Ohio Republican Political Scandal Update

As you may have read below, we learned today that Tom Noe, the Republican moneyman at the center of the missing-millions scandal in Ohio, has put his luxurious Key West home on the market for $4.6 million.

Now comes word that a top advisor to two Ohio Republican governors has admitted he participated in the money laundering scheme Noe orchestrated in order to funnel illegal contributions to President Bush and other Republican candidates last year.

H. Douglas Talbott, a former top aide to two Ohio governors, told federal authorities that Republican coin dealer Tom Noe persuaded him to contribute $2,000 to President Bush’s re- election campaign – then reim bursed him for the donation, The Plain Dealer has learned.

Talbott appeared Wednesday before a federal grand jury in Toledo that is investigating whether Noe illegally reimbursed as many as two dozen contributors to a Bush fund- raiser in October 2003. The grand jury is looking into whether Noe made the reimbursements to circumvent campaign finance laws, which limit individual contributions to $2,000.

His appearance before the grand jury marked the first time a former top aide to Gov. Bob Taft and former Gov. George Voinovich has been linked to the federal investigation of possible laundering of Bush campaign money.

Repeated attempts to reach Talbott were unsuccessful.

(Thanks Julie!)

Late on Friday, Pentagon Admits Koran Abuse Including Urination Incident

Late today after the East Coast media had gone home for the evening, the Pentagon released a report in which it admitted multiple incidents of U.S. interrogators abusing the Koran in order to incite Moslem detainees:

The Pentagon on Friday released new details about mishandling of the Koran at the Guantanamo Bay prison for terror suspects, confirming that a soldier deliberately kicked the Muslim holy book and that an interrogator stepped on a Koran and was later fired for “a pattern of unacceptable behavior.”

In other confirmed incidents, water balloons thrown by prison guards caused an unspecified number of Korans to get wet; a guard’s urine came through an air vent and splashed on a detainee and his Koran; and in a confirmed but ambiguous case, a two-word obscenity was written in English on the inside cover of a Koran.

The findings, released after normal business hours Friday evening, are among the results of an investigation last month by Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, the commander of the detention center in Cuba, that was triggered by a Newsweek magazine report — later retracted — that a U.S. soldier had flushed one Guantanamo Bay detainee’s Koran down a toilet.

It’s going to be interesting to learn how “a guard’s urine came through an air vent and splashed on a detainee and his Koran.”

The Smoking Memo Ignites Calls for Impeachment

Today the Bangor News in Maine has joined the PR’s call for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

Even as support trickles in, the odds are slim that Bush and Cheney will ever be impeached for lying to the public in the run-up to the Iraq War. Still, here’s a fun scenario to consider: If the Dems were to take the House in November ’06, Impeachment could move forward. If the Senate were to rule against Bush and Cheney, the big office would go to the third in line, House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi, right.

The Presidency of Nancy Pelosi may seem like pie in the sky but – and here’s something I thought I’d never say – let’s look at the shining example of former Talibani congressman Bob Barr whose cock-eyed optimism and black-hearted loathing of President Clinton paid off in the late 1990’s. More than a year before the world was introduced to Monica Lewinsky and her blue Gap dress, Barr ignored Clinton’s high poll numbers and filed impeachment proceedings against him :

In November [1997], long before Monica, Barr introduced a resolution to open a congressional impeachment inquiry: Clinton, reads its text, “has engaged in a systemic effort to obstruct, undermine, and compromise … the executive branch.” And since Clinterngate broke, Barr has been in a state of high gloat. He’s now preparing articles of impeachment and happily adding obstruction of justice and perjury to his list of Clintonian high crimes.

Of course, Barr made a fatal error in ignoring President Clinton’s high polling. As the impeachment played out, Clinton’s poll numbers stayed high, and it was his popularity that finally scared a few Senate Republicans into ruling in his favor.

Today, we’re faced with malfeasance in the White House far graver than a sex lie. But is there even a remote chance these men will be impeached? Norm Solomon lays it out, at TomPaine.com:

Five months into 2005, the movement to impeach Bush is very small. And three enormous factors weigh against it: 1) Republicans control Congress. 2) Most congressional Democrats are routinely gutless. 3) Big media outlets shun the idea that the president might really be a war criminal.

For now, we can’t end the GOP’s majority. But we could proceed to light a fire under congressional Democrats. And during the next several weeks, it’s possible to have major impacts on news media by launching a massive educational and “agitational” campaign—spotlighting the newly leaked Downing Street Memo and explaining why its significance must be pursued as a grave constitutional issue.

The leak of the memo weeks ago, providing minutes from a high-level meeting that Prime Minister Tony Blair held with aides in July 2002, may be the strongest evidence yet that Bush is guilty of an impeachable offense. As Rep. John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, wrote in late May:

  • “First, the memo appears to directly contradict the administration’s assertions to Congress and the American people that it would exhaust all options before going to war. According to the minutes, in July 2002, the administration had already decided to go to war against Iraq.”
  • “Second, a debate has raged in the United States over the last year and one half about whether the obviously flawed intelligence that falsely stated that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction was a mere ‘failure’ or the result of intentional manipulation to reach foreordained conclusions supporting the case for war. The memo appears to close the case on that issue stating that in the United States the intelligence and facts were being ‘fixed’ around the decision to go to war.”

Update: Rep. Conyers has 86,000 signatures on his letter demanding an explanation of the contents of the memo from President Bush. Even you’re lukewarm on impeachment, you’d still like to hear an explanation – right? It only takes a minute. Do it!

Noe’s Key West Home Is on the Market for $4.6 mil

Tom Noe, the Ohio Republican fundraiser who is under investigation for, er, misplacing over $10 million in state funds, is also making news in the Florida Keys. A friend who is knowledgable about goings-on down in Margaritaville writes:

Tom Noe’s name keeps popping up in the news in Florida for two reasons — he rented his house in the Keys to prominent Ohio politicians for less than market rate, and now he’s trying (secretly at first, but now he’s busted and it’s public) to sell the place quickly for $4.6 mill.

Speculation is, Noe will need the money for legal fees.

This just in: The bigger story right now is the rush of GOPers to return Noe’s contributions. Sounds like they’re tripping over each other to do it.