to the Medicare fund so that these crooks can get their hands on more of our tax dollars.
The question is how did these corrupt companies ever end up in a position where they can so easily and blatantly exploit our elderly? Only one person can answer that question and Bush ain't talking.
Related topics still to be covered in a series of articles on the Prescription Drug Bill are: (1) Comparing Drug Prices with the Card Program against prices available in other countries, prices negotiated VA style, and prices of internet pharmacies; (2) Who Gets the $550 Billion? (3) The Revolving Door Between the Bush White House and the Industry; (4) Other Negative Consequences of the Bill for Retirees; (5) Other Corrective Bills Currently Pending In Congress; and (6) What Happens In 2006?
Showing posts with label Kerry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kerry. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Make Bush Quit Lying - Kerry Did Not Vote for the War in Iraq
Evelyn Pringle July 16, 2004
Bin Laden must be laughing his you know what off. By calling off the hunt in Afghanistan, to launch a preemptive war against a country that posed no threat to the US, Bush not only sabotaged the capture of bin Laden; he destroyed our credibility, and undermined American security at home and abroad.
By grossly overextending our troops, he has lessened our military readiness to respond to a real threat of terror should one arise. Osama bin Laden himself could not have created the disaster in Iraq any better if he had tried.
Here's a political riddle to solve. Who made the following comments and whom did the comments refer to?
* "Sending our military on vague, aimless, and endless missions rapidly saps morale. Even the highest morale is eventually undermined by back-to-back deployments, poor pay, shortages of spare parts and equipment, inadequate training, and rapidly declining readiness."
* "A comprehensive strategy for combating the new dangers posed by weapons of mass destruction must include a variety of other measures to contain and prevent the spread of such weapons. We need the cooperation of friends and allies."
* "Nor should the intelligence community be made the scapegoat for political misjudgments."
Source: The year 2000 Republican Party Platform.
So just look at what has happened between then and now. The Republican prophets who posted those comments were absolutely correct. Endless missions, back-to-back deployments, inadequate training, no cooperation of friends and allies, blaming the CIA for political misjudgments, and on and on. It all came true all right, but democrats caused none of it.
Bush's so-called war on terror is a miserable failure, any way you look at it. Retired General Anthony Zinni, former commander of the US Central Command, got it right when he said that by manufacturing a false rationale for war, abandoning traditional allies, propping up and trusting Iraqi exiles, and failing to plan for post-war Iraq, Bush has made the US less secure, instead of safer.
Bush thinks that Iraqi citizens should have welcomed us into the country and thanked us for getting rid of Saddam. Right before the war started, in a March 16, 2003 interview, Cheney said, "I really do believe we will be greeted as liberators."
As we now know, he was dead wrong, that did not happen.
But then why would Iraqis thank us? For what? Saddam may be gone, but innocent Iraqis have suffered the same human rights violations at the hands of the occupying forces that they did while Saddam was in power. In addition to the degradation and inexcusable abuse of prisoners, the deaths of at least 34 Iraqi detainees are currently being investigated.
Iraqis still live in fear of torture every day; in fact probably more so. Incidents of murder, rape, and kidnapping have skyrocketed since the war began. Violent deaths rose from an average of 14 per month in 2002 to 357 a month in 2003.
Come to think about it, I don't hear about any good news coming out of Iraq. Its about 120 degrees over there and they don't even have the basic necessities that they had under Saddam. According to a recent report by the GAO, basic services like water and electricity are still operating at lower levels than they were before the war.
Over the past year, joblessness has doubled. According to the Boston Globe, using recent US data, more than half the workers in the country are either without job or making less than a living wage. Only 1% of Iraq's workforce (7 million people) is involved in reconstruction projects.
Bush and his gang of war profiteers made sure the reconstruction contracts went to US companies, rather than experienced Iraqi firms. Democratic Rep Martin Meehan, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, sees what is going on and explains, how "the American taxpayer is spending billions of dollars on no-bid contracts to companies like Halliburton. Not only has this money often been poorly spent or outright wasted, but in many cases it is paying the salaries of foreign workers to do jobs in Iraq that are well within the skill sets of Iraqis," said Meehan.
Again, why in the world would Iraqis thank us?
BIG LIES
In the months leading up to the war, Bush told American citizens and Congress, that the US had to wage a preemptive war against Iraq, not only to get rid of Saddam's WMDs, but also because there were links between Saddam and Osama Bin Laden, who is believed to be the mastermind behind 911.
However, the Bush Administration now claims that it never said that Saddam and his WMDs posed an "imminent" threat, and so therefore, Bush cannot be accused of exaggerating the case for war or misleading Congress and the American people.
How soon they forget. Some officials did too use the word "imminent" and others used phrases and words that had the exact same meaning. Yet, during a press conference shortly after the war began, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "Some in the media have chosen to use the word 'imminent'. Those were not words we used."
Oh really? Is that so? Well, Scott must have a pretty bad memory, because on 2/10/03, he himself used the "I" word when he specifically said, "This is about imminent threat."
He must have also forgotten the statement made by Bush Communications Director Dan Bartlett, on 1/26/03, when he answered, "Well, of course he is," in response to a reporter's direct question, "is Saddam an imminent threat to US interests, either in that part of the world or to Americans right here at home?"
And how could Scott forget the comment made by his predecessor, White House Press Secretary, Ari Fliescher, on 5/7/03? Ari was asked whether or not Iraq was an "imminent threat," and his answer was, "Absolutely."
And how about Bush, himself. Lets do a little review statements made by the star of the war profiteering scheme:
"The Iraqi regime is a threat to any American. ... Iraq is a threat, a real threat." Bush 1/3/03
"Saddam Hussein is a threat to America." Bush 11/3/02
"I see a significant threat to the security of the United States in Iraq." Bush 11/1/02
"There is real threat, in my judgment, a real and dangerous threat to America in Iraq in the form of Saddam Hussein." Bush 10/28/02
"There are many dangers in the world, the threat from Iraq stands alone because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place. Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists." Bush 10/7/02
"The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency." Bush 10/2/02
"There's a grave threat in Iraq. There just is." Bush 10/2/02
"This man poses a much graver threat than anybody could have possibly imagined." Bush 9/26/02
And lets review a few of the lines uttered by Chief Cheney over a period of 2 days:
Iraq is "a serious threat to our country, to our friends and to our allies." 1/31/03.
Iraq poses "terrible threats to the civilized world." 1/30/03.
Iraq "threatens the United States of America." 1/30/03
Rumsfeld is really a trip. Here's where he uses statements about 9/11 (peppered with the "I" word), as part of the ploy to scare us into war:
"I would look you in the eye and I would say, go back before September 11 and ask yourself this question: Was the attack that took place on September 11 an imminent threat the month before or two months before or three months before or six months before? When did the attack on September 11 become an imminent threat? Now, transport yourself forward a year, two years or a week or a month...So the question is, when is it such an immediate threat that you must do something?" 11/14/03
Here's where Rumsfeld used the ultimate threat of nuclear weapons (and the "I" word again), to scare us some more, complete with the bogus, and now infamous, line about Iraq seeking uranium from Africa:
"Iraq poses a serious and mounting threat to our country. His regime has the design for a nuclear weapon, was working on several different methods of enriching uranium, and recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa." 1/30/03.
"Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent - that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain. And we should be just as concerned about the immediate threat from biological weapons. Iraq has these weapons." 9/18/02.
Here's where Rummy warns us about Saddam being an "immediate threat:"
"No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq." 9/19/02
While we're at it, lets take a look back at what Colin Powell said to the world about the threat posed by Saddam and WMDs in his speech before the UN. Colin even brought photos of the evidence to back up his statements.
"My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. I will cite some examples, and these are from human sources."
"We also have satellite photos that indicate that banned materials have recently been moved from a number of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction facilities."
"Let's look at one. This one is about a weapons munition facility, a facility that holds ammunition at a place called Taji (ph). This is one of about 65 such facilities in Iraq. We know that this one has housed chemical munitions. In fact, this is where the Iraqis recently came up with the additional four chemical weapon shells."
"Here, you see 15 munitions bunkers in yellow and red outlines. The four that are in red squares represent active chemical munitions bunkers."
"Ladies and gentlemen, these are not assertions. These are facts, corroborated by many sources, some of them sources of the intelligence services of other countries."
I would say this to Colin Powell, OK Colin, fair enough. Here's your chance to redeem yourself. For starters, lets see those photos again, and then explain to the world, exactly what happened to those yellow and red bunkers in the photos. And after that, give us the names of all those solid human sources.
Here's where Powell tells the UN all about the ties and meetings between Al Qaida, Osama and Saddam, that according to Colin, had been going on for years.
"Going back to the early and mid-1990s, when bin Laden was based in Sudan, an Al Qaida source tells us that Saddam and bin Laden reached an understanding that Al Qaida would no longer support activities against Baghdad. Early Al Qaida ties were forged by secret, high-level intelligence service contacts with Al Qaida, secret Iraqi intelligence high-level contacts with Al Qaida."
"We know members of both organizations met repeatedly (oh yea? How about dates and locations), and have met at least eight times at very senior levels since the early 1990s. In 1996, a foreign security service tells us, that bin Laden met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Khartoum, and later met the director of the Iraqi intelligence service."
"Saddam became more interested as he saw Al Qaida's appalling attacks. A detained Al Qaida member tells us that Saddam was more willing to assist Al Qaida after the 1998 bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Saddam was also impressed by Al Qaida's attacks on the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000."
OK Colin, how about introducing us to this "detained" Al Qaida member that gave you all this info. That should be easy enough.
Here's where he makes it sound like the Iraqis, Al Qaida, Saddam and Osama were best buddies, even houseguests of one another, supposedly backed by yet another "human source." Who by the way, I am eager to meet.
"Iraqis continued to visit bin Laden in his new home in Afghanistan. A senior defector, one of Saddam's former intelligence chiefs in Europe, says Saddam sent his agents to Afghanistan sometime in the mid-1990s to provide training to Al Qaida members on document forgery."
Gosh, do you think that they had tea together in Osama's new cave?
Funny thing, the only forgeries I've ever heard about are the ones used by Bush and his gang of thugs in their reports to Congress and the UN. What were they again? A student's term paper and some documents purporting to show that Saddam was seeking uranium from Africa? I think that's right. As I recall, they were easily identified as fakes. Maybe the Bush gang should enroll in the forgery training camp in Afghanistan.
Get this, here's Colin with another photo. This one shows a poison and explosive training camp, specifically located in northeastern Iraq.
"You see a picture of this camp. The network is teaching its operatives how to produce ricin and other poisons. Let me remind you how ricin works. Less than a pinch--image a pinch of salt--less than a pinch of ricin, eating just this amount in your food, would cause shock followed by circulatory failure. Death comes within 72 hours and there is no antidote, there is no cure. It is fatal."
OK Colin, lets see that photo again, and then tell us what happened to this dangerous chemical training camp, with its pinches of deadly ricin, after it apparently disappeared off the face of the earth.
As long as we're parsing words, lets take a closer look at a few of the other words they used to convince us that we needed to go to war. As noted above, they did use the "I" word, but beyond that, they claim the other words used did not mean "imminent."
Well I beg to differ. They described the threat of Saddam's and his WMDs as: "mortal," "urgent," "immediate", "serious and mounting", "unique," and they even claimed that Iraq was actively seeking to "strike the United States with weapons of mass destruction."
Now I know that the Bush gang is convinced that we lowly citizens are all really stupid, but can't they give us just a little more credit? I think there are at least a few Americans out here who might know the meaning of some of those words.
While we're on the subject of lies, how about the one where they said the war would be a cakewalk. In February 2003, Rumsfeld predicted that the war "could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months." That was either a pipe dream or pure BS. I say BS.
And what about the costs? Every last one of them lied to Congress and taxpayers about what the war would cost. On April 23, 2003, Andrew Natsios, head of the US Agency for International Development, gave a televised interview and outlined the costs to the taxpayers of rebuilding Iraq, "the American part of this will be $1.7 billion," he said. "We have no plans for any further-on funding for this."
That estimate turned out to be a little bit off -- by about $149 billion --- so far.
A March 2003 report by the White House Office of Management and Budget said: "Iraq will not require sustained aid." In testimony to Congress on March 27, 2003, Wolfowitz said Iraq "can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon." I wonder when will relatively soon is going to get here.
And remember when they all said that Iraqi oil would pay for its reconstruction? What a joke. In 2003 oil production dropped to 1.33 million barrels a day, from 2.04 million in 2002.
The fact is, Bush and his gang of chickenhawks lied to Congress, to taxpayers, and to the world, in order to wage an illegal war. The whole damn bunch should be tried as war criminals.
John Kerry Did Not Vote to Go to War
Bush is always saying Kerry voted for the war. Let's get one thing straight once and for all. He did not vote to go to war. He voted for a resolution that gave Bush the authority to use force as a last resort, if it became absolutely necessary to protect us from an imminent threat from WMDs (and yes he used the "I" word many times).
If Kerry is guilty of anything, its of being gullible enough to believe the lies told by the President of the United State, and his gang of fellow liars, on the world stage.
In a speech on the Senate Floor on the day of the vote, Kerry made it clear that he was not voting to go to war when he said, "approving this resolution does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable." It means "America speaks with one voice."
Kerry had no reason to think Bush was set to go to war. As he pointed out, any threat posed by Saddam and his WMDs, was "not imminent, and no one in the CIA, no intelligence briefing ... suggests it is imminent. None of our intelligence reports suggest that he is about to launch an attack," Kerry said. "Every nation has the right to act preemptively, if it faces an imminent and grave threat, for its self-defense ... The threat we face today with Iraq does not meet that test yet."
Kerry said that he would only agree to go to war for one reason, to rid Saddam of WMDs. He emphatically warned Bush that if he did take the country to war for any other reason than an imminent threat to the US by Saddam and his WMDs, that he would be the first to speak out and demand that Bush be held accountable.
As we know now, there never were any WMDs and so therefore, as Kerry made clear, he would have never voted to go to war.
He clarified what his vote meant when he said, "let me be clear, the vote I will give ... is for one reason and one reason only: To disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, if we cannot accomplish that objective through new, tough weapons inspections in joint concert with our allies," he said.
"In giving the President this authority, I expect him to fulfill the commitments ... to work with the United Nations ... to adopt a new resolution setting out tough and immediate inspection requirements, and to act with our allies at our side if we have to disarm Saddam Hussein by force. If he fails to do so, I will be among the first to speak out."
"If we do wind up going to war with Iraq, it is imperative that we do so with others in the international community, unless there is a showing of a grave, imminent--and I emphasize "imminent"--threat to this country which requires the President to respond in a way that protects our immediate national security needs."
In my opinion, the day for demanding accountability from Bush has long passed. It should have happened the day he took the country to war in Iraq. That said, I look forward to watching the first Bush-Kerry debate when Kerry will have the opportunity to demand accountability from that greedy thug living in the WH illegally.
Kerry warned us about what would happen if Bush took us to war without just cause, and without our allies. He speech on the Senate floor on the day of the vote almost seems prophetic in hindsight. Here are a few excerpts from his October 9, 2002 Senate speech:
"The President needs to give the American people a fairer and fuller, clearer understanding of the magnitude and long-term financial cost of that effort."
"The international community's support will be critical because we will not be able to rebuild Iraq single-handedly. We will lack the credibility and the expertise and the capacity."
"The administration may not be in the habit of building coalitions, but that is what they need to do. ... If we go it alone without reason, we risk inflaming an entire region, breeding a new generation of terrorists, a new cadre of anti-American zealots, and we will be less secure, not more secure, at the end of the day, even with Saddam Hussein disarmed."
Everything Kerry said would happen, happened. The skyrocketing costs of the war, both in lives lost, and tax dollars spent blow Americans away. The country was not prepared to sustain such a drastic drain on its resources. Nor were we prepared for the hatred that has been directed at Americans, not only in Iraq, but also throughout the Middle East.
Just like Kerry predicted, the region has become a magnet for terrorists that hate Americans. And he's right; Saddam's capture provides no consolation when weighed against the mess Bush got us into.
A scheme that turned Iraq into a boomtown for Bush and his fellow war profiteers, has turned into a never-ending nightmare for the rest of the country. First thing we see each morning, when we turn on the TV or pick up a newspaper, is the number of soldiers killed or injured the day before. And there is no end in sight.
John Kerry bears no responsibility whatsoever for the war in Iraq. If he had been president we never would have ended up there to begin with. But as it stands now, Kerry will be the one stuck with cleaning up the mess when he inherits it come November.
Bin Laden must be laughing his you know what off. By calling off the hunt in Afghanistan, to launch a preemptive war against a country that posed no threat to the US, Bush not only sabotaged the capture of bin Laden; he destroyed our credibility, and undermined American security at home and abroad.
By grossly overextending our troops, he has lessened our military readiness to respond to a real threat of terror should one arise. Osama bin Laden himself could not have created the disaster in Iraq any better if he had tried.
Here's a political riddle to solve. Who made the following comments and whom did the comments refer to?
* "Sending our military on vague, aimless, and endless missions rapidly saps morale. Even the highest morale is eventually undermined by back-to-back deployments, poor pay, shortages of spare parts and equipment, inadequate training, and rapidly declining readiness."
* "A comprehensive strategy for combating the new dangers posed by weapons of mass destruction must include a variety of other measures to contain and prevent the spread of such weapons. We need the cooperation of friends and allies."
* "Nor should the intelligence community be made the scapegoat for political misjudgments."
Source: The year 2000 Republican Party Platform.
So just look at what has happened between then and now. The Republican prophets who posted those comments were absolutely correct. Endless missions, back-to-back deployments, inadequate training, no cooperation of friends and allies, blaming the CIA for political misjudgments, and on and on. It all came true all right, but democrats caused none of it.
Bush's so-called war on terror is a miserable failure, any way you look at it. Retired General Anthony Zinni, former commander of the US Central Command, got it right when he said that by manufacturing a false rationale for war, abandoning traditional allies, propping up and trusting Iraqi exiles, and failing to plan for post-war Iraq, Bush has made the US less secure, instead of safer.
Bush thinks that Iraqi citizens should have welcomed us into the country and thanked us for getting rid of Saddam. Right before the war started, in a March 16, 2003 interview, Cheney said, "I really do believe we will be greeted as liberators."
As we now know, he was dead wrong, that did not happen.
But then why would Iraqis thank us? For what? Saddam may be gone, but innocent Iraqis have suffered the same human rights violations at the hands of the occupying forces that they did while Saddam was in power. In addition to the degradation and inexcusable abuse of prisoners, the deaths of at least 34 Iraqi detainees are currently being investigated.
Iraqis still live in fear of torture every day; in fact probably more so. Incidents of murder, rape, and kidnapping have skyrocketed since the war began. Violent deaths rose from an average of 14 per month in 2002 to 357 a month in 2003.
Come to think about it, I don't hear about any good news coming out of Iraq. Its about 120 degrees over there and they don't even have the basic necessities that they had under Saddam. According to a recent report by the GAO, basic services like water and electricity are still operating at lower levels than they were before the war.
Over the past year, joblessness has doubled. According to the Boston Globe, using recent US data, more than half the workers in the country are either without job or making less than a living wage. Only 1% of Iraq's workforce (7 million people) is involved in reconstruction projects.
Bush and his gang of war profiteers made sure the reconstruction contracts went to US companies, rather than experienced Iraqi firms. Democratic Rep Martin Meehan, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, sees what is going on and explains, how "the American taxpayer is spending billions of dollars on no-bid contracts to companies like Halliburton. Not only has this money often been poorly spent or outright wasted, but in many cases it is paying the salaries of foreign workers to do jobs in Iraq that are well within the skill sets of Iraqis," said Meehan.
Again, why in the world would Iraqis thank us?
BIG LIES
In the months leading up to the war, Bush told American citizens and Congress, that the US had to wage a preemptive war against Iraq, not only to get rid of Saddam's WMDs, but also because there were links between Saddam and Osama Bin Laden, who is believed to be the mastermind behind 911.
However, the Bush Administration now claims that it never said that Saddam and his WMDs posed an "imminent" threat, and so therefore, Bush cannot be accused of exaggerating the case for war or misleading Congress and the American people.
How soon they forget. Some officials did too use the word "imminent" and others used phrases and words that had the exact same meaning. Yet, during a press conference shortly after the war began, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "Some in the media have chosen to use the word 'imminent'. Those were not words we used."
Oh really? Is that so? Well, Scott must have a pretty bad memory, because on 2/10/03, he himself used the "I" word when he specifically said, "This is about imminent threat."
He must have also forgotten the statement made by Bush Communications Director Dan Bartlett, on 1/26/03, when he answered, "Well, of course he is," in response to a reporter's direct question, "is Saddam an imminent threat to US interests, either in that part of the world or to Americans right here at home?"
And how could Scott forget the comment made by his predecessor, White House Press Secretary, Ari Fliescher, on 5/7/03? Ari was asked whether or not Iraq was an "imminent threat," and his answer was, "Absolutely."
And how about Bush, himself. Lets do a little review statements made by the star of the war profiteering scheme:
"The Iraqi regime is a threat to any American. ... Iraq is a threat, a real threat." Bush 1/3/03
"Saddam Hussein is a threat to America." Bush 11/3/02
"I see a significant threat to the security of the United States in Iraq." Bush 11/1/02
"There is real threat, in my judgment, a real and dangerous threat to America in Iraq in the form of Saddam Hussein." Bush 10/28/02
"There are many dangers in the world, the threat from Iraq stands alone because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place. Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists." Bush 10/7/02
"The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency." Bush 10/2/02
"There's a grave threat in Iraq. There just is." Bush 10/2/02
"This man poses a much graver threat than anybody could have possibly imagined." Bush 9/26/02
And lets review a few of the lines uttered by Chief Cheney over a period of 2 days:
Iraq is "a serious threat to our country, to our friends and to our allies." 1/31/03.
Iraq poses "terrible threats to the civilized world." 1/30/03.
Iraq "threatens the United States of America." 1/30/03
Rumsfeld is really a trip. Here's where he uses statements about 9/11 (peppered with the "I" word), as part of the ploy to scare us into war:
"I would look you in the eye and I would say, go back before September 11 and ask yourself this question: Was the attack that took place on September 11 an imminent threat the month before or two months before or three months before or six months before? When did the attack on September 11 become an imminent threat? Now, transport yourself forward a year, two years or a week or a month...So the question is, when is it such an immediate threat that you must do something?" 11/14/03
Here's where Rumsfeld used the ultimate threat of nuclear weapons (and the "I" word again), to scare us some more, complete with the bogus, and now infamous, line about Iraq seeking uranium from Africa:
"Iraq poses a serious and mounting threat to our country. His regime has the design for a nuclear weapon, was working on several different methods of enriching uranium, and recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa." 1/30/03.
"Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent - that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain. And we should be just as concerned about the immediate threat from biological weapons. Iraq has these weapons." 9/18/02.
Here's where Rummy warns us about Saddam being an "immediate threat:"
"No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq." 9/19/02
While we're at it, lets take a look back at what Colin Powell said to the world about the threat posed by Saddam and WMDs in his speech before the UN. Colin even brought photos of the evidence to back up his statements.
"My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. I will cite some examples, and these are from human sources."
"We also have satellite photos that indicate that banned materials have recently been moved from a number of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction facilities."
"Let's look at one. This one is about a weapons munition facility, a facility that holds ammunition at a place called Taji (ph). This is one of about 65 such facilities in Iraq. We know that this one has housed chemical munitions. In fact, this is where the Iraqis recently came up with the additional four chemical weapon shells."
"Here, you see 15 munitions bunkers in yellow and red outlines. The four that are in red squares represent active chemical munitions bunkers."
"Ladies and gentlemen, these are not assertions. These are facts, corroborated by many sources, some of them sources of the intelligence services of other countries."
I would say this to Colin Powell, OK Colin, fair enough. Here's your chance to redeem yourself. For starters, lets see those photos again, and then explain to the world, exactly what happened to those yellow and red bunkers in the photos. And after that, give us the names of all those solid human sources.
Here's where Powell tells the UN all about the ties and meetings between Al Qaida, Osama and Saddam, that according to Colin, had been going on for years.
"Going back to the early and mid-1990s, when bin Laden was based in Sudan, an Al Qaida source tells us that Saddam and bin Laden reached an understanding that Al Qaida would no longer support activities against Baghdad. Early Al Qaida ties were forged by secret, high-level intelligence service contacts with Al Qaida, secret Iraqi intelligence high-level contacts with Al Qaida."
"We know members of both organizations met repeatedly (oh yea? How about dates and locations), and have met at least eight times at very senior levels since the early 1990s. In 1996, a foreign security service tells us, that bin Laden met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Khartoum, and later met the director of the Iraqi intelligence service."
"Saddam became more interested as he saw Al Qaida's appalling attacks. A detained Al Qaida member tells us that Saddam was more willing to assist Al Qaida after the 1998 bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Saddam was also impressed by Al Qaida's attacks on the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000."
OK Colin, how about introducing us to this "detained" Al Qaida member that gave you all this info. That should be easy enough.
Here's where he makes it sound like the Iraqis, Al Qaida, Saddam and Osama were best buddies, even houseguests of one another, supposedly backed by yet another "human source." Who by the way, I am eager to meet.
"Iraqis continued to visit bin Laden in his new home in Afghanistan. A senior defector, one of Saddam's former intelligence chiefs in Europe, says Saddam sent his agents to Afghanistan sometime in the mid-1990s to provide training to Al Qaida members on document forgery."
Gosh, do you think that they had tea together in Osama's new cave?
Funny thing, the only forgeries I've ever heard about are the ones used by Bush and his gang of thugs in their reports to Congress and the UN. What were they again? A student's term paper and some documents purporting to show that Saddam was seeking uranium from Africa? I think that's right. As I recall, they were easily identified as fakes. Maybe the Bush gang should enroll in the forgery training camp in Afghanistan.
Get this, here's Colin with another photo. This one shows a poison and explosive training camp, specifically located in northeastern Iraq.
"You see a picture of this camp. The network is teaching its operatives how to produce ricin and other poisons. Let me remind you how ricin works. Less than a pinch--image a pinch of salt--less than a pinch of ricin, eating just this amount in your food, would cause shock followed by circulatory failure. Death comes within 72 hours and there is no antidote, there is no cure. It is fatal."
OK Colin, lets see that photo again, and then tell us what happened to this dangerous chemical training camp, with its pinches of deadly ricin, after it apparently disappeared off the face of the earth.
As long as we're parsing words, lets take a closer look at a few of the other words they used to convince us that we needed to go to war. As noted above, they did use the "I" word, but beyond that, they claim the other words used did not mean "imminent."
Well I beg to differ. They described the threat of Saddam's and his WMDs as: "mortal," "urgent," "immediate", "serious and mounting", "unique," and they even claimed that Iraq was actively seeking to "strike the United States with weapons of mass destruction."
Now I know that the Bush gang is convinced that we lowly citizens are all really stupid, but can't they give us just a little more credit? I think there are at least a few Americans out here who might know the meaning of some of those words.
While we're on the subject of lies, how about the one where they said the war would be a cakewalk. In February 2003, Rumsfeld predicted that the war "could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months." That was either a pipe dream or pure BS. I say BS.
And what about the costs? Every last one of them lied to Congress and taxpayers about what the war would cost. On April 23, 2003, Andrew Natsios, head of the US Agency for International Development, gave a televised interview and outlined the costs to the taxpayers of rebuilding Iraq, "the American part of this will be $1.7 billion," he said. "We have no plans for any further-on funding for this."
That estimate turned out to be a little bit off -- by about $149 billion --- so far.
A March 2003 report by the White House Office of Management and Budget said: "Iraq will not require sustained aid." In testimony to Congress on March 27, 2003, Wolfowitz said Iraq "can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon." I wonder when will relatively soon is going to get here.
And remember when they all said that Iraqi oil would pay for its reconstruction? What a joke. In 2003 oil production dropped to 1.33 million barrels a day, from 2.04 million in 2002.
The fact is, Bush and his gang of chickenhawks lied to Congress, to taxpayers, and to the world, in order to wage an illegal war. The whole damn bunch should be tried as war criminals.
John Kerry Did Not Vote to Go to War
Bush is always saying Kerry voted for the war. Let's get one thing straight once and for all. He did not vote to go to war. He voted for a resolution that gave Bush the authority to use force as a last resort, if it became absolutely necessary to protect us from an imminent threat from WMDs (and yes he used the "I" word many times).
If Kerry is guilty of anything, its of being gullible enough to believe the lies told by the President of the United State, and his gang of fellow liars, on the world stage.
In a speech on the Senate Floor on the day of the vote, Kerry made it clear that he was not voting to go to war when he said, "approving this resolution does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable." It means "America speaks with one voice."
Kerry had no reason to think Bush was set to go to war. As he pointed out, any threat posed by Saddam and his WMDs, was "not imminent, and no one in the CIA, no intelligence briefing ... suggests it is imminent. None of our intelligence reports suggest that he is about to launch an attack," Kerry said. "Every nation has the right to act preemptively, if it faces an imminent and grave threat, for its self-defense ... The threat we face today with Iraq does not meet that test yet."
Kerry said that he would only agree to go to war for one reason, to rid Saddam of WMDs. He emphatically warned Bush that if he did take the country to war for any other reason than an imminent threat to the US by Saddam and his WMDs, that he would be the first to speak out and demand that Bush be held accountable.
As we know now, there never were any WMDs and so therefore, as Kerry made clear, he would have never voted to go to war.
He clarified what his vote meant when he said, "let me be clear, the vote I will give ... is for one reason and one reason only: To disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, if we cannot accomplish that objective through new, tough weapons inspections in joint concert with our allies," he said.
"In giving the President this authority, I expect him to fulfill the commitments ... to work with the United Nations ... to adopt a new resolution setting out tough and immediate inspection requirements, and to act with our allies at our side if we have to disarm Saddam Hussein by force. If he fails to do so, I will be among the first to speak out."
"If we do wind up going to war with Iraq, it is imperative that we do so with others in the international community, unless there is a showing of a grave, imminent--and I emphasize "imminent"--threat to this country which requires the President to respond in a way that protects our immediate national security needs."
In my opinion, the day for demanding accountability from Bush has long passed. It should have happened the day he took the country to war in Iraq. That said, I look forward to watching the first Bush-Kerry debate when Kerry will have the opportunity to demand accountability from that greedy thug living in the WH illegally.
Kerry warned us about what would happen if Bush took us to war without just cause, and without our allies. He speech on the Senate floor on the day of the vote almost seems prophetic in hindsight. Here are a few excerpts from his October 9, 2002 Senate speech:
"The President needs to give the American people a fairer and fuller, clearer understanding of the magnitude and long-term financial cost of that effort."
"The international community's support will be critical because we will not be able to rebuild Iraq single-handedly. We will lack the credibility and the expertise and the capacity."
"The administration may not be in the habit of building coalitions, but that is what they need to do. ... If we go it alone without reason, we risk inflaming an entire region, breeding a new generation of terrorists, a new cadre of anti-American zealots, and we will be less secure, not more secure, at the end of the day, even with Saddam Hussein disarmed."
Everything Kerry said would happen, happened. The skyrocketing costs of the war, both in lives lost, and tax dollars spent blow Americans away. The country was not prepared to sustain such a drastic drain on its resources. Nor were we prepared for the hatred that has been directed at Americans, not only in Iraq, but also throughout the Middle East.
Just like Kerry predicted, the region has become a magnet for terrorists that hate Americans. And he's right; Saddam's capture provides no consolation when weighed against the mess Bush got us into.
A scheme that turned Iraq into a boomtown for Bush and his fellow war profiteers, has turned into a never-ending nightmare for the rest of the country. First thing we see each morning, when we turn on the TV or pick up a newspaper, is the number of soldiers killed or injured the day before. And there is no end in sight.
John Kerry bears no responsibility whatsoever for the war in Iraq. If he had been president we never would have ended up there to begin with. But as it stands now, Kerry will be the one stuck with cleaning up the mess when he inherits it come November.
Ohio Worse off than All but 4 States
Evelyn Pringle June 19, 2004
The Bush team is baffled because voters are unimpressed by what his Secretary of Commerce calls the "best economy of my lifetime." (He was obviously born within the last 4 months.)
In May 2003, Bush sold his tax cut package as a Jobs and Growth Plan that would create 5.5 million jobs by the end of 2004. Well, it has not created the jobs promised, and the jobs that are available pay lower wages and offer fewer benefits. And, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 50% of the new jobs in professional and business services, are only temporary.
As of April 2004, Ohio still had 202,000 fewer jobs than it did when the recession began in March 2001, according to the Ohio Department of Job & Family Services. That number represents a decrease greater than all but 4 other states. In the same time-frame after the 1990's recession ended, Ohio had gained 116,800 jobs.
Granted, the job market has begun to show moderate signs of growth. But even if it continues at its current pace, it will take 2 more years just to get back to the level it was at when Bush took office.
Due to the rising cost of health care by nearly 50%, college tuition by more than 30%, and families spending hundreds more on gas and energy, 88,345 Ohio families filed bankruptcy in 2003. This represents a 68% increase over the year 2000 and proves that Ohio families are really struggling in the present state of the economy.
John Kerry has a specific plan to help get the economy back on track that will:
* end tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas
* cut taxes for 99% of corporations that keep jobs in America
* cut the deficit in half in 4 years
* provide health care relief by cutting premiums by up to $1,000
* make college affordable with a tax credit on $4,000 for tuition
* move towards energy independence to cut energy costs for businesses and create the energy-efficient jobs
Bush has no economic plan, aside from more tax cuts. So he shouldn't act so surprised if Ohio voters remain unimpressed by his new TV ads touting numbers that were obviously made up in a Rove campaign strategy meeting.
The Bush team is baffled because voters are unimpressed by what his Secretary of Commerce calls the "best economy of my lifetime." (He was obviously born within the last 4 months.)
In May 2003, Bush sold his tax cut package as a Jobs and Growth Plan that would create 5.5 million jobs by the end of 2004. Well, it has not created the jobs promised, and the jobs that are available pay lower wages and offer fewer benefits. And, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 50% of the new jobs in professional and business services, are only temporary.
As of April 2004, Ohio still had 202,000 fewer jobs than it did when the recession began in March 2001, according to the Ohio Department of Job & Family Services. That number represents a decrease greater than all but 4 other states. In the same time-frame after the 1990's recession ended, Ohio had gained 116,800 jobs.
Granted, the job market has begun to show moderate signs of growth. But even if it continues at its current pace, it will take 2 more years just to get back to the level it was at when Bush took office.
Due to the rising cost of health care by nearly 50%, college tuition by more than 30%, and families spending hundreds more on gas and energy, 88,345 Ohio families filed bankruptcy in 2003. This represents a 68% increase over the year 2000 and proves that Ohio families are really struggling in the present state of the economy.
John Kerry has a specific plan to help get the economy back on track that will:
* end tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas
* cut taxes for 99% of corporations that keep jobs in America
* cut the deficit in half in 4 years
* provide health care relief by cutting premiums by up to $1,000
* make college affordable with a tax credit on $4,000 for tuition
* move towards energy independence to cut energy costs for businesses and create the energy-efficient jobs
Bush has no economic plan, aside from more tax cuts. So he shouldn't act so surprised if Ohio voters remain unimpressed by his new TV ads touting numbers that were obviously made up in a Rove campaign strategy meeting.
How Bush Rigged Ohio Election - The Noe Factor
Evelyn Pringle June 9, 2006
By late afternoon on November 2, 2004, nationally, all the exit polls showed John Kerry winning with 50.8% of the votes and showed George W Bush with 48.2%, meaning Kerry had a 2.6% lead over Bush.
But when the vote counts came in at the end of election day, Bush had 50.9% of the votes, and Kerry had 48.1%, meaning Bush received 2.8% more votes than Kerry.
According to Dr Ron Baiman, PhD, from the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois in Chicago, who has 16 years of experience teaching statistics to both graduate and undergraduate college students, there would be about 1 chance in 900,000 of that kind of statistical error occurring.
Ohio was the most important state to Bush. He could not win without it. He spent so much time in the state that people began to wonder whether he had left a forwarding address to Ohio.
At his last campaign rally in the state, a mere 4 days before the election, Bush bestowed special praise on a husband and wife team who in hindsight, were more helpful to Bush than any other politicians in Ohio, as far as rigging the election.
“I want to thank my friends Bernadette Noe and Tom Noe," Bush told the audience at the Toledo rally, "for their leadership in Lucas County.”
After the speech, Bush and his wife met with Tom Noe and his wife backstage, to thank them for their "work on the campaign," according to the October 30, 2004 Toledo Blade.
As it turns out, Bush had a lot to be thankful for. During the campaign, Noe earned the title of “Pioneer,” which means he raised at least $100,000 for the Bush-Cheney campaign.
However, Tom Noe was rewarded by Bush with an appointment as chairman of a committee of the US Mint, that advises the US Treasury secretary on designs and themes for coins and congressional medals.
According to a Treasury Department press release Noe was recommended for the appointment by Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and nominated by Treasury Secretary John Snowe.
Noe was the guy to know in Toledo-area politics for many years. He chaired not only the Lucas County Republican Party, but also the Lucas County Board of Elections and in 2004, the regional Bush-Cheney campaign.
As a regional chairman of the campaign, according to the April 8, 2005 Toledo Blade, Noe had frequent contact with Karl Rove, met with the President, and received White House invitations.
According to e-mails obtained by the Blade, from Ohio Governor Bob Taft's office, Noe used his influence to obtain an invitation to a White House ceremony honoring the Ohio State football team and once in the White House, Noe was invited to attend an "Ohio political strategy session."
In 2002, Bernadette Noe, took over the post of chairman of the Lucas County Board of Elections, and is largely credited with playing a key role in rigging of the 2004 election in Ohio.
While Tom Noe was still BOE Chairman, he made the acquisition of electronic voting machines, bragging about how fast they were installed. But in 2004, even before election day, Lucas County was up to its neck in problems with the now infamous Diebold opti-scan vote counters.
The dirty tricks in Lucas Country started long before election day. For instance, the Democratic headquarters was broken into and key voter data was stolen.
In the months before the election, when voting rights activists tried to challenge the Republican Secretary of State, Ken Blackwell's partisan handling of provisional ballots in court, Tom Noe intervened on Blackwell's behalf. Blackwell also served as co-chair for the Ohio Bush-Cheney campaign,
While Tom handled the court business, Bernadette worked to reverse the Ohio tradition of allowing provisional ballots to be cast in precincts other than the one in which voters were registered and helped disenfranchise many inner-city Toledo Democratic voters.
On November 2, 2004, during the election, inner city voting machines broke down and polls opened late. The Toledo Blade reported that the sole machine at the Birmingham polling site in east Toledo broke down at about 7 am, and that per order of Secretary Blackwell, there were no paper ballots available for backup.
At one school the voting machines were locked in the principal‘s office, and the principal just happened to call in sick election day. Another school in west Toledo temporarily ran out of ballots.
In precinct after precinct, African-American voters were disenfranchised as the waiting lines grew to three, four and 5 hours and thousands were forced to leave without voting.
The Blade discovered that in the summer of 2004, 28,000 voters were "erased" from the Lucas County registration rolls and found the purge included voters like Barbara and Ralph George "who first registered to vote for John F. Kennedy in 1960 and had lived in the same East Toledo house for 44 years."
After a job well-done in Lucas County, in January 2005, the happy Noe couple co-sponsored Ohio’s inaugural ball in Washington, and according to the Blade, "Mr. Bush and Mr. Noe embraced. The President then hugged Mrs. Noe."
However, on April 8, 2005, it started raining on the Noe’s parade when the results of an investigation into the Lucas County election turned up so much dirt that it forced Secretary Blackwell to fire the entire Lucas County Board of Elections.
The investigation cited over a dozen areas of "grave concern" including failure to maintain ballot security; inability to implement and maintain a trackable system for voter ballot reconciliation; failure to prepare and develop a plan for the processing of the voluminous amount of voter registration forms received; issuance and acceptance of incorrect absentee ballot forms; and failure to maintain the security of poll books during the official canvas.
Over the years, Tom Noe and his wife, were equally generous to all Republican candidates for state office, federal office, and even judicial seats on the Ohio Supreme Court.
In fact, five of the seven Supreme Court justices were Noe beneficiaries receiving over $23,000 in contributions from the husband and wife team. In 2004, Tom was even the campaign chairman for Justice Judith Ann Lanzinger.
Noe was known to be a close associate of Ohio Senator George Voinovich and Ohio Governor Robert Taft, and had long been called northwest Ohio's "Mr. Republican."
And Noe's generosity to Ohio politicians did not go unrewarded. In addition to his leadership positions in the GOP, he was appointed to the Ohio Turnpike Commission, the Bowling Green State University board, and the Ohio Board of Regents, which has authority over state's educational system, including the management of funds.
In 1997, Noe even gained access to state funds when the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation started a program, allowing for investments other then stocks and bonds, and Noe cut a deal to buy and sell rare coins as an investment for the BWC.
It seems that Noe was given authority to invest $50 million in coins and other collectibles such as baseball cards, and under the contract, 80% of the profits were to go to the worker's compensation fund, and the remainder to Noe's business.
The Toledo Blade was the first to run a story on Noe’s gig with the state on April 3, 2005.
Within 20 after Blackwell fired the BOE, it started pouring on the happy couple. On April 28, 2005, the Blade reported that Gregory White, US attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, had confirmed that his office, in conjunction with the FBI, was looking into Tom Noe's fundraising activities, as chairman of the Bush-Cheney campaign in northwest Ohio.
"We have publicly confirmed the investigation of Mr. Noe in relation to some campaign contributions," Mr White told the Blade.
Parallel to the Federal probe, the Blade noted, was the investigation of the Lucas County and Franklin County Offices of the Prosecutor into Noe's inability to account for $10-12 million of the BWC’s funds.
Less than a month later, on May 26, 2005, state law enforcement officials, acting on behalf of prosecutors, raided Noe's company, Vintage Coins and Collectibles, trying to find out what happened to the $10-12 million missing from the $50 million belonging to BWC.
The distinct possibility has been raised several times, that Noe may have funneled some of the mysteriously-missing money to politicians.
According to the May 31, 2006 Toledo Blade, the Noes have given more than $200,000 to politicians over the last 16 years and their “giving increased substantially," the Blade noted, "after the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation in 1998 gave him the first of two $25 million payments to invest in his rare-coin funds."
In April 2005, the Blade reported that two of the state's investments, gold coins valued at $300,000, had been lost in the mail. On May 31, 2005, the Ohio Attorney General's office reported that nearly $7 million worth of coins were unaccounted for.
Noe apparently has a bad habit of losing rare coins. According to court documents filed in a previous case involving lost coins, on the evening of November 30, 1996, Noe claimed that $203,588 worth of coins and currency were stolen out of the backseat of his car and tried to collect on the loss with a claim to an insurance company.
About a month and a half before the theft, Noe had purchased an insurance policy from the Homestead Insurance Company, which included coverage for the loss of inventory by way of theft, that had gone into effect on October 17, 1996.
However, Homestead refused to pay the claim, citing two different exclusionary clauses. Noe sued the company and lost, and then he appealed that decision and lost.
On April 27, 2005, the federal probe into Noe's funneling of money to the Bush campaign reached a turning point when FBI agents raided Noe’s home, and searched the joint for 3 hours looking for evidence of violations of federal campaign laws.
In the summer of 2005, Tom Noe, was described by the Free Press, as a high-roller crony of Ohio Governor Taft, Ohio Senator George Voinovich and President Bush. But that that ain‘t all.
It seems as though the Noes had a give-and-take arrangement with just about every Republican politician in the state. On June 5, 2005, Ohio’s Republican Attorney General, Jim Petro, acknowledged that Bernadette may have successfully lobbied his office to direct thousands of dollars in contracts to her law firm to collect debt on behalf of the state.
According to the Free Press, Noe had even once donated money to Attorney General Petro‘s campaign.
The news surrounding the disappearance of state funds intermingled with campaign finance violations involving state officials kept getting worse and worse over the summer. On June 8, 2005, media reports said that the BWC had concealed over $215 million in losses and that Governor Taft had been aware of the situation for months.
A week later, on June 14, 2005, Governor Taft sent a letter to the Ohio Ethics Commission admitting that he failed to disclose perks and favors from Noe, stating that it has, "recently come to my attention that I failed to list a number of golf outings or events on my financial disclosure forms over the past several years."
On July 22, 2005, Attorney General, Petro, said Noe stole millions of dollars by using a "Ponzi" scheme to fabricate profits.
On August 27, 2005, Noe took a swipe at Taft, when his attorney released a statement saying that on May 13, 2001, Noe told the Governor about the rare-coin fund he operated for the BWC at a Toledo area golf club, after Taft had claimed that he did not know anything about the coin investment with Noe until April 3, 2005, when the Toledo Blade first reported it.
The first hammer dropped on October 27, 2005, when Noe was officially charged with illegally funneling $45,400 to the Bush-Cheney campaign that was raised at a $2,000-a-seat fund-raiser in Columbus, Ohio in October, 2003, by Noe making contributions in the names of others.
The scheme allowed Noe to ignore the $2,000 limit on individual donations by passing the money through 24 friends and associates, described as "conduits" by investigators.
Some of the known "conduits," are 4 current or former Ohio elected officials, including Toledo City Councilman Betty Shultz, Lucas County Commissioner Maggie Thurber, former state Representative Sally Perz, and former Toledo Mayor Donna Owens.
Court records also show that Noe’s brother-in-law, Joe Restivoand, and 2 former aides to Governor Taft also served as funnels.
All of the conduits signed donor cards that stated they were the source of their donations even though each knew that Noe made the contributions, prosecutors said. Each politician now faces state ethics charges for failing to disclose the money they received from Noe.
On May 31, 2006, critics took it as a sign that the hammer may be ready to fall on a whole slew of crooked politicians when Noe entered a guilty plea in the Federal US District Court in Toledo to 3 felony charges related to violating campaign finance laws and told the judge that he agreed "to accept responsibility to spare my family and friends the further embarrassment of any additional court proceeding."
On June 1, 2006, the Blade reported that Bush and the RNC returned a total of $6,000 in direct contributions from the Noes and said, “State and federal politicians from Mr. Taft to Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, the Republican nominee for governor, to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger - have returned tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from Noe and his wife.”
At the time of Noe's indictment, a senior Justice Department official said the case represented the largest campaign money-laundering scheme prosecuted by the DOJ since the new campaign finance laws were enacted in 2002.
Ironically, its now known that Bush's reelection could have been derailed by a reporter at the Toledo Blade, the same newspaper that has been out front on the investigation into this whole matter from the beginning.
According to Bill Frogameni in Salon.com on October 6, 2005, the Blade's chief political columnist, Fritz Wenzel, was told of Noe's campaign finance violations as early as January 2004, but never gave the information to the Blade.
He learned of the violations from a Republican by the name of Joe Kidd, who was then the director of the Board of Elections, who was actually fueding with Bernadette Noe at the time, and retaliated against her by telling Wenzel that Noe was illegally funneling money to the Bush-Cheney campaign and running a questionable coin investment with the state.
According to Salon, sources confirmed that Kidd told them he had this conversation with Wenzel at the time.
However, as it turns out, both Wenzel and his son had personal relationships with the Noes, who even attended the son's wedding.
In fact, in March 2004, a couple of months after Wenzel got the tip, his son was elected to the Lucas County Republican Central Committee, and from April 15, 2005, to the end of May 2005, Wenzel's son was on the payroll of the Ohio Republican Party.
Wenzel's silence did not go unnoticed. A month before Wenzel left the Blade, in a speech at the Lucas County Republicans' annual dinner, Bernadette announced that Wenzel would be leaving the Blade to run his consulting firm and wished him well.
It is also now known that many Republican officials in Ohio suppressed the news of the campaign finance violations to save the Bush campaign. The Blade has learned that the US Attorney’s Office knew of the allegations against Noe about 3 weeks before the election.
Moreover, by October 15, 2004, the FBI was involved, and the Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice in Washington had sent an e-mail to the US Attorney's office in Cleveland, to authorize the investigation.
According to the Blade, records released in June 2005, show that high-ranking aides to Governor Taft also worked to suppress revelations about the BWC’s $215 million hedge fund loss in the final days before the election.
On September 27, 2004, documents show that the BWC’s administrator-chief executive, James Conrad, learned about the loss and in an October 26, 2004, e-mail, Conrad said that the “entire value” of the portfolio was down about $225 million.
As for the media getting information about Noe shenanigans, he had the whole state tied up in knots. When a case by the Blade seeking access to Noe-related records ended up before the Ohio Supreme Court, all five of the justices who had received contributions from Noe had to recuse themselves.
Critics say the scale of the scandal at the BWC could have definitely made a difference in the presidential race. But instead of alerting the public, on election day, a Columbus law firm was hired as special counsel, by Republican Attorney General Petro’s office, to investigate the hedge fund matter.
On February 13, 2006, the final shoe dropped and Noe was indicted on 53 felonies. A grand jury charged Noe with 22 counts of forgery, 11 counts of money laundering, 8 counts of tampering with records, 5 counts of grand theft, 6 counts of aggravated theft, and one count of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
According to a February 13, 2006 article by the Associated Press, Ohio Inspector General Tom Charles said investigators know where the money went, but would not say where.
"Investigators," the AP said, "were looking into whether any of the stolen money was donated to political candidates."
On May 31, 2006, State Democratic Senator Marc Dann, told the Toledo Blade that he thinks Noe will be able to cut a deal because he had so much information on other people involved.
“He knows where a lot of the bodies are buried, and not buried. He knows what Jim Conrad knew about this, who in Bob Taft’s office facilitated the second $25 million, who in George Voinovich’s office facilitated the first $25 million investment, and so he has a lot of information that only he knows about the rare-coin investment,”
Senator Dann said. If the recent history of revelations is any indication, many more bodies may indeed be unearthed.
So far the investigation has led Governor Taft and 2 of his former aides to plead no contest to ethics charges. On July 29, 2005, Brian Hicks, Taft’s former Chief of Staff, and Cherie Carroll, Hicks' executive assistant, admitted that they took gifts from Noe.
Hicks pled no contest to knowingly failing to list on financial disclosure forms that he and his family stayed at Noe's home in Florida in 2002 and 2003, and Carroll pled no contest to a misdemeanor charge of "recklessly" accepting meals from Noe valued at over $500.
On February 9, 2006, the Ohio Elections Commission referred 2 other former Taft aides for prosecution. H Douglas Talbott faced charges for, and admitted, that he funneled money from Noe to three Ohio Supreme Court Justices and accepted a $39,000 loan from Noe, and J Douglas Moorman was referred because he failed to report a $5,000 loan from Noe.
On June 1, 2006, the Blade reported that Bush and the RNC returned a total of $6,000 in direct contributions from the Noes.
“State and federal politicians,” the Blade said, “from Mr. Taft to Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, the Republican nominee for governor, to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger - have returned tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from Noe and his wife.”
However, the Bush gang is not too anxious to turn over any more money. Instead, the Blade said, “Mr. Bush and his political advisers are taking a wait-and-see approach.”
"We have and will continue to fully cooperate with the investigation," said Aaron McLear, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee. "We will make appropriate transfers as directed by the court."
The latest fatality in the rare-coin scheme, is Terrance Gasper, the BWC’s former chief financial officer, who played a central role in the scheme and is reportedly cooperating with federal and state authorities as part of a plea agreement in which he pleaded guilty on June 7, 2006, to a felony count of violating the RICO Act by accepting money and other gifts and perks in exchange for doling out millions of dollars in state investments to firms.
Gasper also pleaded guilty to a felony count of money laundering for accepting $25,000 from Noe and a misdemeanor charge of failing to disclose sources of income, gifts and other perks from 1999 to 2005, on his annual ethics filings.
The RICO charge carries a 20-year maximum prison sentence, and Gasper faces a maximum 5-year sentence and a $10,000 fine on the state charges, according to the Toledo Blade.
According to June 7, 2006, article by the Associated Press, “Prosecutor Ron O'Brien said he expects more people to be charged this month.”
And the AP reports that "Gasper said he was "more than willing" to help prosecutors," so who knows who will end up in the slammer next.
By late afternoon on November 2, 2004, nationally, all the exit polls showed John Kerry winning with 50.8% of the votes and showed George W Bush with 48.2%, meaning Kerry had a 2.6% lead over Bush.
But when the vote counts came in at the end of election day, Bush had 50.9% of the votes, and Kerry had 48.1%, meaning Bush received 2.8% more votes than Kerry.
According to Dr Ron Baiman, PhD, from the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois in Chicago, who has 16 years of experience teaching statistics to both graduate and undergraduate college students, there would be about 1 chance in 900,000 of that kind of statistical error occurring.
Ohio was the most important state to Bush. He could not win without it. He spent so much time in the state that people began to wonder whether he had left a forwarding address to Ohio.
At his last campaign rally in the state, a mere 4 days before the election, Bush bestowed special praise on a husband and wife team who in hindsight, were more helpful to Bush than any other politicians in Ohio, as far as rigging the election.
“I want to thank my friends Bernadette Noe and Tom Noe," Bush told the audience at the Toledo rally, "for their leadership in Lucas County.”
After the speech, Bush and his wife met with Tom Noe and his wife backstage, to thank them for their "work on the campaign," according to the October 30, 2004 Toledo Blade.
As it turns out, Bush had a lot to be thankful for. During the campaign, Noe earned the title of “Pioneer,” which means he raised at least $100,000 for the Bush-Cheney campaign.
However, Tom Noe was rewarded by Bush with an appointment as chairman of a committee of the US Mint, that advises the US Treasury secretary on designs and themes for coins and congressional medals.
According to a Treasury Department press release Noe was recommended for the appointment by Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and nominated by Treasury Secretary John Snowe.
Noe was the guy to know in Toledo-area politics for many years. He chaired not only the Lucas County Republican Party, but also the Lucas County Board of Elections and in 2004, the regional Bush-Cheney campaign.
As a regional chairman of the campaign, according to the April 8, 2005 Toledo Blade, Noe had frequent contact with Karl Rove, met with the President, and received White House invitations.
According to e-mails obtained by the Blade, from Ohio Governor Bob Taft's office, Noe used his influence to obtain an invitation to a White House ceremony honoring the Ohio State football team and once in the White House, Noe was invited to attend an "Ohio political strategy session."
In 2002, Bernadette Noe, took over the post of chairman of the Lucas County Board of Elections, and is largely credited with playing a key role in rigging of the 2004 election in Ohio.
While Tom Noe was still BOE Chairman, he made the acquisition of electronic voting machines, bragging about how fast they were installed. But in 2004, even before election day, Lucas County was up to its neck in problems with the now infamous Diebold opti-scan vote counters.
The dirty tricks in Lucas Country started long before election day. For instance, the Democratic headquarters was broken into and key voter data was stolen.
In the months before the election, when voting rights activists tried to challenge the Republican Secretary of State, Ken Blackwell's partisan handling of provisional ballots in court, Tom Noe intervened on Blackwell's behalf. Blackwell also served as co-chair for the Ohio Bush-Cheney campaign,
While Tom handled the court business, Bernadette worked to reverse the Ohio tradition of allowing provisional ballots to be cast in precincts other than the one in which voters were registered and helped disenfranchise many inner-city Toledo Democratic voters.
On November 2, 2004, during the election, inner city voting machines broke down and polls opened late. The Toledo Blade reported that the sole machine at the Birmingham polling site in east Toledo broke down at about 7 am, and that per order of Secretary Blackwell, there were no paper ballots available for backup.
At one school the voting machines were locked in the principal‘s office, and the principal just happened to call in sick election day. Another school in west Toledo temporarily ran out of ballots.
In precinct after precinct, African-American voters were disenfranchised as the waiting lines grew to three, four and 5 hours and thousands were forced to leave without voting.
The Blade discovered that in the summer of 2004, 28,000 voters were "erased" from the Lucas County registration rolls and found the purge included voters like Barbara and Ralph George "who first registered to vote for John F. Kennedy in 1960 and had lived in the same East Toledo house for 44 years."
After a job well-done in Lucas County, in January 2005, the happy Noe couple co-sponsored Ohio’s inaugural ball in Washington, and according to the Blade, "Mr. Bush and Mr. Noe embraced. The President then hugged Mrs. Noe."
However, on April 8, 2005, it started raining on the Noe’s parade when the results of an investigation into the Lucas County election turned up so much dirt that it forced Secretary Blackwell to fire the entire Lucas County Board of Elections.
The investigation cited over a dozen areas of "grave concern" including failure to maintain ballot security; inability to implement and maintain a trackable system for voter ballot reconciliation; failure to prepare and develop a plan for the processing of the voluminous amount of voter registration forms received; issuance and acceptance of incorrect absentee ballot forms; and failure to maintain the security of poll books during the official canvas.
Over the years, Tom Noe and his wife, were equally generous to all Republican candidates for state office, federal office, and even judicial seats on the Ohio Supreme Court.
In fact, five of the seven Supreme Court justices were Noe beneficiaries receiving over $23,000 in contributions from the husband and wife team. In 2004, Tom was even the campaign chairman for Justice Judith Ann Lanzinger.
Noe was known to be a close associate of Ohio Senator George Voinovich and Ohio Governor Robert Taft, and had long been called northwest Ohio's "Mr. Republican."
And Noe's generosity to Ohio politicians did not go unrewarded. In addition to his leadership positions in the GOP, he was appointed to the Ohio Turnpike Commission, the Bowling Green State University board, and the Ohio Board of Regents, which has authority over state's educational system, including the management of funds.
In 1997, Noe even gained access to state funds when the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation started a program, allowing for investments other then stocks and bonds, and Noe cut a deal to buy and sell rare coins as an investment for the BWC.
It seems that Noe was given authority to invest $50 million in coins and other collectibles such as baseball cards, and under the contract, 80% of the profits were to go to the worker's compensation fund, and the remainder to Noe's business.
The Toledo Blade was the first to run a story on Noe’s gig with the state on April 3, 2005.
Within 20 after Blackwell fired the BOE, it started pouring on the happy couple. On April 28, 2005, the Blade reported that Gregory White, US attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, had confirmed that his office, in conjunction with the FBI, was looking into Tom Noe's fundraising activities, as chairman of the Bush-Cheney campaign in northwest Ohio.
"We have publicly confirmed the investigation of Mr. Noe in relation to some campaign contributions," Mr White told the Blade.
Parallel to the Federal probe, the Blade noted, was the investigation of the Lucas County and Franklin County Offices of the Prosecutor into Noe's inability to account for $10-12 million of the BWC’s funds.
Less than a month later, on May 26, 2005, state law enforcement officials, acting on behalf of prosecutors, raided Noe's company, Vintage Coins and Collectibles, trying to find out what happened to the $10-12 million missing from the $50 million belonging to BWC.
The distinct possibility has been raised several times, that Noe may have funneled some of the mysteriously-missing money to politicians.
According to the May 31, 2006 Toledo Blade, the Noes have given more than $200,000 to politicians over the last 16 years and their “giving increased substantially," the Blade noted, "after the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation in 1998 gave him the first of two $25 million payments to invest in his rare-coin funds."
In April 2005, the Blade reported that two of the state's investments, gold coins valued at $300,000, had been lost in the mail. On May 31, 2005, the Ohio Attorney General's office reported that nearly $7 million worth of coins were unaccounted for.
Noe apparently has a bad habit of losing rare coins. According to court documents filed in a previous case involving lost coins, on the evening of November 30, 1996, Noe claimed that $203,588 worth of coins and currency were stolen out of the backseat of his car and tried to collect on the loss with a claim to an insurance company.
About a month and a half before the theft, Noe had purchased an insurance policy from the Homestead Insurance Company, which included coverage for the loss of inventory by way of theft, that had gone into effect on October 17, 1996.
However, Homestead refused to pay the claim, citing two different exclusionary clauses. Noe sued the company and lost, and then he appealed that decision and lost.
On April 27, 2005, the federal probe into Noe's funneling of money to the Bush campaign reached a turning point when FBI agents raided Noe’s home, and searched the joint for 3 hours looking for evidence of violations of federal campaign laws.
In the summer of 2005, Tom Noe, was described by the Free Press, as a high-roller crony of Ohio Governor Taft, Ohio Senator George Voinovich and President Bush. But that that ain‘t all.
It seems as though the Noes had a give-and-take arrangement with just about every Republican politician in the state. On June 5, 2005, Ohio’s Republican Attorney General, Jim Petro, acknowledged that Bernadette may have successfully lobbied his office to direct thousands of dollars in contracts to her law firm to collect debt on behalf of the state.
According to the Free Press, Noe had even once donated money to Attorney General Petro‘s campaign.
The news surrounding the disappearance of state funds intermingled with campaign finance violations involving state officials kept getting worse and worse over the summer. On June 8, 2005, media reports said that the BWC had concealed over $215 million in losses and that Governor Taft had been aware of the situation for months.
A week later, on June 14, 2005, Governor Taft sent a letter to the Ohio Ethics Commission admitting that he failed to disclose perks and favors from Noe, stating that it has, "recently come to my attention that I failed to list a number of golf outings or events on my financial disclosure forms over the past several years."
On July 22, 2005, Attorney General, Petro, said Noe stole millions of dollars by using a "Ponzi" scheme to fabricate profits.
On August 27, 2005, Noe took a swipe at Taft, when his attorney released a statement saying that on May 13, 2001, Noe told the Governor about the rare-coin fund he operated for the BWC at a Toledo area golf club, after Taft had claimed that he did not know anything about the coin investment with Noe until April 3, 2005, when the Toledo Blade first reported it.
The first hammer dropped on October 27, 2005, when Noe was officially charged with illegally funneling $45,400 to the Bush-Cheney campaign that was raised at a $2,000-a-seat fund-raiser in Columbus, Ohio in October, 2003, by Noe making contributions in the names of others.
The scheme allowed Noe to ignore the $2,000 limit on individual donations by passing the money through 24 friends and associates, described as "conduits" by investigators.
Some of the known "conduits," are 4 current or former Ohio elected officials, including Toledo City Councilman Betty Shultz, Lucas County Commissioner Maggie Thurber, former state Representative Sally Perz, and former Toledo Mayor Donna Owens.
Court records also show that Noe’s brother-in-law, Joe Restivoand, and 2 former aides to Governor Taft also served as funnels.
All of the conduits signed donor cards that stated they were the source of their donations even though each knew that Noe made the contributions, prosecutors said. Each politician now faces state ethics charges for failing to disclose the money they received from Noe.
On May 31, 2006, critics took it as a sign that the hammer may be ready to fall on a whole slew of crooked politicians when Noe entered a guilty plea in the Federal US District Court in Toledo to 3 felony charges related to violating campaign finance laws and told the judge that he agreed "to accept responsibility to spare my family and friends the further embarrassment of any additional court proceeding."
On June 1, 2006, the Blade reported that Bush and the RNC returned a total of $6,000 in direct contributions from the Noes and said, “State and federal politicians from Mr. Taft to Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, the Republican nominee for governor, to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger - have returned tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from Noe and his wife.”
At the time of Noe's indictment, a senior Justice Department official said the case represented the largest campaign money-laundering scheme prosecuted by the DOJ since the new campaign finance laws were enacted in 2002.
Ironically, its now known that Bush's reelection could have been derailed by a reporter at the Toledo Blade, the same newspaper that has been out front on the investigation into this whole matter from the beginning.
According to Bill Frogameni in Salon.com on October 6, 2005, the Blade's chief political columnist, Fritz Wenzel, was told of Noe's campaign finance violations as early as January 2004, but never gave the information to the Blade.
He learned of the violations from a Republican by the name of Joe Kidd, who was then the director of the Board of Elections, who was actually fueding with Bernadette Noe at the time, and retaliated against her by telling Wenzel that Noe was illegally funneling money to the Bush-Cheney campaign and running a questionable coin investment with the state.
According to Salon, sources confirmed that Kidd told them he had this conversation with Wenzel at the time.
However, as it turns out, both Wenzel and his son had personal relationships with the Noes, who even attended the son's wedding.
In fact, in March 2004, a couple of months after Wenzel got the tip, his son was elected to the Lucas County Republican Central Committee, and from April 15, 2005, to the end of May 2005, Wenzel's son was on the payroll of the Ohio Republican Party.
Wenzel's silence did not go unnoticed. A month before Wenzel left the Blade, in a speech at the Lucas County Republicans' annual dinner, Bernadette announced that Wenzel would be leaving the Blade to run his consulting firm and wished him well.
It is also now known that many Republican officials in Ohio suppressed the news of the campaign finance violations to save the Bush campaign. The Blade has learned that the US Attorney’s Office knew of the allegations against Noe about 3 weeks before the election.
Moreover, by October 15, 2004, the FBI was involved, and the Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice in Washington had sent an e-mail to the US Attorney's office in Cleveland, to authorize the investigation.
According to the Blade, records released in June 2005, show that high-ranking aides to Governor Taft also worked to suppress revelations about the BWC’s $215 million hedge fund loss in the final days before the election.
On September 27, 2004, documents show that the BWC’s administrator-chief executive, James Conrad, learned about the loss and in an October 26, 2004, e-mail, Conrad said that the “entire value” of the portfolio was down about $225 million.
As for the media getting information about Noe shenanigans, he had the whole state tied up in knots. When a case by the Blade seeking access to Noe-related records ended up before the Ohio Supreme Court, all five of the justices who had received contributions from Noe had to recuse themselves.
Critics say the scale of the scandal at the BWC could have definitely made a difference in the presidential race. But instead of alerting the public, on election day, a Columbus law firm was hired as special counsel, by Republican Attorney General Petro’s office, to investigate the hedge fund matter.
On February 13, 2006, the final shoe dropped and Noe was indicted on 53 felonies. A grand jury charged Noe with 22 counts of forgery, 11 counts of money laundering, 8 counts of tampering with records, 5 counts of grand theft, 6 counts of aggravated theft, and one count of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
According to a February 13, 2006 article by the Associated Press, Ohio Inspector General Tom Charles said investigators know where the money went, but would not say where.
"Investigators," the AP said, "were looking into whether any of the stolen money was donated to political candidates."
On May 31, 2006, State Democratic Senator Marc Dann, told the Toledo Blade that he thinks Noe will be able to cut a deal because he had so much information on other people involved.
“He knows where a lot of the bodies are buried, and not buried. He knows what Jim Conrad knew about this, who in Bob Taft’s office facilitated the second $25 million, who in George Voinovich’s office facilitated the first $25 million investment, and so he has a lot of information that only he knows about the rare-coin investment,”
Senator Dann said. If the recent history of revelations is any indication, many more bodies may indeed be unearthed.
So far the investigation has led Governor Taft and 2 of his former aides to plead no contest to ethics charges. On July 29, 2005, Brian Hicks, Taft’s former Chief of Staff, and Cherie Carroll, Hicks' executive assistant, admitted that they took gifts from Noe.
Hicks pled no contest to knowingly failing to list on financial disclosure forms that he and his family stayed at Noe's home in Florida in 2002 and 2003, and Carroll pled no contest to a misdemeanor charge of "recklessly" accepting meals from Noe valued at over $500.
On February 9, 2006, the Ohio Elections Commission referred 2 other former Taft aides for prosecution. H Douglas Talbott faced charges for, and admitted, that he funneled money from Noe to three Ohio Supreme Court Justices and accepted a $39,000 loan from Noe, and J Douglas Moorman was referred because he failed to report a $5,000 loan from Noe.
On June 1, 2006, the Blade reported that Bush and the RNC returned a total of $6,000 in direct contributions from the Noes.
“State and federal politicians,” the Blade said, “from Mr. Taft to Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, the Republican nominee for governor, to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger - have returned tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from Noe and his wife.”
However, the Bush gang is not too anxious to turn over any more money. Instead, the Blade said, “Mr. Bush and his political advisers are taking a wait-and-see approach.”
"We have and will continue to fully cooperate with the investigation," said Aaron McLear, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee. "We will make appropriate transfers as directed by the court."
The latest fatality in the rare-coin scheme, is Terrance Gasper, the BWC’s former chief financial officer, who played a central role in the scheme and is reportedly cooperating with federal and state authorities as part of a plea agreement in which he pleaded guilty on June 7, 2006, to a felony count of violating the RICO Act by accepting money and other gifts and perks in exchange for doling out millions of dollars in state investments to firms.
Gasper also pleaded guilty to a felony count of money laundering for accepting $25,000 from Noe and a misdemeanor charge of failing to disclose sources of income, gifts and other perks from 1999 to 2005, on his annual ethics filings.
The RICO charge carries a 20-year maximum prison sentence, and Gasper faces a maximum 5-year sentence and a $10,000 fine on the state charges, according to the Toledo Blade.
According to June 7, 2006, article by the Associated Press, “Prosecutor Ron O'Brien said he expects more people to be charged this month.”
And the AP reports that "Gasper said he was "more than willing" to help prosecutors," so who knows who will end up in the slammer next.
Bush Election Theft Saga Heats Up In Ohio
Evelyn Pringle June 20, 2006
Ohio's Governor Bob Taft, and his partner in crime in stealing the 2004 election in Ohio, President George W Bush, have a lot in common. Bush holds the record for the lowest approval ratings of any President in US history, and at a whopping 26%, Taft holds the title for the lowest approval rating for any Ohio governor since the University of Cincinnati started the poll 25 years ago in 1981.
And Taft's numbers are not likely to head upward any time soon. In what can only serve as another reminder of his conviction in 2005 on ethics charges, on June 13, 2006 the Ohio Supreme Court ordered Taft to turn over documents in response to a request by state Senator, Marc Dann, a Democratic candidate for attorney general, which Dann contends may help determine what happened to the money missing from state's Bureau of Worker's Compensation Fund.
In February 2006, one of Bush's Ohio Campaign chairman's, Thomas Noe, was charged with 53 felony counts for his role in the disappearance of millions of dollars from the rare-coin fund he managed for the BWC, including 22 counts of forgery, 11 counts of money laundering, 6 counts of aggravated theft, 8 counts of tampering with records, 5 counts of grand theft, and 1 count of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity.
The Ohio auditor's office has said Noe, and some of his former business associates, owes the state over $13.5 million. A special audit from an outside firm, released in February 2006, alleges Noe's lavish lifestyle was bankrolled with money from the $50 million he controlled in two rare-coin funds for the BWC.
The same day that Noe received the first $25 million from the Ohio BWC fund, on March 31, 1998, the audit found that Noe transferred $1.375 million to his Vintage Coins and Collectibles company to buy coins for the state fund but according to the audit, Vintage "did not possess the inventory levels necessary to support the sales transaction."
The audit also found 15 transactions totaling $3,930,000, labeled as coin purchases from Vintage Coins, but in "12 of the 15 transactions," the audit said, "Vintage check registers reflected a negative cash balance at the time the deposits were recorded."
After the 15 transactions, auditors found that Vintage Coins financial records showed payments of: $504,657 to a line of credit in the name of Noe; $227,049 in direct payments to Noe; $542,675 in payments to "related companies;" $1,020,676 to "related individuals," and $176,088 worth of payments to builders and home appliance companies for Noe's homes.
Legal documents released in May, 2006 allege that Noe wrote out checks to his friends for over $440,000 from the state's funds, and then forged their signatures and deposited the money in accounts he controlled.
Although it is now known that the investigation into this matter was initiated before the 2004 Presidential election, the voters in Ohio was kept in the dark until the Toledo Blade broke the story on April 2005.
A few days after the Blade story was published, Taft jumped in to publicly defend Noe claiming that Noe has "probably been the most effective advocate for this part of the state in Columbus that you've got and you're going after this guy."
"You're trying to kill him," Taft said, "for some reason."
But the facts in the case reveal that nobody was picking on poor Tom Noe. The Ohio attorney general says Noe may have stole as much as $6 million and many critics are speculating that at least some of the missing money was funneled to Republican politicians all over the country, from Washington DC to Ohio and all the way to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
According to the Toledo Blade, Dann wants Taft's records released on "the supposition that they will shed light on what the governor knew about wrongdoing at the Bureau of Workers' Compensation."
Since April, Taft has been fighting to keep the documents secret which include weekly reports compiled by his top aides. The Ohio high Court will now review the records in private and decide whether they should be made public.
The June14, 2006 Blade, reported that Dann "has said more documents could shed additional light on why up to $13 million is unaccounted for in the state's rare-coin investment controlled by Tom Noe and why the state lost $216 million in a risky hedge fund managed by Mark D. Lay of MDL Capital Management, of Pittsburgh."
Taft's ethical lapses became public last summer on June 14, 2005, when Taft sent a letter to the Ohio Ethics Commission stating that it has, "recently come to my attention that I failed to list a number of golf outings or events on my financial disclosure forms over the past several years." Taft apparently expects the public to believe that a total of 52 golf outings paid for by Noe just slipped his mind.
On August 27, 2005, Noe's attorney released a statement pointing the finger at Taft and said Taft was informed of the rare-coin operation involving BWC funds by Noe on May 13, 2001, at a Toledo golf course after Taft publicly claimed that he was unaware of Noe's dealings with the WBC until he read about it in an article in the April 3, 2005 the Toledo Blade.
But this month another revelation came to light adding more fuel to the fire. On June 16, 2006, "Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien, a member of the federal-state task force investigating the bureau, confirmed that the probe has expanded into the state's five pension funds, focusing on possible gratuities from brokers and other firms to pension system officials," according to the June 16, 2006 Toledo Blade.
The case is heating up on another front as well. The scandal has now reportedly spread to the world of sports memorabilia. According to Michael O'Keeffe, in the June 17, 2006, Daily News, investigators suspect that the world's largest sports auction house, Mastro Auctions, may have played a role in what is being called "Coingate."
It seem that when investigators raided Noe's company, Vintage Coins and Collectibles in May 2005, they found collectibles including everything "from Beanie Babies to 19th-century political banners to Bob Gibson-signed baseballs worth an estimated $3.5 million," O'Keeffe said.
An Ohio auditor told O'Keeffe that Mastro Auctions sold at least $1.3 million worth of memorabilia to Noe's two funds.
"Most of the seized collectibles are political items," O'Keeffe said, "but Noe also won numerous sports lots, including Hall of Fame plaques purchased for $16,541, a Mickey Mantle bat ($14,014), a collection of 10,000 baseball cards ($8,603), 100 balls signed by Ted Williams ($29,078) and 12 Walter Payton-signed footballs ($4,016)."
The Lucas Country prosecutor John Weglian told O'Keeffe that he will focus on Mastro Auctions after Noe's trial in October which he says, will be a complex case that will require at least 4 weeks and involve over100 witnesses.
"Until that case is resolved," he told O'Keeffe, "Mastro Auctions will remain on a back burner."
In May, 2006, Noe pleaded guilty to violating federal campaign finance laws by funneling over $45,000 to the Bush-Cheney campaign by having 24 people, including several former and current Ohio state officials, attend a $2,000 a plate fundraiser and make donations in their own names with money supplied by Noe.
Noe is facing a maximum of 5 years in prison on each of the 3 charges and a potential fine of close to $1 million. Assistant US Attorney, John Pearson, of the public integrity section of the US Department of Justice, told reporters that he will seek an even harsher penalty for Noe because of the "potential loss of public faith in the presidential race."
At the time of the indictment, US attorneys called Noe's conduct "one of the most blatant and excessive criminal campaign finance schemes we have encountered."
But Noe's misdeeds did not go unrewarded. According to the May 31, 2006 Toledo Blade, as he rose to prominence in the Republican party, Noe "secured high-profile gubernatorial appointments to the Bowling Green State University Board of Trustees and the Ohio Board of Regents, and for a time was chairman of the regents - despite being a college dropout. He also was appointed to the Ohio Turnpike Commission, where he also was chairman."
Noe became a Bush "Pioneer" by raising at least $100,000 for the Bush reelection campaign And tit-for-tat, in May, 2003, Noe was appointed to a committee of the US Mint, a panel that advises the US Treasury secretary on themes and designs for coins and congressional gold medals and was named chairman, according to the Blade.
But funneling money to Republican politicians is not the only part Noe played in the theft of the Presidential election in Ohio. For many years he was Chairman of the Lucas County Board of Elections and was involved in the deal that brought the now infamous Diebold opti-scan voting machines into the inner city of Toledo where many of the machines mysteriously broke down on election day.
Hearings conducted by the Free Press after the election confirmed that thousands of inner city Toledo voters were disenfranchised due to the faulty machines.
On July 29, 2005, Richard Hayes Phillips, PhD testified at an Election Assessment Hearing in Houston, Texas and said, "I have investigated the Ohio election results, precinct by precinct, and have found three categories of problems: voter suppression, ballots cast but not counted, and alteration of the vote count."
Statewide, he says, there were 35,000 provisional ballots and over 92,000 regular ballots that were not counted. The uncounted ballots, most of them punch cards, were concentrated in precincts that voted overwhelmingly for Kerry, by margins of 12 to 1 in Cleveland, 7 to 1 in Dayton, 5 to 1 in Cincinnati, 4.5 to 1 in Akron, 3 to 1 in Lorain County, 2.7 to 1 in Stark County, and 2.3 to 1 in Trumbull County.
Phillips says this information warrants an examination of all the uncounted ballots and the machines that failed to count them.
Critics say politics don't get much dirtier than the underhanded deals revealed over the past 2 years involving Republicans in Ohio. In addition to Taft's convictions, the investigation of Noe's money laundering schemes has resulted in charges against four of Taft's aids.
On January 28, 2006, former aide, H. Douglas Talbott, admitted in documents filed with the Ohio Elections Commission that he funneled campaign money from Noe to the Chief Justice and two other Ohio Supreme Court Justices.
Noe and his wife also contributed to the campaign of the current Ohio attorney general and in return Bernadette Noe's law firm was given state contracts worth thousands of dollars collecting bad debts for the state.
Since the money laundering scheme was revealed, Bush and the RNC returned $6,000 in direct contributions from Noe and his wife, and other state and federal officials have returned thousands more, including Taft, Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell who is the current Republican candidate running for governor, and California Governor Schwarzenegger.
Blackwell's nomination is a reward for all of his help in stealing the election in Ohio, in large part, by favoring his own party when distributing voting equipment and materials for the November 2, 2004 election, among other things.
According to December 12, 2004, Columbus Dispatch, precincts that had gone 70% or more for Al Gore in election 2000 were allocated seventeen fewer machines in 2004, while strong GOP precincts received 8 additional machines.
According to an investigation by the Columbus Free Press, white Republican suburbanites, blessed with a surplus of machines, averaged waits of only twenty-two minutes, while black urban Democrats averaged three hours and fifteen minutes.
"The allocation of voting machines in Franklin County was clearly biased against voters in precincts with high proportions of African-Americans," said Walter Mebane Jr, a government professor at Cornell University in a February 11, 2006 letter responding to a June 29, 2005 letter from the US Department of Justice, after conducting a statistical analysis of the vote in and around Columbus.
In another move directly calculated increase traffic jams at the polls, on election day, the GOP sent out 3,600 operatives to challenge voters in 31 counties in mostly predominantly black and urban areas. For instance, in Hamilton County, 14% of new voters in white areas were confronted at the polls, compared to 97% percent of new voters in black areas, according to the November 2, 2004 Columbus Dispatch.
Sworn statements by citizens at public hearings in Columbus and Toledo confirmed that scores of voters were disenfranchised because they had to go to work and could not wait in line.
According to the Toledo Blade, at a polling site in east Toledo, the one and only machine broke down at about 7 a.m. and when Ohio Representative, Peter Ujvagi, tried to vote an hour later, a poll worker told him to just put his ballot in "a secure slot under the machine" so it could be scanned in later, after Ujvagi was gone.
Inner-city black voters who stuck it out waited 3 hours in the rain, on average but some waited up to seven hours, according to election officials and sworn testimony by local voters, while nearby white Republican voters had virtually no delays. The waiting time at liberal Kenyon College, in Knox County, reached eleven hours, while voters at a nearby conservative Bible school got to vote in 5 minutes.
By midmorning on November 2, with voters dropping out of lines no longer able the wait, precincts were requesting the right to distribute paper ballots to speed up the process but Blackwell denied the requests, saying it was an invitation for fraud, according to the law suit filed against Blackwell by the Democratic party on November 2, 2004.
The lawsuit filed, Ohio Democratic Party v. Blackwell, No. C2 04 1055, had supporting affidavits from election officials and voters describing the voting impediments occurring in Democratic precincts.
An affidavit filed from Columbus Precinct 44D said: "There are three voting machines at this precinct. I have been informed that in prior elections there were normally four voting machines. At 1:45 p.m. there are approximately eighty-five voters in line. At this time, the line to vote is approximately three hours long. This precinct is largely African-American. I have personally witnessed voters leaving the polling place without voting due to the length of the line."
From Precinct 18A, an affidavit said: "At 4 p.m. the average wait time is about 4.5 hours and continuing to increase. Voters are continuing to leave without voting."
An affidavit from a judge at Precinct 40 states: "I am serving as a presiding judge, a position I have held for some 15+ years in precinct 40. In all my years of service, the lines are by far the longest I have seen, with some waiting as long as four to five hours. I expect the situation to only worsen as the early evening heavy turnout approaches. I have requested additional machines since 6:40 a.m. and no assistance has been offered."
In response to the lawsuit, in the early evening, US District Judge, Algernon Marbley, issued a temporary order requiring that paper ballots be offered to voters. However, according to estimates published in December 15, 2004, Washington Post, as many as 15,000 voters in Columbus had already given up and gone home.
When poll closing time came, some Republican poll workers dismissed voters who had waited in line for hours in the rain in violation of Ohio law, which allows people in line at closing time to stay and vote.
The GOP owes Blackwell a lot. They definitely could not have stolen the election without him and he no doubt earned every dime he ever got from Noe.
The only news reporter to publicly questioned the integrity of the 2004 election was Keith Olbermann during his nightly show on MSNBC.
During an interview for an article published in the June 2006 Rolling Stone Magazine, Bobby Kennedy, Jr asked him why he stood against the tide and Olbermann said: "I was a sports reporter, so I was used to dealing with numbers."
"And the numbers made no sense," he continued. "Kerry had an insurmountable lead in the exit polls on Election Night -- and then everything flipped," he told Kennedy.
Olbermann said he believes that other reporters fell down on the job. ''I was stunned by the lack of interest by investigative reporters," he said. "The Republicans shut down Warren County, allegedly for national security purposes -- and no one covered it."
"Shouldn't someone have sent a camera and a few reporters out there?" he noted.
Olbermann attributes the lack of coverage to self-censorship by journalists. "You can rock the boat, but you can never say that the entire ocean is in trouble," he told Kennedy, "You cannot say: By the way, there's something wrong with our electoral system."
"The issue of what happened in 2004 is not an academic one," Bobby Kennedy says in the Rolling Stone article. "For the second election in a row," he notes, "the president of the United States was selected not by the uncontested will of the people but under a cloud of dirty tricks."
"Given the scope of the GOP machinations, we simply cannot be certain that the right man now occupies the Oval Office," Kennedy pointed out, "which means," he says, "in effect, that we have been deprived of our faith in democracy itself."
"If people lose faith that their votes are accurately and faithfully recorded," he warns, "they will abandon the ballot box."
"Nothing less is at stake here," Kennedy says, "than the entire idea of a government by the people."
Based on the last two presidential elections, voters seem to agree with Kennedy, and say there is little reason to think that future elections won't fall victim to this same sort of manipulation.
"Admittedly, I have become somewhat cynical," says voter Jacquelyn Webber, "but having voted for 50 years and observed the actions of various administrations," she explains, "I have never seen our country with such dishonest, secretive and greed-driven leadership and apparently no respect for our Constitution and little, if any value for human lives."
Webber also believes that the media should have done a better job of informing the public about misconduct involving the current administration before the election.
"I do not believe a well-informed public would have tolerated the destructive actions which are ongoing and have placed our Constitution and American way of life in serious jeopardy," she states, "and I hold the media grossly responsible for failing to provide truthful information to the public which might well have resulted in a totally different and more positive outlook for our country by not allowing this greed-driven administration to come into such power."
Back in Ohio, Republicans are worried about this year's election and are screaming foul over the decision by a Lucas County Judge, Thomas Osowik, in response to a defense motion by Noe, to move the trial date from August to October, claiming the judge is seeking a political advantage to improve his chances of winning a spot on an Ohio Court of Appeals in the election while at the same time harming their chances at the ballot box.
However, others disagree. According to the June 14, 2006 Toledo Blade, Brian Rothenberg, a spokesman for the Ohio Democratic Party, said Noe's case should be tried before the election so voters will know as much as possible about the case, which touches on many Republican officials and candidates all over the state.
"It's important for the people of Ohio to know the facts by Election Day," Rothenberg told the Blade.
Noe also tried to have Judge Osowik thrown off the case but that motion was denied.
He also filed a motion trying to get a change of venue citing adverse publicity in Lucas county. "Indeed, the sheer number of references to Tom Noe in the Toledo Blade has turned Mr. Noe's name into an epithet," the motion said, "using it as a shorthand for corruption or vice in any article that is even remotely related to government, Ohio politics, or investments of any kind."
The fact is, a person would be hard-pressed to find a Republican politician in Ohio who has not accepted money from Noe over the past decade. The underlying question remains whether the money that turned up missing ended up in the pockets of those politician.
In any event, between the media coverage and the involvement of Republican politicians all over the state, critics say it would be next to impossible to find a jury pool anywhere in Ohio who has not heard about the scandal.
According to a news database search by the Toledo Blade, in addition to their own articles, since April 1, 2005, the Cleveland Plain Dealer has mentioned the case in 230 articles and the Columbus Dispatch have mentioned it in 267.
Ohio's Governor Bob Taft, and his partner in crime in stealing the 2004 election in Ohio, President George W Bush, have a lot in common. Bush holds the record for the lowest approval ratings of any President in US history, and at a whopping 26%, Taft holds the title for the lowest approval rating for any Ohio governor since the University of Cincinnati started the poll 25 years ago in 1981.
And Taft's numbers are not likely to head upward any time soon. In what can only serve as another reminder of his conviction in 2005 on ethics charges, on June 13, 2006 the Ohio Supreme Court ordered Taft to turn over documents in response to a request by state Senator, Marc Dann, a Democratic candidate for attorney general, which Dann contends may help determine what happened to the money missing from state's Bureau of Worker's Compensation Fund.
In February 2006, one of Bush's Ohio Campaign chairman's, Thomas Noe, was charged with 53 felony counts for his role in the disappearance of millions of dollars from the rare-coin fund he managed for the BWC, including 22 counts of forgery, 11 counts of money laundering, 6 counts of aggravated theft, 8 counts of tampering with records, 5 counts of grand theft, and 1 count of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity.
The Ohio auditor's office has said Noe, and some of his former business associates, owes the state over $13.5 million. A special audit from an outside firm, released in February 2006, alleges Noe's lavish lifestyle was bankrolled with money from the $50 million he controlled in two rare-coin funds for the BWC.
The same day that Noe received the first $25 million from the Ohio BWC fund, on March 31, 1998, the audit found that Noe transferred $1.375 million to his Vintage Coins and Collectibles company to buy coins for the state fund but according to the audit, Vintage "did not possess the inventory levels necessary to support the sales transaction."
The audit also found 15 transactions totaling $3,930,000, labeled as coin purchases from Vintage Coins, but in "12 of the 15 transactions," the audit said, "Vintage check registers reflected a negative cash balance at the time the deposits were recorded."
After the 15 transactions, auditors found that Vintage Coins financial records showed payments of: $504,657 to a line of credit in the name of Noe; $227,049 in direct payments to Noe; $542,675 in payments to "related companies;" $1,020,676 to "related individuals," and $176,088 worth of payments to builders and home appliance companies for Noe's homes.
Legal documents released in May, 2006 allege that Noe wrote out checks to his friends for over $440,000 from the state's funds, and then forged their signatures and deposited the money in accounts he controlled.
Although it is now known that the investigation into this matter was initiated before the 2004 Presidential election, the voters in Ohio was kept in the dark until the Toledo Blade broke the story on April 2005.
A few days after the Blade story was published, Taft jumped in to publicly defend Noe claiming that Noe has "probably been the most effective advocate for this part of the state in Columbus that you've got and you're going after this guy."
"You're trying to kill him," Taft said, "for some reason."
But the facts in the case reveal that nobody was picking on poor Tom Noe. The Ohio attorney general says Noe may have stole as much as $6 million and many critics are speculating that at least some of the missing money was funneled to Republican politicians all over the country, from Washington DC to Ohio and all the way to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
According to the Toledo Blade, Dann wants Taft's records released on "the supposition that they will shed light on what the governor knew about wrongdoing at the Bureau of Workers' Compensation."
Since April, Taft has been fighting to keep the documents secret which include weekly reports compiled by his top aides. The Ohio high Court will now review the records in private and decide whether they should be made public.
The June14, 2006 Blade, reported that Dann "has said more documents could shed additional light on why up to $13 million is unaccounted for in the state's rare-coin investment controlled by Tom Noe and why the state lost $216 million in a risky hedge fund managed by Mark D. Lay of MDL Capital Management, of Pittsburgh."
Taft's ethical lapses became public last summer on June 14, 2005, when Taft sent a letter to the Ohio Ethics Commission stating that it has, "recently come to my attention that I failed to list a number of golf outings or events on my financial disclosure forms over the past several years." Taft apparently expects the public to believe that a total of 52 golf outings paid for by Noe just slipped his mind.
On August 27, 2005, Noe's attorney released a statement pointing the finger at Taft and said Taft was informed of the rare-coin operation involving BWC funds by Noe on May 13, 2001, at a Toledo golf course after Taft publicly claimed that he was unaware of Noe's dealings with the WBC until he read about it in an article in the April 3, 2005 the Toledo Blade.
But this month another revelation came to light adding more fuel to the fire. On June 16, 2006, "Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien, a member of the federal-state task force investigating the bureau, confirmed that the probe has expanded into the state's five pension funds, focusing on possible gratuities from brokers and other firms to pension system officials," according to the June 16, 2006 Toledo Blade.
The case is heating up on another front as well. The scandal has now reportedly spread to the world of sports memorabilia. According to Michael O'Keeffe, in the June 17, 2006, Daily News, investigators suspect that the world's largest sports auction house, Mastro Auctions, may have played a role in what is being called "Coingate."
It seem that when investigators raided Noe's company, Vintage Coins and Collectibles in May 2005, they found collectibles including everything "from Beanie Babies to 19th-century political banners to Bob Gibson-signed baseballs worth an estimated $3.5 million," O'Keeffe said.
An Ohio auditor told O'Keeffe that Mastro Auctions sold at least $1.3 million worth of memorabilia to Noe's two funds.
"Most of the seized collectibles are political items," O'Keeffe said, "but Noe also won numerous sports lots, including Hall of Fame plaques purchased for $16,541, a Mickey Mantle bat ($14,014), a collection of 10,000 baseball cards ($8,603), 100 balls signed by Ted Williams ($29,078) and 12 Walter Payton-signed footballs ($4,016)."
The Lucas Country prosecutor John Weglian told O'Keeffe that he will focus on Mastro Auctions after Noe's trial in October which he says, will be a complex case that will require at least 4 weeks and involve over100 witnesses.
"Until that case is resolved," he told O'Keeffe, "Mastro Auctions will remain on a back burner."
In May, 2006, Noe pleaded guilty to violating federal campaign finance laws by funneling over $45,000 to the Bush-Cheney campaign by having 24 people, including several former and current Ohio state officials, attend a $2,000 a plate fundraiser and make donations in their own names with money supplied by Noe.
Noe is facing a maximum of 5 years in prison on each of the 3 charges and a potential fine of close to $1 million. Assistant US Attorney, John Pearson, of the public integrity section of the US Department of Justice, told reporters that he will seek an even harsher penalty for Noe because of the "potential loss of public faith in the presidential race."
At the time of the indictment, US attorneys called Noe's conduct "one of the most blatant and excessive criminal campaign finance schemes we have encountered."
But Noe's misdeeds did not go unrewarded. According to the May 31, 2006 Toledo Blade, as he rose to prominence in the Republican party, Noe "secured high-profile gubernatorial appointments to the Bowling Green State University Board of Trustees and the Ohio Board of Regents, and for a time was chairman of the regents - despite being a college dropout. He also was appointed to the Ohio Turnpike Commission, where he also was chairman."
Noe became a Bush "Pioneer" by raising at least $100,000 for the Bush reelection campaign And tit-for-tat, in May, 2003, Noe was appointed to a committee of the US Mint, a panel that advises the US Treasury secretary on themes and designs for coins and congressional gold medals and was named chairman, according to the Blade.
But funneling money to Republican politicians is not the only part Noe played in the theft of the Presidential election in Ohio. For many years he was Chairman of the Lucas County Board of Elections and was involved in the deal that brought the now infamous Diebold opti-scan voting machines into the inner city of Toledo where many of the machines mysteriously broke down on election day.
Hearings conducted by the Free Press after the election confirmed that thousands of inner city Toledo voters were disenfranchised due to the faulty machines.
On July 29, 2005, Richard Hayes Phillips, PhD testified at an Election Assessment Hearing in Houston, Texas and said, "I have investigated the Ohio election results, precinct by precinct, and have found three categories of problems: voter suppression, ballots cast but not counted, and alteration of the vote count."
Statewide, he says, there were 35,000 provisional ballots and over 92,000 regular ballots that were not counted. The uncounted ballots, most of them punch cards, were concentrated in precincts that voted overwhelmingly for Kerry, by margins of 12 to 1 in Cleveland, 7 to 1 in Dayton, 5 to 1 in Cincinnati, 4.5 to 1 in Akron, 3 to 1 in Lorain County, 2.7 to 1 in Stark County, and 2.3 to 1 in Trumbull County.
Phillips says this information warrants an examination of all the uncounted ballots and the machines that failed to count them.
Critics say politics don't get much dirtier than the underhanded deals revealed over the past 2 years involving Republicans in Ohio. In addition to Taft's convictions, the investigation of Noe's money laundering schemes has resulted in charges against four of Taft's aids.
On January 28, 2006, former aide, H. Douglas Talbott, admitted in documents filed with the Ohio Elections Commission that he funneled campaign money from Noe to the Chief Justice and two other Ohio Supreme Court Justices.
Noe and his wife also contributed to the campaign of the current Ohio attorney general and in return Bernadette Noe's law firm was given state contracts worth thousands of dollars collecting bad debts for the state.
Since the money laundering scheme was revealed, Bush and the RNC returned $6,000 in direct contributions from Noe and his wife, and other state and federal officials have returned thousands more, including Taft, Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell who is the current Republican candidate running for governor, and California Governor Schwarzenegger.
Blackwell's nomination is a reward for all of his help in stealing the election in Ohio, in large part, by favoring his own party when distributing voting equipment and materials for the November 2, 2004 election, among other things.
According to December 12, 2004, Columbus Dispatch, precincts that had gone 70% or more for Al Gore in election 2000 were allocated seventeen fewer machines in 2004, while strong GOP precincts received 8 additional machines.
According to an investigation by the Columbus Free Press, white Republican suburbanites, blessed with a surplus of machines, averaged waits of only twenty-two minutes, while black urban Democrats averaged three hours and fifteen minutes.
"The allocation of voting machines in Franklin County was clearly biased against voters in precincts with high proportions of African-Americans," said Walter Mebane Jr, a government professor at Cornell University in a February 11, 2006 letter responding to a June 29, 2005 letter from the US Department of Justice, after conducting a statistical analysis of the vote in and around Columbus.
In another move directly calculated increase traffic jams at the polls, on election day, the GOP sent out 3,600 operatives to challenge voters in 31 counties in mostly predominantly black and urban areas. For instance, in Hamilton County, 14% of new voters in white areas were confronted at the polls, compared to 97% percent of new voters in black areas, according to the November 2, 2004 Columbus Dispatch.
Sworn statements by citizens at public hearings in Columbus and Toledo confirmed that scores of voters were disenfranchised because they had to go to work and could not wait in line.
According to the Toledo Blade, at a polling site in east Toledo, the one and only machine broke down at about 7 a.m. and when Ohio Representative, Peter Ujvagi, tried to vote an hour later, a poll worker told him to just put his ballot in "a secure slot under the machine" so it could be scanned in later, after Ujvagi was gone.
Inner-city black voters who stuck it out waited 3 hours in the rain, on average but some waited up to seven hours, according to election officials and sworn testimony by local voters, while nearby white Republican voters had virtually no delays. The waiting time at liberal Kenyon College, in Knox County, reached eleven hours, while voters at a nearby conservative Bible school got to vote in 5 minutes.
By midmorning on November 2, with voters dropping out of lines no longer able the wait, precincts were requesting the right to distribute paper ballots to speed up the process but Blackwell denied the requests, saying it was an invitation for fraud, according to the law suit filed against Blackwell by the Democratic party on November 2, 2004.
The lawsuit filed, Ohio Democratic Party v. Blackwell, No. C2 04 1055, had supporting affidavits from election officials and voters describing the voting impediments occurring in Democratic precincts.
An affidavit filed from Columbus Precinct 44D said: "There are three voting machines at this precinct. I have been informed that in prior elections there were normally four voting machines. At 1:45 p.m. there are approximately eighty-five voters in line. At this time, the line to vote is approximately three hours long. This precinct is largely African-American. I have personally witnessed voters leaving the polling place without voting due to the length of the line."
From Precinct 18A, an affidavit said: "At 4 p.m. the average wait time is about 4.5 hours and continuing to increase. Voters are continuing to leave without voting."
An affidavit from a judge at Precinct 40 states: "I am serving as a presiding judge, a position I have held for some 15+ years in precinct 40. In all my years of service, the lines are by far the longest I have seen, with some waiting as long as four to five hours. I expect the situation to only worsen as the early evening heavy turnout approaches. I have requested additional machines since 6:40 a.m. and no assistance has been offered."
In response to the lawsuit, in the early evening, US District Judge, Algernon Marbley, issued a temporary order requiring that paper ballots be offered to voters. However, according to estimates published in December 15, 2004, Washington Post, as many as 15,000 voters in Columbus had already given up and gone home.
When poll closing time came, some Republican poll workers dismissed voters who had waited in line for hours in the rain in violation of Ohio law, which allows people in line at closing time to stay and vote.
The GOP owes Blackwell a lot. They definitely could not have stolen the election without him and he no doubt earned every dime he ever got from Noe.
The only news reporter to publicly questioned the integrity of the 2004 election was Keith Olbermann during his nightly show on MSNBC.
During an interview for an article published in the June 2006 Rolling Stone Magazine, Bobby Kennedy, Jr asked him why he stood against the tide and Olbermann said: "I was a sports reporter, so I was used to dealing with numbers."
"And the numbers made no sense," he continued. "Kerry had an insurmountable lead in the exit polls on Election Night -- and then everything flipped," he told Kennedy.
Olbermann said he believes that other reporters fell down on the job. ''I was stunned by the lack of interest by investigative reporters," he said. "The Republicans shut down Warren County, allegedly for national security purposes -- and no one covered it."
"Shouldn't someone have sent a camera and a few reporters out there?" he noted.
Olbermann attributes the lack of coverage to self-censorship by journalists. "You can rock the boat, but you can never say that the entire ocean is in trouble," he told Kennedy, "You cannot say: By the way, there's something wrong with our electoral system."
"The issue of what happened in 2004 is not an academic one," Bobby Kennedy says in the Rolling Stone article. "For the second election in a row," he notes, "the president of the United States was selected not by the uncontested will of the people but under a cloud of dirty tricks."
"Given the scope of the GOP machinations, we simply cannot be certain that the right man now occupies the Oval Office," Kennedy pointed out, "which means," he says, "in effect, that we have been deprived of our faith in democracy itself."
"If people lose faith that their votes are accurately and faithfully recorded," he warns, "they will abandon the ballot box."
"Nothing less is at stake here," Kennedy says, "than the entire idea of a government by the people."
Based on the last two presidential elections, voters seem to agree with Kennedy, and say there is little reason to think that future elections won't fall victim to this same sort of manipulation.
"Admittedly, I have become somewhat cynical," says voter Jacquelyn Webber, "but having voted for 50 years and observed the actions of various administrations," she explains, "I have never seen our country with such dishonest, secretive and greed-driven leadership and apparently no respect for our Constitution and little, if any value for human lives."
Webber also believes that the media should have done a better job of informing the public about misconduct involving the current administration before the election.
"I do not believe a well-informed public would have tolerated the destructive actions which are ongoing and have placed our Constitution and American way of life in serious jeopardy," she states, "and I hold the media grossly responsible for failing to provide truthful information to the public which might well have resulted in a totally different and more positive outlook for our country by not allowing this greed-driven administration to come into such power."
Back in Ohio, Republicans are worried about this year's election and are screaming foul over the decision by a Lucas County Judge, Thomas Osowik, in response to a defense motion by Noe, to move the trial date from August to October, claiming the judge is seeking a political advantage to improve his chances of winning a spot on an Ohio Court of Appeals in the election while at the same time harming their chances at the ballot box.
However, others disagree. According to the June 14, 2006 Toledo Blade, Brian Rothenberg, a spokesman for the Ohio Democratic Party, said Noe's case should be tried before the election so voters will know as much as possible about the case, which touches on many Republican officials and candidates all over the state.
"It's important for the people of Ohio to know the facts by Election Day," Rothenberg told the Blade.
Noe also tried to have Judge Osowik thrown off the case but that motion was denied.
He also filed a motion trying to get a change of venue citing adverse publicity in Lucas county. "Indeed, the sheer number of references to Tom Noe in the Toledo Blade has turned Mr. Noe's name into an epithet," the motion said, "using it as a shorthand for corruption or vice in any article that is even remotely related to government, Ohio politics, or investments of any kind."
The fact is, a person would be hard-pressed to find a Republican politician in Ohio who has not accepted money from Noe over the past decade. The underlying question remains whether the money that turned up missing ended up in the pockets of those politician.
In any event, between the media coverage and the involvement of Republican politicians all over the state, critics say it would be next to impossible to find a jury pool anywhere in Ohio who has not heard about the scandal.
According to a news database search by the Toledo Blade, in addition to their own articles, since April 1, 2005, the Cleveland Plain Dealer has mentioned the case in 230 articles and the Columbus Dispatch have mentioned it in 267.
Ohio Governor Race - Fox Guarding Henhouse
Evelyn Pringle November 2006
Ken Blackwell is ready to cash in on the Republican promise of putting him in the Governor's mansion in 2006 after he proved that he was indispensable in the successful plot to rig the 2004 Presidential election in Ohio for George W Bush.
As secretary of state in 2004, Blackwell held broad powers for setting election standards in everything from the processing of voter registration to overseeing the distribution of voting machines and ballots. He was also simultaneously serving as co-chairman in the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio.
Which means, in 2006, with Blackwell still in the position of secretary of state, once again voters in Ohio have a fox guarding the voting henhouse. Only this time the stakes are even higher for Blackwell because his political future is on the line.
In 2004, long before election day, a major voter suppression scheme was successful when Blackwell issued an order saying voter registration forms would only be accepted if they were on 80-pound, unwaxed, white paper, and as many as 72,00 voters lost their right to vote due to an unavoidable registration error.
Printed registration forms in local newspapers provided to help citizens register to vote were rendered useless and one Ohio County had to post a notice online saying it could not accept its own registration forms.
Under the threat of court action, on September 28, 2004, six days before the registration deadline, Blackwell withdrew but the damage was done.
On election day itself, voters in Democratic precincts encountered a wide variety of obstacles in the path to the voter's booth. They faced Republican challengers at the polls, the purging of names from voter rolls, and the most obvious scarcity of voting machines, but only in Democratic neighborhoods.
In Republican precincts there were plenty of voting machines, but in urban precincts, where many African-Americans voted, and in other Democratic strongholds, such as polling stations around college campuses, there was a conspicuous absence of enough machines.
For instance, at Kenyon College where Democratic students had registered in record numbers, Blackwell allotted only 2 machines even though there was a 1,300 surge of voters, and the wait was up to eleven hours.
In contrast, Republican fundamentalist students at nearby Nazarene University had one machine for 100 voters and students faced no waiting lines.
Democratic voters at inner-city precincts in cities like Cleveland, Columbus, and Toledo, who were voting for Kerry by a margin of nine to one, had to wait in line up to 7 hours.
Due to a deliberate and well coordinated effort, at other polling station all over the state there were not enough machines and Democrats had to stand in line in the rain for as long as ten hours, and of course just as intended, in many cases it was impossible for people to wait that long so many left without casting a vote.
By midmorning on election day, when it became clear that people were having to drop out of line without voting due to the long wait, precincts asked Blackwell for the right to distribute paper ballots to speed up the process and Blackwell denied the requests, claiming it would invite fraud.
In a desperate attempt to stop the madness, a lawsuit was filed, and the affidavits that were filed by voters and election officials in support of a plea to the courts for help, describe election fraud in motion. An affidavit by an official from Precinct 40 stated:
''I am serving as a presiding judge, a position I have held for some 15+ years in precinct 40. In all my years of service, the lines are by far the longest I have seen, with some waiting as long as four to five hours.
"I expect the situation to only worsen as the early evening heavy turnout approaches. I have requested additional machines since 6:40 a.m. and no assistance has been offered.''
By the time US District Judge Algernon Marbley issued an order requiring that voters be given paper ballots in early evening, it was too late. According to estimates by the Washington Post, as many as 15,000 voters in Columbus alone had given up and left without voting
When poll closing time came, some precincts illegally dismissed voters who had waited for hours in the rain, in violation of Ohio law, which requires that people waiting in line at closing time be allowed to vote.
Critics say there is no way to definitively estimate how many citizens lost their right to vote in Ohio because they were forced to drop out of line to go to work or take care of their children.
The plot to steal the election involved other tactics as well. In the summer of 2004, the Toledo Blade reported that 28,000 voters were erased from the Lucas County voter registration rolls and that the purge included voters like Barbara and Ralph George "who first registered to vote for John F. Kennedy in 1960 and had lived in the same East Toledo house for 44 years."
In Gahanna Ward 1B, at a fundamentalist church, a so-called "electronic transfer glitch" gave Bush nearly 4,000 votes when only 638 people voted at that polling station.
Democratic Congressman, John Conyers of Michigan, and the Democratic staff of the House Judiciary Committee launched an investigation into the Ohio election and received more than fifty thousand complaints from Democratic voters. In stark contrast, there were no complaints filed by Republican voters in Ohio in 2004 alleging a deprivation of the right to vote in Republican precincts.
And make no mistake, the well coordinated statewide effort to steal the election involved a whole bag of dirty tricks. In Columbus, where 125,000 new voters had registered, more than half of them black, the board of elections predicted that it would need 5,000 machines to handle all the voters.
But instead preparing for the large turnout by lining up more equipment, the House Judiciary investigation found that Matt Damschroder, the chairman of the Franklin County Board of Elections, and former head of the Columbus Republican party, decided to "make do" with 2,741 machines.
And even then, he distributing the machines to favor Republicans. According to the Columbus Dispatch, precincts that had voted 70% or more for Al Gore in 2000, received 17 fewer voter machines in 2004, while strong GOP precincts received 8 more machines.
As a result, an investigation by the Columbus Free Press, showed that white Republican suburbanites had average waits of only twenty-two minutes, while black urban Democrats waited on average three hours and fifteen minutes.
During the election, inner city voting machines broke down and polls opened late. The Toledo Blade reported that the sole machine at the Birmingham polling site in east Toledo broke down at about 7 am, and that per order of Blackwell, there were no paper ballots available for backup.
The first major indication that serious voter fraud had been committed was when the wide unexplainable discrepancies began to appear between the exit polls and actual vote counts and they all favored Bush.
Experts say exit polling is the most reliable polling because unlike pre-election polls, in which voters are asked to predict future behavior, exit polls interview people leaving the voting box about an act that they just completed.
On the basis of exit polls in 2004, CNN predicted that Kerry would defeat Bush in Ohio by a margin of 4.2%, but in the end Bush supposedly won Ohio by 2.5%.
In fact, precincts where Bush received at least 80% of the vote, the exit polls were off by an average of 10%, a pattern that experts say indicates Republican election officials stuffed the ballot box in those precincts.
Bush also tallied 6.5% more votes than the polls had predicted in Pennsylvania, and 4.9% more in Florida. According to Steven F Freeman, a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, who specializes in research methodology, the odds against all 3 of those shifts occurring in concert was one in 660,000.
"As much as we can say in sound science that something is impossible," he says, "it is impossible that the discrepancies between predicted and actual vote count in the three critical battleground states of the 2004 election could have been due to chance or random error."
Mr Freeman made a point of telling Robert Kennedy Jr in an interview for an article in Rolling Stone Magazine that he's no Democrat lover. "I'm not even political -- I despise the Democrats," he said. "I'm a survey expert. I got into this because I was mystified about how the exit polls could have been so wrong."
But Mr Freeman also said in Rolling Stone, "When you look at the numbers, there is a tremendous amount of data that supports the supposition of election fraud."
"The discrepancies are higher in battleground states," he points out, "higher where there were Republican governors, higher in states with greater proportions of African-American communities and higher in states where there were the most Election Day complaints."
According to Mr Kennedy, the exit poll created for the 2004 election was designed to be the most reliable in history. Six news organizations hired Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, whose principal, Warren Mitofsky, pioneered the exit poll for CBS in 1967
Shortly before 8:00 pm, reporters at each of the major networks were briefed by pollsters and told that Kerry had an insurmountable lead with at least 309 electoral votes to Bush's 174, with fifty-five too close to call.
As the last polling stations closed on the West Coast, exit polls showed Kerry ahead in ten of 11 battleground states, including Ohio, winning by a million and a half votes nationally overall. But to this day, the Bush gang would have voters believe that every single poll was dead wrong.
In January 2006, a group of mathematicians from the National Election Data Archive, a nonpartisan watchdog group, compared Ohio's exit polls to the certified vote count in each of the 49 precincts polled by Edison/Mitofsky and found that in 22 of those precincts the results differed widely from the official tally.
The wildest discrepancy came from a precinct that Mitofsky numbered "27," in order to protect the anonymity of people surveyed. According to the exit poll, Kerry should have received 67% of the vote, yet the certified tally gave him only 38%.
The statistical odds against such a variance are just shy of one in 3 billion, according to "The Gun is Smoking: 2004 Ohio Precinct-level Exit Poll Data Show Virtually Irrefutable Evidence of Vote Miscount," US Count Votes, National Election Data Archive, January 23, 2006.
Such results, the archive says, provide "virtually irrefutable evidence of vote miscount."
The discrepancies the experts add, "are consistent with the hypothesis that Kerry would have won Ohio's electoral votes if Ohio's official vote counts had accurately reflected voter intent."
According to Ron Baiman, vice president of the archive and a public policy analyst at Loyola University, "No rigorous statistical explanation" can explain the "completely nonrandom" disparities that almost uniformly benefited Bush."
The final results he said in Rolling Stone are "completely consistent with election fraud -- specifically vote shifting."
After conducting an investigation of Ohio ballots, on July 29, 2005, another expert, Richard Hayes Phillips, PhD testified at an Election Assessment Hearing in Texas and said, "I have investigated the Ohio election results, precinct by precinct, and have found three categories of problems: voter suppression, ballots cast but not counted, and alteration of the vote count."
Statewide, he said, there were 35,000 provisional ballots and over 92,000 regular ballots that were not counted as votes for president.
These uncounted ballots, he reported, most of them punch cards, were highly concentrated in precincts that voted overwhelmingly for John Kerry, by margins of 12 to 1 in Cleveland, 7 to 1 in Dayton, 5 to 1 in Cincinnati, 4.5 to 1 in Akron, 3 to 1 in Lorain County, 2.7 to 1 in Stark County, and 2.3 to 1 in Trumbull County.
In Lucas County, Mr Phillips said, other means of voter suppression led directly to lower voter turnout in Democratic precincts. The 88 precincts with the lowest turnout were all in Toledo and all were won by John Kerry and complaints were filed in 31 of these precincts.
Among the complaints he noted were: long-time residents removed from the voting rolls, broken voting machines, polling stations running out of ballots and turning people away, voters sent back and forth between polling places, and long lines not designated by precinct so that voters waited in the wrong line.
One-third of provisional ballots were not counted, he said, often because people voted at the wrong table in the right polling place.
But it appears like the chickens have come home to roost because Ohio politicians are now up to their necks in scandals, making its current Republican led government a poster child for the term "culture of corruption."
The largest corruption probe in Ohio history has produced charges against Governor Bob Taft, convicted of four misdemeanors for accepting unreported gifts; and his side-kick, Tom Noe, co-chairman of Bush-Cheney 2004 Ohio reelection campaign.
On October 27, 2005, Tom Noe was officially charged with illegally funneling $45,400 to the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign at a $2,000-a-seat fund-raiser in Columbus, in a scheme where Noe made contributions by passing the money through 24 friends and associates, described as "conduits" by investigators.
Some of the known "conduits," included 4 current or former Ohio elected officials, including Toledo City Councilman Betty Shultz, Lucas County Commissioner Maggie Thurber, former state Representative Sally Perz, and former Toledo Mayor Donna Owens.
Court records also show that 2 former aides to Governor Taft also served as funnels.
All of the conduits signed donor cards that stated they were the source of their donations even though each knew that Noe made the contributions, prosecutors said. Each politician faced state ethics charges for failing to disclose the money they received from Noe.
On May 31, 2006, Noe entered a guilty plea in the US District Court in Toledo to 3 felony charges related to violating campaign finance laws.
On June 1, 2006, the Toledo Blade reported that, “State and federal politicians from Mr. Taft to Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, the Republican nominee for governor, to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger - have returned tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from Noe and his wife.”
In the summer of 2005, Tom Noe, was described by the Columbus Free Press, as a high-roller crony of Governor Taft, Ohio Senator George Voinovich and President Bush.
That said, at the time of Noe's indictment, a senior Justice Department official called the case the largest campaign money-laundering scheme prosecuted by the DOJ since the new campaign finance laws were enacted in 2002.
For many years Noe was the Chairman of the Board of Elections in Lucas County and he was heavily involved in the procurement deals that brought Diebold voting machines into inner city Toledo and many of those machines suspiciously malfunctioned on election day in 2004. Sworn testimony in hearings conducted by the Free Press after the election confirm that thousands of inner city voters were disenfranchised due to Noe's decisions.
In by now a widely publicized 2003 fundraising letter, Diebold CEO Wally O'Dell promised to deliver Ohio's 2004 electoral votes to Bush, and Noe and O'Dell were two of Ohio's nineteen Bush Pioneers or Rangers, a group that includes only high money donors.
Before Noe got busted, Blackwell and Noe were practically kissing cousins. In the months before the 2004 election, when voting rights activists tried to challenge Blackwell's partisan handling of provisional ballots in court, Noe intervened on Blackwell's behalf.
While Tom handled the court duties, his wife Bernadette worked on the Board of Election in Lucas County to reverse the Ohio tradition of allowing provisional ballots to be cast in precincts other than the one in which voters were registered to help disenfranchise inner-city Toledo Democratic voters.
And as a reward for their large contribution to the theft of the 2004 election, in January 2005, Noe and his wife co-sponsored Ohio’s inaugural ball in Washington, and according to the Toledo Blade, "Mr. Bush and Mr. Noe embraced. The President then hugged Mrs. Noe."
Noe had previously been appointed chairman for a committee of the US Mint, that advises the US Treasury secretary on designs and themes for coins and congressional medals. According to a Treasury Department press release Noe was recommended for the appointment by Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-Ill) and nominated by Treasury Secretary John Snowe.
For years Noe was called northwest Ohio's "Mr. Republican." And his generosity to Ohio politicians did not go unrewarded. He was appointed to the Ohio Turnpike Commission, the Bowling Green State University board, and the Ohio Board of Regents.
But the grand prize came in 1997, when Noe gained access to $50 million from the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation fund and was given authority to invest in coins and other collectibles, and under the contract, 80% of the profits were to go to the Worker's Compensation fund, and the remainder to Noe.
On April 8, 2005, the election theft celebration by the Noe couple came to an abrupt end, when an investigation into the Lucas County election turned up so much dirt that Blackwell was forced to fire the entire Lucas County Board of Elections including Bernadette.
And then twenty days after Blackwell fired Bernadette, on April 28, 2005, the Toledo Blade reported that the US attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, had confirmed that his office, in conjunction with the FBI, was looking into Noe's fundraising activities, as chairman of the Bush-Cheney campaign in northwest Ohio.
Parallel to the Federal probe, the Blade noted, was the investigation of the Lucas County and Franklin County Offices of the Prosecutor into Noe's inability to account for $10-12 million from the Workmen's Compensation fund.
Less than a month later, on May 26, 2005, state law enforcement officials raided Noe's company trying to find out what happened to the missing $10-12 million. The distinct possibility has been raised numerous times, that Noe may have funneled some of the mysteriously-missing money to politicians.
According to the May 31, 2006 Toledo Blade, the Noes have given more than $200,000 to politicians over the last 16 years and their “giving increased substantially," the Blade noted, "after the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation in 1998 gave him the first of two $25 million payments to invest in his rare-coin funds."
In addition to Governor Taft, the investigation has led 2 of Taft's former aides to plead no contest to ethics charges. On July 29, 2005, Brian Hicks, Taft’s former Chief of Staff, and Cherie Carroll, Hicks' executive assistant, admitted that they took gifts from Noe.
On February 9, 2006, the Ohio Elections Commission referred 2 other former Taft aides for prosecution. H Douglas Talbott admitted that he funneled money from Noe to 3 Ohio Supreme Court Justices and accepted a $39,000 loan from Noe, and J Douglas Moorman was referred because he failed to report a $5,000 loan from Noe.
On February 13, 2006, Noe was indicted on 53 felonies counts related to the Workmen's Compensation fund after a grand jury charged him with 22 counts of forgery, 11 counts of money laundering, 8 counts of tampering with records, 5 counts of grand theft, 6 counts of aggravated theft, and one count of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
Noe is currently right smack in the middle of a jury trial on the above charges, the last thing that Ohio Republicans wanted in the news in the weeks before the mid-term elections.
The future does not look bright for Blackwell. According to a poll reported on November 2, 2006, in Columbus Business First, "a Democratic sweep brewing in key state and federal political races."
"The survey," Business First said, "found 55 percent of those questioned said they would vote for Democrat Ted Strickland in the Ohio gubernatorial election Nov. 7, and 39 percent said they planned to cast their ballots for J. Kenneth Blackwell."
That said, if nothing else, the results of the 2004 election demonstrate that polls mean nothing in Ohio and critics say voters had better not underestimate the possibility of another stolen election with Blackwell still in charge of the process.
Ken Blackwell is ready to cash in on the Republican promise of putting him in the Governor's mansion in 2006 after he proved that he was indispensable in the successful plot to rig the 2004 Presidential election in Ohio for George W Bush.
As secretary of state in 2004, Blackwell held broad powers for setting election standards in everything from the processing of voter registration to overseeing the distribution of voting machines and ballots. He was also simultaneously serving as co-chairman in the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio.
Which means, in 2006, with Blackwell still in the position of secretary of state, once again voters in Ohio have a fox guarding the voting henhouse. Only this time the stakes are even higher for Blackwell because his political future is on the line.
In 2004, long before election day, a major voter suppression scheme was successful when Blackwell issued an order saying voter registration forms would only be accepted if they were on 80-pound, unwaxed, white paper, and as many as 72,00 voters lost their right to vote due to an unavoidable registration error.
Printed registration forms in local newspapers provided to help citizens register to vote were rendered useless and one Ohio County had to post a notice online saying it could not accept its own registration forms.
Under the threat of court action, on September 28, 2004, six days before the registration deadline, Blackwell withdrew but the damage was done.
On election day itself, voters in Democratic precincts encountered a wide variety of obstacles in the path to the voter's booth. They faced Republican challengers at the polls, the purging of names from voter rolls, and the most obvious scarcity of voting machines, but only in Democratic neighborhoods.
In Republican precincts there were plenty of voting machines, but in urban precincts, where many African-Americans voted, and in other Democratic strongholds, such as polling stations around college campuses, there was a conspicuous absence of enough machines.
For instance, at Kenyon College where Democratic students had registered in record numbers, Blackwell allotted only 2 machines even though there was a 1,300 surge of voters, and the wait was up to eleven hours.
In contrast, Republican fundamentalist students at nearby Nazarene University had one machine for 100 voters and students faced no waiting lines.
Democratic voters at inner-city precincts in cities like Cleveland, Columbus, and Toledo, who were voting for Kerry by a margin of nine to one, had to wait in line up to 7 hours.
Due to a deliberate and well coordinated effort, at other polling station all over the state there were not enough machines and Democrats had to stand in line in the rain for as long as ten hours, and of course just as intended, in many cases it was impossible for people to wait that long so many left without casting a vote.
By midmorning on election day, when it became clear that people were having to drop out of line without voting due to the long wait, precincts asked Blackwell for the right to distribute paper ballots to speed up the process and Blackwell denied the requests, claiming it would invite fraud.
In a desperate attempt to stop the madness, a lawsuit was filed, and the affidavits that were filed by voters and election officials in support of a plea to the courts for help, describe election fraud in motion. An affidavit by an official from Precinct 40 stated:
''I am serving as a presiding judge, a position I have held for some 15+ years in precinct 40. In all my years of service, the lines are by far the longest I have seen, with some waiting as long as four to five hours.
"I expect the situation to only worsen as the early evening heavy turnout approaches. I have requested additional machines since 6:40 a.m. and no assistance has been offered.''
By the time US District Judge Algernon Marbley issued an order requiring that voters be given paper ballots in early evening, it was too late. According to estimates by the Washington Post, as many as 15,000 voters in Columbus alone had given up and left without voting
When poll closing time came, some precincts illegally dismissed voters who had waited for hours in the rain, in violation of Ohio law, which requires that people waiting in line at closing time be allowed to vote.
Critics say there is no way to definitively estimate how many citizens lost their right to vote in Ohio because they were forced to drop out of line to go to work or take care of their children.
The plot to steal the election involved other tactics as well. In the summer of 2004, the Toledo Blade reported that 28,000 voters were erased from the Lucas County voter registration rolls and that the purge included voters like Barbara and Ralph George "who first registered to vote for John F. Kennedy in 1960 and had lived in the same East Toledo house for 44 years."
In Gahanna Ward 1B, at a fundamentalist church, a so-called "electronic transfer glitch" gave Bush nearly 4,000 votes when only 638 people voted at that polling station.
Democratic Congressman, John Conyers of Michigan, and the Democratic staff of the House Judiciary Committee launched an investigation into the Ohio election and received more than fifty thousand complaints from Democratic voters. In stark contrast, there were no complaints filed by Republican voters in Ohio in 2004 alleging a deprivation of the right to vote in Republican precincts.
And make no mistake, the well coordinated statewide effort to steal the election involved a whole bag of dirty tricks. In Columbus, where 125,000 new voters had registered, more than half of them black, the board of elections predicted that it would need 5,000 machines to handle all the voters.
But instead preparing for the large turnout by lining up more equipment, the House Judiciary investigation found that Matt Damschroder, the chairman of the Franklin County Board of Elections, and former head of the Columbus Republican party, decided to "make do" with 2,741 machines.
And even then, he distributing the machines to favor Republicans. According to the Columbus Dispatch, precincts that had voted 70% or more for Al Gore in 2000, received 17 fewer voter machines in 2004, while strong GOP precincts received 8 more machines.
As a result, an investigation by the Columbus Free Press, showed that white Republican suburbanites had average waits of only twenty-two minutes, while black urban Democrats waited on average three hours and fifteen minutes.
During the election, inner city voting machines broke down and polls opened late. The Toledo Blade reported that the sole machine at the Birmingham polling site in east Toledo broke down at about 7 am, and that per order of Blackwell, there were no paper ballots available for backup.
The first major indication that serious voter fraud had been committed was when the wide unexplainable discrepancies began to appear between the exit polls and actual vote counts and they all favored Bush.
Experts say exit polling is the most reliable polling because unlike pre-election polls, in which voters are asked to predict future behavior, exit polls interview people leaving the voting box about an act that they just completed.
On the basis of exit polls in 2004, CNN predicted that Kerry would defeat Bush in Ohio by a margin of 4.2%, but in the end Bush supposedly won Ohio by 2.5%.
In fact, precincts where Bush received at least 80% of the vote, the exit polls were off by an average of 10%, a pattern that experts say indicates Republican election officials stuffed the ballot box in those precincts.
Bush also tallied 6.5% more votes than the polls had predicted in Pennsylvania, and 4.9% more in Florida. According to Steven F Freeman, a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, who specializes in research methodology, the odds against all 3 of those shifts occurring in concert was one in 660,000.
"As much as we can say in sound science that something is impossible," he says, "it is impossible that the discrepancies between predicted and actual vote count in the three critical battleground states of the 2004 election could have been due to chance or random error."
Mr Freeman made a point of telling Robert Kennedy Jr in an interview for an article in Rolling Stone Magazine that he's no Democrat lover. "I'm not even political -- I despise the Democrats," he said. "I'm a survey expert. I got into this because I was mystified about how the exit polls could have been so wrong."
But Mr Freeman also said in Rolling Stone, "When you look at the numbers, there is a tremendous amount of data that supports the supposition of election fraud."
"The discrepancies are higher in battleground states," he points out, "higher where there were Republican governors, higher in states with greater proportions of African-American communities and higher in states where there were the most Election Day complaints."
According to Mr Kennedy, the exit poll created for the 2004 election was designed to be the most reliable in history. Six news organizations hired Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, whose principal, Warren Mitofsky, pioneered the exit poll for CBS in 1967
Shortly before 8:00 pm, reporters at each of the major networks were briefed by pollsters and told that Kerry had an insurmountable lead with at least 309 electoral votes to Bush's 174, with fifty-five too close to call.
As the last polling stations closed on the West Coast, exit polls showed Kerry ahead in ten of 11 battleground states, including Ohio, winning by a million and a half votes nationally overall. But to this day, the Bush gang would have voters believe that every single poll was dead wrong.
In January 2006, a group of mathematicians from the National Election Data Archive, a nonpartisan watchdog group, compared Ohio's exit polls to the certified vote count in each of the 49 precincts polled by Edison/Mitofsky and found that in 22 of those precincts the results differed widely from the official tally.
The wildest discrepancy came from a precinct that Mitofsky numbered "27," in order to protect the anonymity of people surveyed. According to the exit poll, Kerry should have received 67% of the vote, yet the certified tally gave him only 38%.
The statistical odds against such a variance are just shy of one in 3 billion, according to "The Gun is Smoking: 2004 Ohio Precinct-level Exit Poll Data Show Virtually Irrefutable Evidence of Vote Miscount," US Count Votes, National Election Data Archive, January 23, 2006.
Such results, the archive says, provide "virtually irrefutable evidence of vote miscount."
The discrepancies the experts add, "are consistent with the hypothesis that Kerry would have won Ohio's electoral votes if Ohio's official vote counts had accurately reflected voter intent."
According to Ron Baiman, vice president of the archive and a public policy analyst at Loyola University, "No rigorous statistical explanation" can explain the "completely nonrandom" disparities that almost uniformly benefited Bush."
The final results he said in Rolling Stone are "completely consistent with election fraud -- specifically vote shifting."
After conducting an investigation of Ohio ballots, on July 29, 2005, another expert, Richard Hayes Phillips, PhD testified at an Election Assessment Hearing in Texas and said, "I have investigated the Ohio election results, precinct by precinct, and have found three categories of problems: voter suppression, ballots cast but not counted, and alteration of the vote count."
Statewide, he said, there were 35,000 provisional ballots and over 92,000 regular ballots that were not counted as votes for president.
These uncounted ballots, he reported, most of them punch cards, were highly concentrated in precincts that voted overwhelmingly for John Kerry, by margins of 12 to 1 in Cleveland, 7 to 1 in Dayton, 5 to 1 in Cincinnati, 4.5 to 1 in Akron, 3 to 1 in Lorain County, 2.7 to 1 in Stark County, and 2.3 to 1 in Trumbull County.
In Lucas County, Mr Phillips said, other means of voter suppression led directly to lower voter turnout in Democratic precincts. The 88 precincts with the lowest turnout were all in Toledo and all were won by John Kerry and complaints were filed in 31 of these precincts.
Among the complaints he noted were: long-time residents removed from the voting rolls, broken voting machines, polling stations running out of ballots and turning people away, voters sent back and forth between polling places, and long lines not designated by precinct so that voters waited in the wrong line.
One-third of provisional ballots were not counted, he said, often because people voted at the wrong table in the right polling place.
But it appears like the chickens have come home to roost because Ohio politicians are now up to their necks in scandals, making its current Republican led government a poster child for the term "culture of corruption."
The largest corruption probe in Ohio history has produced charges against Governor Bob Taft, convicted of four misdemeanors for accepting unreported gifts; and his side-kick, Tom Noe, co-chairman of Bush-Cheney 2004 Ohio reelection campaign.
On October 27, 2005, Tom Noe was officially charged with illegally funneling $45,400 to the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign at a $2,000-a-seat fund-raiser in Columbus, in a scheme where Noe made contributions by passing the money through 24 friends and associates, described as "conduits" by investigators.
Some of the known "conduits," included 4 current or former Ohio elected officials, including Toledo City Councilman Betty Shultz, Lucas County Commissioner Maggie Thurber, former state Representative Sally Perz, and former Toledo Mayor Donna Owens.
Court records also show that 2 former aides to Governor Taft also served as funnels.
All of the conduits signed donor cards that stated they were the source of their donations even though each knew that Noe made the contributions, prosecutors said. Each politician faced state ethics charges for failing to disclose the money they received from Noe.
On May 31, 2006, Noe entered a guilty plea in the US District Court in Toledo to 3 felony charges related to violating campaign finance laws.
On June 1, 2006, the Toledo Blade reported that, “State and federal politicians from Mr. Taft to Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, the Republican nominee for governor, to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger - have returned tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from Noe and his wife.”
In the summer of 2005, Tom Noe, was described by the Columbus Free Press, as a high-roller crony of Governor Taft, Ohio Senator George Voinovich and President Bush.
That said, at the time of Noe's indictment, a senior Justice Department official called the case the largest campaign money-laundering scheme prosecuted by the DOJ since the new campaign finance laws were enacted in 2002.
For many years Noe was the Chairman of the Board of Elections in Lucas County and he was heavily involved in the procurement deals that brought Diebold voting machines into inner city Toledo and many of those machines suspiciously malfunctioned on election day in 2004. Sworn testimony in hearings conducted by the Free Press after the election confirm that thousands of inner city voters were disenfranchised due to Noe's decisions.
In by now a widely publicized 2003 fundraising letter, Diebold CEO Wally O'Dell promised to deliver Ohio's 2004 electoral votes to Bush, and Noe and O'Dell were two of Ohio's nineteen Bush Pioneers or Rangers, a group that includes only high money donors.
Before Noe got busted, Blackwell and Noe were practically kissing cousins. In the months before the 2004 election, when voting rights activists tried to challenge Blackwell's partisan handling of provisional ballots in court, Noe intervened on Blackwell's behalf.
While Tom handled the court duties, his wife Bernadette worked on the Board of Election in Lucas County to reverse the Ohio tradition of allowing provisional ballots to be cast in precincts other than the one in which voters were registered to help disenfranchise inner-city Toledo Democratic voters.
And as a reward for their large contribution to the theft of the 2004 election, in January 2005, Noe and his wife co-sponsored Ohio’s inaugural ball in Washington, and according to the Toledo Blade, "Mr. Bush and Mr. Noe embraced. The President then hugged Mrs. Noe."
Noe had previously been appointed chairman for a committee of the US Mint, that advises the US Treasury secretary on designs and themes for coins and congressional medals. According to a Treasury Department press release Noe was recommended for the appointment by Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-Ill) and nominated by Treasury Secretary John Snowe.
For years Noe was called northwest Ohio's "Mr. Republican." And his generosity to Ohio politicians did not go unrewarded. He was appointed to the Ohio Turnpike Commission, the Bowling Green State University board, and the Ohio Board of Regents.
But the grand prize came in 1997, when Noe gained access to $50 million from the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation fund and was given authority to invest in coins and other collectibles, and under the contract, 80% of the profits were to go to the Worker's Compensation fund, and the remainder to Noe.
On April 8, 2005, the election theft celebration by the Noe couple came to an abrupt end, when an investigation into the Lucas County election turned up so much dirt that Blackwell was forced to fire the entire Lucas County Board of Elections including Bernadette.
And then twenty days after Blackwell fired Bernadette, on April 28, 2005, the Toledo Blade reported that the US attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, had confirmed that his office, in conjunction with the FBI, was looking into Noe's fundraising activities, as chairman of the Bush-Cheney campaign in northwest Ohio.
Parallel to the Federal probe, the Blade noted, was the investigation of the Lucas County and Franklin County Offices of the Prosecutor into Noe's inability to account for $10-12 million from the Workmen's Compensation fund.
Less than a month later, on May 26, 2005, state law enforcement officials raided Noe's company trying to find out what happened to the missing $10-12 million. The distinct possibility has been raised numerous times, that Noe may have funneled some of the mysteriously-missing money to politicians.
According to the May 31, 2006 Toledo Blade, the Noes have given more than $200,000 to politicians over the last 16 years and their “giving increased substantially," the Blade noted, "after the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation in 1998 gave him the first of two $25 million payments to invest in his rare-coin funds."
In addition to Governor Taft, the investigation has led 2 of Taft's former aides to plead no contest to ethics charges. On July 29, 2005, Brian Hicks, Taft’s former Chief of Staff, and Cherie Carroll, Hicks' executive assistant, admitted that they took gifts from Noe.
On February 9, 2006, the Ohio Elections Commission referred 2 other former Taft aides for prosecution. H Douglas Talbott admitted that he funneled money from Noe to 3 Ohio Supreme Court Justices and accepted a $39,000 loan from Noe, and J Douglas Moorman was referred because he failed to report a $5,000 loan from Noe.
On February 13, 2006, Noe was indicted on 53 felonies counts related to the Workmen's Compensation fund after a grand jury charged him with 22 counts of forgery, 11 counts of money laundering, 8 counts of tampering with records, 5 counts of grand theft, 6 counts of aggravated theft, and one count of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
Noe is currently right smack in the middle of a jury trial on the above charges, the last thing that Ohio Republicans wanted in the news in the weeks before the mid-term elections.
The future does not look bright for Blackwell. According to a poll reported on November 2, 2006, in Columbus Business First, "a Democratic sweep brewing in key state and federal political races."
"The survey," Business First said, "found 55 percent of those questioned said they would vote for Democrat Ted Strickland in the Ohio gubernatorial election Nov. 7, and 39 percent said they planned to cast their ballots for J. Kenneth Blackwell."
That said, if nothing else, the results of the 2004 election demonstrate that polls mean nothing in Ohio and critics say voters had better not underestimate the possibility of another stolen election with Blackwell still in charge of the process.
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