Politics Extra

Monday, October 02, 2006

You asked for an open thread. Here it is.

Comment on:

Absentee voting starts Tuesday

The Ohio economy and the race for governor

Court may get voter ID law

The latest news about former Rep. Mark Foley

Ohio's Secretary of State race

18 Comments:

at 4:44 PM, October 02, 2006

Anonymous said...

I'd like to know if Carl Weiser is going to ask Phil Heimlich these questions at the upcoming Friday noon web chat?

1. Please ask Commissioner Heimlich if he has ever received any payments or gifts from the Character Cities organization or its affiliates. If so, please ask him how much he’s been paid and when was the most recent payment.

2. Please ask Commissioner Heimlich for the dates he and Mr. Finney owned Three Centurions LLC. Also, please ask him what date they transferred company ownership to their wives.

at 4:56 PM, October 02, 2006

Anonymous said...

On Friday afternoon, a strategist for Rep. Mark Foley tried to cut a deal with ABC's Brian Ross.

Howard Kurtz reports in Washington Post:

On Friday afternoon, a strategist for Rep. Mark Foley tried to cut a deal with ABC's Brian Ross.

The correspondent, who had dozens of instant messages that Foley sent to teenage House pages, had asked to interview the Florida Republican. Foley's former chief of staff said the congressman was quitting and that Ross could have that information exclusively if he agreed not to publish the raw, sexually explicit messages.

"I said we're not making any deals," Ross recalls. He says the Internet made the story possible, because on Thursday he posted a story on his ABC Web page, the Blotter, after obtaining one milder e-mail that Foley had sent a 16-year-old page, asking for a picture. Within two hours, former pages had e-mailed Ross and provided the salacious messages. The only question then, says Ross, was "whether this could be authenticated."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100587.html

at 5:01 PM, October 02, 2006

Anonymous said...

Hastert, Boehner and other GOP members knew about Foley, but chose party loyalty over what is right for children. This is family values?

Hastert, Top Aides Knew of Foley Allegations

By John Bresnahan
Roll Call Staff

Saturday, Sept. 30; 8:58 pm

Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and at least three of his aides were told of allegations that then-Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) had improper e-mail contacts with a former House page months before the incident became public and Foley resigned from Congress, according to a senior House Republican and a report released by Hastert’s office on Saturday.

This contradicts earlier claims from Hastert’s office that the Speaker did not know of Foley’s behavior until it was revealed this week by ABC News.

Hastert and other GOP leaders also continue to insist that they were unaware of much more sexually graphic electronic messages from Foley to unidentified young men. The release of these explicit messages, which occurred after the first ABC story broke, spurred Foley to immediately resign from the House.

Democrats have pushed for an ethics committee investigation, and some Congressional insiders suggest a criminal probe of Foley will begin soon, if it has not already.

As of Saturday evening, nearly a dozen House GOP lawmakers and staffers have acknowledged that they knew of the initial batch of non-sexually explicit messages from Foley to a 16-year-old former House page, some of them for a year or more. These include Hastert; Majority Leader John Boehner (Ohio); National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds (N.Y.); Reps. Rodney Alexander (La.) and John Shimkus (Ill.); Mike Stokke, the Speaker’s deputy chief of staff; Ted Van Der Meid, Hastert’s counsel; Paula Nowakowski, Boehner’s chief of staff; Jeff Trandahl, the former Clerk of the House; and another Hastert aide and Alexander’s chief of staff, according to public statements and GOP insiders.

-snip

http://rollcall.com/issues/1_1/breakingnews/15263-1.html

at 5:02 PM, October 02, 2006

Anonymous said...

The newest Cleveland Plain Dealer poll has Hartmann and Brunner very close in the polls. Hartmann is killing her in fundraising. It's quite possible that Montgomery and Hartmann will be the only statewide Republican office holders.

at 5:21 PM, October 02, 2006

Anonymous said...

Monday, October 02, 2006
Bush: Ken Blackwell is a nut

Crossposted at Daily Kos

From Buckeye
State Blog, which excerpted this from Bob Woodward's new book:

"At 2:43 a.m., someone noted that Bush was ahead in the popular vote nationwide, prompting the President to sneer, "If the popular vote made it, I wouldn't be here."

The campaign was left to anxiously wait for a statement from Kenneth Blackwell, a former black power student leader who had morphed into Ohio's gadfly Republican secretary of state.

"I'm the President of the United States," Bush fumed, "waiting on a secretary of state who is a nut."

http://howardempowered.blogspot.com/2006/10/bush-ken-blackwell-is-nut.html

at 6:47 PM, October 02, 2006

Anonymous said...

Will Carl ask Heimlich the questions, and if he does will Heimlich answer them? We'll see how brave Carl is, and if he will violate the Enquirers defacto policy of only publishing stories that benefit the Heimlich campaign? If you doubt that this policy exists, just read any of Kimball Perry's biased, hackneyed pieces.

at 8:25 PM, October 02, 2006

Anonymous said...

Interesting history - that Blackwell - "fro" to "fru"
Dem - Charter - Repub - now - "through"

at 11:09 PM, October 02, 2006

Anonymous said...

Re Mark Foley Scandal:
Brian Ross, who broke the story on ABC, states that he has been receiving mail from many ex-pages, naming others, perhaps including Congressmen, who have acted inappropriately toward the pages. Keep tuned.
Will Jean Schmidt, Steve Chabot, and Geoff Davis demand accountability from Hastert, Reynolds, Shimkus, the LA Republican congressman, and all others who knew or should have known of this vile behavior with those entrusted to the care of Congress? Will they inquire why red flags did not go up when a man of 50+ requested a picture of a teenager? Any responsible adult knows that this is inappropriate behavior. Why did Rep. Shimkus (R-IL) not inform the other two members of his committee of the situation? Many questions to be answered.

at 12:00 AM, October 03, 2006

Anonymous said...

sorry, i gotta say this,
now i understand why republicans are on bended knees-
they've been praying that their little child porn ring doesn't get busted.
it never was about god -

at 12:03 AM, October 03, 2006

Anonymous said...

no the enq won't ask heimlich the question -they might give him 10 questions and let heimlich pick 3.

i'll bet heimlich doesn't even answer them on his own, he'll have finney the fink holding his hand and telling him what to say.

at 12:10 AM, October 03, 2006

Anonymous said...

and,on my own thread, this crap with foley and the cover up is reminiscent of our own local sex scandal.
remember? heimlich lied under oath in a deposition with the attorney general's office, claiming he hadd no knowledge of allen's long term affair with rebecca collins. luckily,former running mate petro,when he discovered that heimlich had lied through his teeth, under oath -gave him a second chance to "get it right" because others were on the record saying heimlich knew.
heimlich amended - changed - his testimony so petro wouldnt have to charge him with perjury.
so -- look for the same game plan with this foley cover up
the pedophile,suppressed religious right - have a big secret they worked hard to keep under wraps.
i want to know where the heck the search warrant is for his computers,etc.

at 12:13 AM, October 03, 2006

Anonymous said...

HEY- DID ANYBODY SEE THE FRONT PAGE STORY ABOUT HOW OUR SUPREME COURT HAS BEEN CORRUPTED????

It's been long known that the fix was in in the court system - heck that's why we have the visiting judge program.theseguys actually pay through campaign contributions toget jobs as visiting judges.

sad that it takes a new york paper to expose what i and many others have beentelling the enquirer for years.

at 12:15 AM, October 03, 2006

Anonymous said...

curent visiting judge crush is hearing cases,after he orchestrated the judicial cover up of the mike allen sex case by throwing it out before an open hearing

at 9:12 AM, October 03, 2006

Anonymous said...

EXCLUSIVE: Group Headed by Bush/Cheney '04 Ohio Attorney Selected as 'Public Monitor' for 2006 Election in Cuyahoga County, OH!

Organization Headed by Candice Hoke, Recount Coordinator in Cuyahoga During 2004, Named to 'Ensure lawful, equitable, and secure electoral system that produces accurate and verifiable election results'

By Brad

2nd October 2006

The good John Gideon caught an interesting piece of breaking news as it came in via Lou Dobbs this evening.

As it turns out, Cuyahoga County, OH (who had a disasterous meltdown during their recent primary election) has now named The Center for Election Integrity (CEI), at Cleveland State University as "Public Monitor" for their general election on Nov. 7th.

Sounds good as Dobbs reported it!

…Until you dig a little deeper to find that the CEI is headed by one S. Candice Hoke who was an attorney for Bush/Cheney in Ohio in 2004!

snip

So now Cuyahoga County Election Director Michael Vu, who allowed the phony recount in '04, will be "monitored" by Bush/Cheney's own attorney and recount coordinator!

snip/

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=3564

WHEN ARE OHIOANS GOING TO WAKE UP AND DEMAND FAIR AND VERIFIABLE ELECTIONS?

IT'S NOT THE VOTERS, BUT WHO COUNTS THE VOTE THAT DETERMINES THE OUTCOME OF ELECTIONS. NOW EVEN THE GOP IS SUGGESTING TO USE ABSENTEE BALLOTS.

at 9:26 AM, October 03, 2006

Anonymous said...

Still thinking about voting Republican in November? Read this:

ASHCROFT STOPS FLYING IN JULY 2001, SAME MONTH AS RICE WAS WARNED ABOUT AL QAEDA! They FAILED to protect the country against Al Qaeda attacks on 911!
Don't forget the August 6th Presidential Daily Briefing "bin Laden determined to strike America".

Ashcroft Flying High

WASHINGTON, July 26, 2001

(CBS) Fishing rod in hand, Attorney General John Ashcroft left on a weekend trip to Missouri Thursday afternoon aboard a chartered government jet, reports CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart.

In response to inquiries from CBS News over why Ashcroft was traveling exclusively by leased jet aircraft instead of commercial airlines, the Justice Department cited what it called a "threat assessment" by the FBI, and said Ashcroft has been advised to travel only by private jet for the remainder of his term.

"There was a threat assessment and there are guidelines. He is acting under the guidelines," an FBI spokesman said. Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department, however, would identify what the threat was, when it was detected or who made it.

A senior official at the CIA said he was unaware of specific threats against any Cabinet member, and Ashcroft himself, in a speech in California, seemed unsure of the nature of the threat.

-SNIP

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/07/26/national/main303601.shtml

Records Show Tenet Briefed Rice on Al Qaeda Threat

By PHILIP SHENON and MARK MAZZETTI
Published: October 2, 2006

JIDDA, Saudi Arabia, Oct. 2 — A review of White House records has determined that George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, did brief Condoleezza Rice and other top officials on July 10, 2001, about the looming threat from Al Qaeda, a State Department spokesman said Monday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/02/washington/03ricecnd.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

at 10:22 AM, October 03, 2006

Anonymous said...

The suit brought after the 2004 election was dismissed and the attorney's where threatened with sanctions (later dismissed). Why were the attorneys never able to present their case against Blackwell and the GOP manipulation of the '04 election? Read this (and remember 5 of the 7 OH Supreme Court Justices are Republicans):

Campaign Cash Mirrors a High Court's Rulings
By Adam Liptak and Janet Roberts
The New York Times

Sunday 01 October 2006

Columbus, Ohio - In the fall of 2004, Terrence O'Donnell, an affable judge with the placid good looks of a small-market news anchor, was running hard to keep his seat on the Ohio Supreme Court. He was also considering two important class-action lawsuits that had been argued many months before.

In the weeks before the election, Justice O'Donnell's campaign accepted thousands of dollars from the political action committees of three companies that were defendants in the suits. Two of the cases dealt with defective cars, and one involved a toxic substance. Weeks after winning his race, Justice O'Donnell joined majorities that handed the three companies significant victories.

Justice O'Donnell's conduct was unexceptional. In one of the cases, every justice in the 4-to-3 majority had taken money from affiliates of the companies. None of the dissenters had done so, but they had accepted contributions from lawyers for the plaintiffs.

-snip

An examination of the Ohio Supreme Court by The New York Times found that its justices routinely sat on cases after receiving campaign contributions from the parties involved or from groups that filed supporting briefs. On average, they voted in favor of contributors 70 percent of the time. Justice O'Donnell voted for his contributors 91 percent of the time, the highest rate of any justice on the court.

-snip

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/100106A.shtml

at 10:44 AM, October 03, 2006

Anonymous said...

Boehner takes it like a true Republican man...Boehner is reversing course

Boehner Points Finger at the Speaker

October 03, 2006 9:48 AM

ABC's Teddy Davis reports: In a radio interview with 700 WLW radio in Cincinnati, House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) placed responsibility for the Foley matter not being handled properly on House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL).

"I believe I talked to the Speaker and he told me it had been taken care of," said Boehner. "And, and, and my position is it's in his corner, it's his responsibility. The Clerk of the House who runs the page program, the Page Board—all report to the Speaker. And I believe it had been dealt with."

Please note that by saying that he talked with the Speaker about Foley, Boehner is reversing course and going back to his original position.

On Friday, Boehner told the Washington Post that he "had learned in late spring of inappropriate e-mails Foley sent to the page, a boy from Louisiana, and that he promptly told Hastert, who appeared to know already of the concerns. Hours later, Boehner contacted The Post to say he could not be sure he had spoken with Hastert."

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2006/10/boehner_points_.html

at 10:51 AM, October 04, 2006

Anonymous said...

If Republicans are strong on security, why didn't Mike Dewine think it was important to attend Senate Intelligence Committee Meeting? Too busy?

Brown claims DeWine missed many hearings
But sessions only part of intelligence work, senator says
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Stephen Koff
Plain Dealer Bureau Chief

Washington -- Sen. Mike DeWine has missed nearly half the public hearings of the Senate Intelligence Committee, a panel he is on that is supposed to keep the nation's intelligence capabilities on track, his opponent charged Tuesday.

DeWine's absenteeism included most if not every one of the committee's public oversight hearings in the three years before 9/11, according to committee attendance records provided by the campaign of Rep. Sherrod Brown, the Avon Democrat opposing DeWine in November.

DeWine missed sessions where then-CIA Director George Tenet and other intelligence authorities testified, and where worldwide security threats, international terrorism, counterintelligence threats at the nation's nuclear laboratories and nominations to intelligence agencies were discussed, records show.

DeWine's campaign, promoting the Republican incumbent as strong on national security, did not dispute these assertions. But spokesman Brian Seitchik, said public hearings represent only a sliver of DeWine's intelligence work.

-snip

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1159950706194190.xml&coll=2

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Monday, October 02, 2006

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