Again, with my Ohio obsession...but, the OH GOP rare-coin scandal rages on.
This morning, the Toledo Blade reported that State Senator Marc Dann (D-Youngstown) filed a lawsuit trying to get a full accounting of the $50 million dollars of public funds invested in to the rare-coin fund of major GOP fundraiser/Bush pioneer, Tom Noe. Yes, he had to file a lawsuit because no one was giving the answers:
A state senator yesterday sued the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation, asking the Supreme Court to order the state to disclose details of its rare-coin inventory.I think Marc Dann is on to something. In Ohio, the GOP-controlled state government is looking more and more like farcical and tragic.
Sen. Marc Dann, a Democrat from the Youngstown area, asked the state's highest court to also require the bureau to disclose the names of individuals and entities that sold coins to the funds controlled by Tom Noe, a Toledo-area coin dealer and prominent Republican.
"As James Madison once said, 'A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or tragedy or perhaps both,'" Mr. Dann (D., Liberty) said.
The request for a court order largely mirrors a lawsuit The Blade filed May 11 with the Supreme Court, which Republicans control by a 6-1 margin.
But there's more...this afternoon we learn, again from the Toledo Blade, that five of the seven Ohio Supreme Court justices who should be hearing the Dann and Blade lawsuits have recused themselves. Man, the tentacles of this thing go everywhere.
Now, Ohio justices don't have to explain why they are recusing themselves...but any guesses?? All roads in the Ohio GOP do lead to Tom Noe:
Mr. Noe and his wife, Bernadette, have contributed more than $23,000 to the campaigns of the recused justices, Thomas J. Moyer, Evelyn Stratton, Maureen O’Connor, Terrence O’Donnell, and Judith Ann Lanzinger.Ohio is the manifestation of the saying: Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Stay tuned. This thing keeps growing and growing....
