Kasich the Krooked

At least one of his Krony’s Kompanies has paid The Kasich hundreds of thousands in return for tax breaks. He denies everything, of course, as he always does. The man is slick, secretive and smart: but still a crook. From the article:

“Subsidiaries of a company that’s helped sustain Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s political career and contribute to his personal bank account have received tax breaks worth more than $619,000 brokered by the new job creation board he appoints.

Longstanding and extensive financial ties between Kasich and Worthington Industries, a Fortune 500 steel processor in central Ohio, are raising new ethics questions in the era of JobsOhio, a semi-private panel of business leaders appointed by the governor and largely shielded from Ohio ethics and public records laws.”

There is a lot more at the above link, and it is suggested you click and read it. In brief: The Kasich set up a secret agency, packed it with his buddies, stole our tax money to fund it, and is pocketing cash from the deals JobsOhio has been quietly cutting. Why does he get away with this crap?

He gets away with it because Ohio isn’t just controlled by “Republicans”; it is controlled by Kasich “Republicans”. So the only people in a position to challenge his unethical and illegal activities are people loyal to him, which means, yup, no one in Ohio government will call him to account.

One-party rule ALWAYS leads to corruption and the ripping-off of the citizenry. Ohio is such a stupid state, it has handed over its collective wallets to a load of thieves. And Kasich The Krooked is gleefully extracting cash from our billfolds and stuffing it into his own, just like he did on Wall Street.

Eh, oh, way to go, Ohio.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Sunshine Week, Day Five: Our Government has More Privacy than We Do

Yes, Gentle Readers, it is so. Over the past three decades, the government has given itself the right to be ever more intrusive when it comes to our private lives, and ever more secretive when it comes to their own activities.

Think of all the ways these alleged believers in “small government” have poked their noses into the most intimate areas of our lives: our financial dealings, emails, phone calls, family planning, travel (including what we pack), even up to and including the putting of parts of their bodies into ours without consent.

All this and more have those who were once our “representatives” given themselves the right to control, with or without our consent.

Meanwhile, they lie to us, steal from us, and manipulate us, all the while hiding their actions and motivations. Try getting some information from, say, Dick Cheney or “Dollar Bill” sometime and see how much you get. (Buckshot in the face does not count as transparency.)

Sunshine Week is a time for us to remember this, and seek change. But we must not stop come Monday. Make every week the time to demand your government play it straight and honest with you. If we can do that, the crooks will leave the halls of power and look for other fields and pastures new in which to play their sordid games and spun their fetid little intrigues.

Mr. B & C

Sunshine Week, Day One: We Deserve to Know Where Our Money Is

This is Sunshine Week, which is devoted to making the government more open, transparent and accountable to we the people. Corruption being a particular hobby horse for Mr. Blunt and Cranky, this blog shall ride it all week long. Today, we look at how the gummint takes our money and does secret s*** therewith. As an example we shall justly pillory the Governor of Ohio, John Kasich.

The Kasich has a habit of keeping secrets. This wasn’t a problem on Wall Street, where he made more than a million bucks before and during the Bush Market Crash. But, as Mitt Romney learned during his run for President, the public has an annoying habit of demanding their elected officials answer questions. The Kasich really, really hates this.

Most recently, the Auditor of the State of Ohio, David Yost has been asking what happened to a few million dollars of taxpayer money that went to cronies of The Kasich via the Jobs Ohio boondoggle. You know, he’s auditing, which we pay auditors to do. The Kasich threw an enormous s*** fit, saying that the auditor has no right to audit a private business. Said private business, mind you, has a few mill of our hard-earned dollars in its invisble accounts, but Little Johhny K. thinks that is none of our needlenosing business.

Hell, people, these unelected, unsupervised business buddies of The Kasich could have stashed our money in off shore bank accounts like Mitt Romney and Bernie Madoff do, and we’d never know. And if the Guv has his way, we never will know.

Leopards don’t change their spots, and sneaks don’t become open, honest virtuous citizens either. Since the voters of Ohio were idiotic enough to elect a millionaire con man as the state’s chief executive, we need to at least support Mr. Yost in finding out who has stolen what from us, and what they have done with our money. Or people like The Kasich will keep more secrets, steal more of our money, and screw us even more thoroughly.

Mr. B & C

Queen Ann Shoots from the Lip Once Again

Ann Romney hath spoken from Her Queenly Perch O’ Entitlement, telling reporter Natalie Morales that She and Lord Willard will not hand out any more information about Their Royal Selves to the media, or we lowly citizens, for that matter. Clearly She and Her little nancy boy Husband have not grasped the difference between public and private sector employment.

Here’s the deal, Annie-me-lass: when one works in the private sector (like Mr. Blunt and Cranky, say), one can live as privately as one wishes. Where you live, how you live, how much money you have, none of that is anybody’s business at all, unless you choose to share it. Most sane people choose to live thus.

Once you decide to operate in the public sector, any expectations of privacy are gone with the wind. And you had to know that, since this ain’t your first rodeo. The law requires one whole helluva lot of disclosure, and lots of politicians (like your late father-in-law, bless him) have raised the bar higher than the law requires, just to make themselves look good avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Hey, you’re richer than Croesus: good on you, many of us aspire to that. You used the tax laws to your advantage: so do most Americans. You likely have family tragedies that you might not wish to share: same here. So why the secrecy, why the scaredy-cat fuss, why the stonewalling? Because there can’t be anything that bad in your privileged backgrounds – Hell, you’re probably waaaay cleaner than the majority of your prospective subjects fellow citizens.

 If you wanted a completely private life, you should have stayed out of national politics. A wee bit late for that now, though: no matter how Your Royal Romneyness feels, you are going to have to deal with the demands of the new career you and your lackey-boy husband have chosen. Suck it up, buttercup, and open up. And climb off your throne, you look a jackass up there.

Mr. B & C

HONEST Sack of S*** of The Week

Yes, you read it right, Mr. Blunt and Cranky is changing it up a wee bit this week. Still the same Crown O’ Polished Turds to anoint the skull of the week’s worthy victor, but instead of bestowing it upon a liar, we are handing it to someone whose actions well and truly match his rhetoric: Willard Mitt Romney.

Willie Boy, you may know, campaigns ofttimes against those nasty rules and regulations that so inconvenience the financial industry. He rails against Dodd-Frank and such at the drop of a campaign check. One might call this empty rhetoric, but one would be wrong.

And how does your humble correspondent know this? How can he discern the flame of truth burning beneath the amazingly odd hairdo of Mr. Mitt? Two things:

Number A: His offshore accounts and refusal to disclose information about his finances. He truly IS opposed to disclosure, transparency, and rules and regulations, and proves it by living those “values”.

Letter 2: He is holding fund-raisers in London with the poor, downtrodden victims of law and order at Barclays et.al. For a mere $75,000.00 apiece, they might crave to enter the room and hear his soothing, healing words; and see for themselves his determination to cast off the rule of law that weighs so heavily upon the multimillionaires who are so victimized by the social order.

Yessireebob, Mitt is being 100% honest when he says he wants to get rid of those pesky laws that get in the way of anyone trying to earn a few billion bucks. The first Honest Sack of S*** of The Week. Wear that crown on your European trip, Mr. Romney, the better to fit in with anyone you might happen to meet who sports similar headgear.

Mr. B & C