Wow I only live a couple of states away and I hope that my Republican led state governement can play to.

Coming to my state this Friday, 90,000 of the states neediest citizens will lose access to state funded health care, I think that we may see a meltdown start in the Midwest.

Ohio is the "Mother of Presidents." Doesn't speak too well for the institution of motherhood.

Let's see...W.H. Harrison (died after 30 days), Grant (two scandal-ridden terms, second-lowest-rated president in history), Hayes (stolen election of 1876), Garfield (implicated in Credit Mobilier scandal, assassinated), McKinley (started a war because of newspaper hype, assassinated). B. Harrison (stolen election of 1888), Taft (progenitor of current governor), Harding (Teapot Dome scandal, lowest-rated president). No Democrats.

Someone should have prescribed birth control pills.

surprise ,surprise ,surprise !
The charges accumulate

The Plain Dealer of Cleveland reported Sunday that companies hired to manage investments for the insurance fund have donated millions of dollars to the campaigns of top Ohio Republicans while contributing little to Democrats.

Almost two-thirds of the 212 money managers hired gave a total of almost $5 million to Republicans from 1997 through 2004, the paper found.

Taft, elected to two terms during the period of the newspaper's analysis, received $700,000 in contributions from those companies, more than any other Republican in a statewide office. The companies also donated to Attorney General Jim Petro, Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell and state Auditor Betty Montgomery. All three Republicans are candidates for governor next year.

http://news.enquirer.com...cle?AID=/20050627/NEWS01
/506270351/1056/rss02&template=printpicart

Rare coin prices have skyrocketed in the past several years. It's another bubble, like housing. Are they a stupid investment? No, but a dangerous one, especially for a state fund.

As with housing, the bubble is about to burst. Last week I sold an inherited 1873 CC half-dollar for a thousand bucks. If you got 'em, get rid of them now, while the prices are high.

For Unirealist: Rising prices alone cannot justify investing in illiquid assets, something a fiduciary must avoid. If a bull market in the commodity becomes a defense here, the prosecution need only remind the jury that tulips in Holland had a bull market a few centuries ago.

In the Ohio case, the fiduciary (defined as anyone in a position of trust over assets belonging to someone else) was the same person, Thomas Noe, who sold the coins to the Workmen's Compensation Fund in the first place!

So we have three violations, at least. Breach of fiduciary responsibility by Noe, and conflicts of interest on the part of both Noe and whoever appointed him as custodian. Assuming the missing money was siphoned off to the Republican party, or simply glommed, that's a third no-no.

Noe's going to jail, for sure, because everyone else in the Republican hierarchy will make him the fall guy ("If only we had known...etc"). Whether anyone else wears stripes will say a lot about Ohio.

This really is tragic. I love Ohio. It is the "heart, afterall" of America, afterall. I'm just grateful that the Toledo Blade has been on top of the scandal... maybe we can get the nation's lifeblood (Democracy) circulating once again.

Here's how things are going to shape up. The Justice Department will get involved and start closing off areas of the investigation. Some low-level people will be scapegoated. Yesterday's Plain Dealer had an article about a guy I worked with and went to school with ! He's a small fish, to be sure. And if threatens to spill out of the pond they've assigned it to, then someone dies in small airplane or alone in a motel room. Then everyone else toes the line. It's an old story.

For Big Tobacco: If you explore the political history of Ohio, you find what's happening now is part of a pattern, not an aberration. Ohio might represent family values, football, and all kinds of feel-good American things, but corruption is old hat there.

I suggest everyone read Warren Harding's biography, and his wife's. Here's a man whose only real job before entering local politics was running a newspaper, the Marion Star. The truth was, he let Florence (The Duchess) run it (he wrote the editorials), meanwhile he seduced half the women in town, suffered two nervous breakdowns in the process of avoiding their angry husbands, and lived off The Duchess' money even as her father refused
to acknowledge his existence. Harding was like Clinton in his personal habits, and like Bush in that he never earned anything on merit in his life and had a wife who was much smarter than he was.

But Harding was a loyal Republican. And he was a willing foil for corrupt allies like Daugherty and Fall, who enriched themselves off their loyalty to him (see Teapot Dome scandal). The 21st century counterpart to Daugherty and Fall is Noe, and the 21st century counterpart to Harding is a blend of Clinton and Bush.

As a Floridian, all I can say is it's nice to finally be out of the cellar. Way to go Ohio.....

I am so sick of all these politicians (mostly republican w/a few democrats plus in the mix) doing wrong to their states and citizens and in the case of DC to all of America.Yet like Reagan and daddy Bush they appear to be dipped in vasiline because no charges ever stick.....it's so black and white, we need the ultimate truth serum invented that 'all' elected and government hired officials must have administered quarterly to guarentee their integrity.

Well said, Edward. Without airplanes and hotel rooms, where would justice be in America?!

Still, one has to try...

I don't doubt that someone involved in the scandal would rather murder someone than lose their job, go to prison, and be remembered for all of history as a villain.

If we keep the pressure on and make sure that it is documented and watch out for each other and make sure the crooks know that we are watching them like hawks, maybe we will see justice in this case. The more attention it gets, the less likely it is that someone would want to get anywhere near a murder.

For one thing, the Toledo Blade is an independent paper, they have been all over the story, and they have a reputation for courageous reporting. It would be really hard to sweep this under the rug... it would be even harder to sweep all this plus a dead body under a rug. For one thing, we are all watching. For another, the Ohio Republicans are so filthy that I think everyone with a half a brain would immediately suspect them if somebody connected to this scandal were to conveniently pass away.

Wake up and smell the Fascism
In "Fascism Anyone?," Laurence Britt identifies 14 characteristics common to fascist regimes. His comparisons of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Suharto, and Pinochet yielded this list of 14 "identifying characteristics of fascism."

Taft has a name and a family legacy to protect. That's the best hope for justice prevailing. He can't run again, and if he ever had higher ambitions they're now gone.

So between now and the end of his term he can use his office to redeem himself by opening every can and letting every worm out.

Very OT, but very important:

I happened to catch this on a European news program this morning and Googled it for linking. Southeastern France is going to be the site of a fusion reactor, due to be completed in 2014.

This has been a dream of mine for a long time!

"The people who cast the votes decide nothing!"
The people who count the votes decide everything!"

Cheney and Halliburton, feeding nothing but the best over expired food to our troops.
Rory Mayberry, former Halliburton employee.

Also charging for meals that were never served.
How much was missing in Iraq again?

Posted by Charlie Cray at HuffingtonPost.

RLM -

Love you posts in this thread!

ROVE TO PLAY LEAD ROLE IN BIG SCREEN PRODUCTION:

"Carl Rove, who has carved a nitch for himself as the White House boy genius, will play a lead role as Ted Marlo, a NYC fireman & father, sprinted by the 9/11 attacks, who decides to join the infantry and is deployed to Iraq. Ted soon discovers that the insurgents he's fighting are not Iraqi or even arab, but liberal democrats who've secretly snuck into Iraq just to fight American troops. Rove's character valiently ushers in a bloody all-out offensive against these "american-bred" insurgents, while using embedded reports to lead a charge in the US to immediately detain all those who consider themselves "liberal" or "non-conservative". J. Kenneth Blackwell (OH Sec. of State and Co-Chair for Bush/Cheney '04) plays supporting role as a medic who rescues Ted Marlo during a dog-fight & then becomes his close personal "associate" to help Ted cope with being away from "the misses".

The photogenic Rove is already being called "the grandpa tom cruise" for his amazing ability at seducing the camera & even makes use of his stunning seductive looks during some rather questionable "shirts-off hands-on" interrogations. Says Rove, "this is the lead I was born to play, maybe more so because it is so damn close to reality...and I think we are not to far off from a real life Ted Marlo." Paramount & Warner Bros. will jointly oversee the project, with production scheduled to start mid-July 2005. Supporting cast and film title have not yet been released for the film, which is expected to gain an "R" rating for strong sexual content during interrogations & battle-field voilence. Paramount says to expect a release just before the 2008 Presidential Elections. Rove said in a statement that he does not expect his acting obligations to intefer with his White House duties."

Wow! Ohio passed Florida AND Texas as the sleaziest political slimehole. I wouldn't waste two bucks investing in "rare" coins. Yet, these guys manage to flush 200 million missing dollars into it.

Maybe what these guys need is some advice for some good investments. I hear the pet rock and and mood rings are gonna come back in style.
(Bob Taft, give me a call. I have a huge supply in my closet.)
Recycled underwear, also the next big thing according Fortuneless 500. (Bob Taft, keep calling. I can gather up some used undies in no time.)

P.S. I can also channel the spirit of Ivan Boesky. He tells me everything. For a forty percent fee, I'll channel his stock tips along with the weather report.

CALL NOW, Mr. Taft while supplies last!
(Free rotary phone for the first 1,000 Republican politicians who call in).

Sounds like a can't-miss hit. If they haven't completed the cast yet, let me suggest Ann Coulter in a cameo role, playing a pretend Red Cross worker who serves drug-laced conuts to people from Amnesty International. Also Neil Cavuto as Attorney General Gonzales, Chris Matthews as a football coach whose star quarterback quit the team to become a liberal, and Don Imus as the Ghost of Ramadan Past.

:( I just got banned at freerepublic after posting just one comment (after only 20 minutes!). I just mentioned that the Downing Street Docs. were excerpts statements from Britian's top intelligence officer made to Blair, and that if he lied to Blair, then that means Britian went to war based on lies, but if he's telling the truth, the US went to war based on lies. But I portrayed myself as a christian NYC fireman's wife (with 2 kids) and that it was my disagreeable "nephew" who was saying those "outrageous" things about the Downing Street docs, and I was just all confused. dam! I thought that if I sprinkled the "God's green earth" phrase a few times I was sure to be protected. DAM!

freerepublic not so free, after all. What a shock.

RLM #6: Of course you are right on target. I didn't mean that the WC fund investing in rare coins was okay. Just observing that there are unsustainable asset bubbles now in our economy that will soon burst. Legally, it would be consistent with fiduciary responsibility to invest the funds in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--but also misguided, because those are about to implode, too.

You could be right about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, though I suspect there will be some kind of Federal Reserve bailout there. If they lose their credit standing, it will affect every other agency security around (plus all the deriviative securities tied to them), including Ginnie Mae and Sallie Mae.

A point I was trying to make is that liquidity must be considered by a fiduciary. There must be a marketplace for investment securities, especially in a Workmen's Compensation Fund that is constantly paying out. There's no place I'm aware of to sell a million dollars worth of rare coins at a known price.
And, they don't pay interest, another disqualifying feature.

How does a vortex unravel??