Kasich: The FBI comes calling

THE KASICH-LED intra-party hit job that drove State Republican Chairman Kevin DeWine from office is still haunting the perps.  There are continuing reports that the FBI is looking into possible bribes by the governor's lower-level apparatchiks - otherwise known as the Kasich Goon Brigade (KGB)- to complete the deal.  The palace intrigue is now a topic for national blogs like Daily Kos.  Not a good image to project, Republicans.

You may recall that the leak in the Kasich back-channel bubble arrived via ex-Portage County GOP chairman Andrew Manning, who accused two of the governor's agents - Summit County Republican chairman Alex Arshinkoff and party activist Bryan Williams - of  promising  Manning a more honored  place in the Kasich Order if Manning, who supported DeWine,  withdrew from the state central committee.  ( It was as though the party had regressed to the medieval days when Kings and Popes fought over who was actually in charge of the domain.)

Manning signed an affidavit that he was offered a quid pro quo at a sit-down at Portage Country Club on Feb. 4.    Arshinkoff/Williams denied that they had  any such thing in mind.

But now come reports of other complaints about the governor's tactics.  Helen Hurst, chairman of the Lorain County Repubican Party, called for a response from Kasich on the allegations.  There were still others who entered the fray:  Maggie Cook, of Warren County, told the Plain Dealer that her job with Associated Builders and Contractors, was threatened if she didn't withdraw from the central committee race in which the governor put up his own slate. She refused to resign from the committee.  She was later fired.

Pause to catch your breath while I report that Bryan Williams, former director of the Summit County Board of Elections,  is a lobbyist for said Associated Builders and Contractors and a likely suspect in trying to influence Cook.

Finally, the spreading wildfire claimed another victim who supported DeWine.  The Columbus political blog Plunderbund reported that Jean Raga resigned from the Central Committee, when the Kasich forces allegedly threatened to take it out on Dayton Power and  Light.  Her husband Tom happens to be a  DPL  lobbyist.  The plot thickens.

Hard to know how far the FBI will take this probe under the  federal law that says, you can't "corruptly" give, offer or promise anything of value with "intent to influence any official act. ...'" (It's all in detail on the Internet.)

On with the show!  But first a question: Do you ever wonder whether this bunch of cold warriors ever has a little fun?

They should have asked Mike

YEARS AGO I knew a barrel of a courthouse bailiff who sat outside the judge's chambers, chewed on a cigar and observed closely the ways of his world.   Much of what Mike  told me in one and two-syllable words made some sense, the kind of sense you would  expect from courthouse philosophers with time on their hands.  So I asked him about the great Akron-based $11 million Ponzi scheme that I had been assigned to cover for my paper.  Schooled by his deep  interest in the win-place-and-show odds at a nearby racetrack, he squinted knowingly when I mentioned the unraveled scheme by Don Lowers, the Akron lawyer, to build a financial pyramid that was destined to collapse on a lot of sorry investors.

"I went up to his office when I heard about it, went over a lot crap with him and left, " Mike said with a cough and bit of gravel in his voice.  "Naw.  It didn't make no sense to me at all about how you can make so much money in such a short time.  There had to be a catch.  Not with my  money because I didn't give him none. I figured you'd have a better chance laying up two bucks on a three-legged horse.  Naw. I ain't no dummy."

Trouble today is that there aren't enough savvy courthouse horse players  around to know that Bernard Madoff was shuffling all of his money from the bottom of  his private deck.  Interestingly, although it has been in vogue to blame the people being forced from their homes for not reading the fine print  in their mortgages, there is almost no concern about the careless way so many huge money bags were offered up by  people and institutions who might have been more careful about their treasures.  

Corruption has become so widespread in the carpeted offices of the investment industry that the FBI in New York says it is diverting some of its agents from a terrorism watch to the fraud on Wall Street.    "We have to work with those cases we think pose the greatest threat," the FBI's David Cardona told Bloomberg.com.  "In this case it's the threat to the financial system and Wall Street."  How comforting!

But how would the big losers  know?  It's true that the SEC would have been the last people to ask inasmuch as they (as well Alan Greenspan) were fully committed to George Bush's "ownership society" as well as ignoring  lot of other signs of mischief on Wall Street.   That now translates into easy come, easy go, particularly for millions of homeowners. As for the record-breaking  Ponzi,  there are scattered reports of some big companies that rejected Madoff's  preposterous robust investment options.   For all the others, it was too bad that Mike  the bailiff wasn't around to advise the well-paid  company financial advisors.