LATEST NEWS


, ,

Mob-Style Corruption In Ohio

The guilty plea on state and federal corruption charges from Terrence W. Gasper, the former Chief Financial Officer at the Ohio Bureau of Worker’s Compensation (BWC), masks a much greater scandal involving the systematic corruption of Ohio politics dating from former governor George Voinovich’s administration. As the Columbus Dispatch showed today, Gasper was hired at the direction of the late Paul C. Mifsud. Mifsud, who was Voinovich’s Chief of Staff, had direct ties to the Bush family. Mifsud was a former military intelligence officer who liked to brag of CIA connections and controlled a shadowy group called the Maltese Benevolent Society. Mifsud ran George H.W. Bush’s 1980 campaign for president in the Buckeye State as well as co-managing his 1988 run for president as well. Voinovich allowed Mifsud to essentially use Mafia-style “bust-outs” to collect political slush funds to bring the Republican Party to dominance in Ohio.

Mifsud saw the Ohio BWC as a cash cow and directly recruited convicted felon Tom Noe, a hobby shop owner from the Toledo area who sold baseball cards, beanie babies and a few old coins to secretly administer a $50 million rare coin fund. It was no surprise when he pleaded guilty to federal charges for laundering more than $40,000 into the 2004 Bush campaign. Much of this is outlined in my book “The Brothers Voinovich and the Ohiogate Scandal.” The Ohio Society of Professional Journalists awarded “The V Report” first place for coverage of government in Ohio. Basically, I detail former governor Voinovich’s corrupt activities through the legendary duo Paul and Pauly, that is, the late Paul Mifsud with his murky CIA ties and the late Pauly Voinovich, George’s brother, with ties to the mob.

Read more

/by
, ,

Prof. Tokaji: No Due Diligence

People have asked me to respond to what they perceive as Ohio State Law professor Dan Tokaji’s “balanced” analysis of Robert Kennedy’s Rolling Stone article about the stolen 2004 election. Tokaji’s piece is entitled “Back to Ohio” and he has a section called “A Gran of Salt” that deals with the Mighty Texas Strike Force. Let me suggest that you take Tokaji’s writing with a grain of salt as well. When I talked to Professor Tokaji, he informed me he relied only on the Conyers Report for his analysis and no additional research. What Professor Tokaji did, and I say this as a graduate of Ohio State Law School, was fail in his “due diligence,” that requirement drilled into every first year law student that one should meet reasonable expectations and put forth efforts ordinarily exercised by a person before they put forth certain statements or claims.

Below is a direct quote from Tokaji’s article:

“A Grain of Salt”

“There are other aspects of Kennedy’s report that would be very disturbing if true, but appear to rest on somewhat weaker evidence. For example:

“* Kennedy describes a group of Republican operatives known as the “Mighty Texas Strike Force” which allegedly “us[ed] pay phones to make intimidating calls to likely voters.” Kennedy’s source for this allegation is a report produced Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee in January 2005, entitled “Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio,” also known as the Conyers Report, which quotes a statement made by an unidentified hotel worker. While this allegation is what we lawyers would call hearsay — actually, it’s triple-hearsay, since the Conyers Report was relying on a statement made at a hearing by someone other than the hotel worker — if true it’s obviously very troubling.”

Now had Tokaji done a five-minute Google search, he would have found the following:

* The Mighty Texas Strike Force

* With new legislation, Ohio Republicans plan holiday burial for American Democracy

* Down to the Wire

* Lone Stars to the Rescue

* Texas Federation of College Republicans “The Mighty Texas Strike Force”.

Read more

/by
, , , ,

The Republicans Stole It Blind

RFK, Jr. wrote to my good friend Harvey Wasserman this quote from pollster Lou Harris: “’They stole the Democrats blind in the exurbs and rural counties. It’s obvious what they did – they stuffed the ballot box.’” Coming from a pollster with the credibility and experience of Lou Harris, this is an astonishingly powerful indictment.”

Farhad Manjoo, denialist for salon.com fails to note similar quotes from Harris that appear in Kennedy’s Rolling Stone article. The fact that a pollster of Harris’ stature would go on the record is precisely what’s new in the Kennedy article and of major significance.

As a Ph.D. in Political Science, I find the “reluctant responder” hypothesis by Warren Mitofsky implausible, as does pollster John Zogby. Basically, reluctant responders tended to be extreme third party candidate supporters, or voters for a major party candidate in an area dominated by the other major party. Mitofsky would have you believe Republican woman only became too shy to talk to pollsters only in the late afternoon and only in areas where people voted in a majority for Bush. This mythology fits into the Rovian spin that fundamental evangelical raced to the polls at the very last second to save W Bush. Local newspaper accounts and eyewitness observers reported no such surge.

The data from the Moss v. Bush election challenge in Ohio, the exit polls, the statistical analysis by Dr. Richard Hayes Phillips and the bizarre illegal behavior in Auglaize, Miami and Warren counties all point to voter theft in these counties. Read more

/by

Blog Posts

The 20 latest Blog Posts

Pages

Available Pages

Categories

Archives by Subject:

Monthly

Archives by Month: