Scandal escalates, yet Taft stays mum

[WhiteTara]

And the corruption just keeps on coming.


COLUMBUS - Ohio's most important political leader has become its most muted on the ethical problems tarnishing his administration and his legacy.

Gov. Bob Taft offers language - part political speak and part Orwell - when he takes credit for an ongoing ethics investigation into numerous free golf games he took over the years but at the same time is unwilling to offer details or even give a general outline of the subject.
snip
"I think you are going to find a whole bunch of people hiring lawyers and seeing how quickly they can get to a prosecutor's office to cut a deal," predicted Paul Tipps, an influential Columbus lobbyist and the former chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party.

The ethical and legal troubles swirling around the governor's office and top GOP officials started in early April when The Blade began reporting on the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation's $50 million investment in two rare-coin funds set up by Mr. Noe.

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You just got to love that Toledo Blade
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050731/NEWS24/507310402/-1/NEWS

[DeepModem Mom]

1. kick

[LaurenG]

2. At least there are a few people in media

Willing to get the story and tell what they've found.

[Algorem]

3. Tennis, anyone? It's on the Bureau of Worker's Compensation's dime

http://www.cleveland.com/millions/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1122975064230410.xml&coll=2

Columbus- The Bureau of Workers' Compensation helped pay for a coin dealer's tennis club memberships and footed the bill when he hired his wife to promote his work at trade shows, newly released state documents show.

These items Monday joined an increasing list of questionable business expenses paid by the state to managers of Ohio's $50 million rare-coin investment. The attorney general's office on Monday released thousands more coin-fund transactions and promised to continue to release more than a half-million pages in the coming weeks.

Along with funding investments in rare coins and collectibles, the BWC paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses to dealers working on the state's behalf.

Business leaders, whose premiums fund the bureau, warn that ill-advised payouts could increase their frustration with the state...

[WhiteTara]

5. I can absolutely imagine that there will be

an increase in frustration. Our premiums on one person who sits at a desk answering a phone is almost $700 a year! If we weren't trying to get health insurance, there would be no way we would pay a penny to our corrupt state fund.

[ellie]

4. The Blade's reporting on this

and the priest-pedophile/police scandal and coverup makes me want to subscribe to it again.

[cally]

6. kick

Can someone please indict Blackwell with all the rest?