Mary Taylor Audited for Hypocrisy, Recklessness

The stakes are too high as Ohio navigates the perilous waters of the current recession.  That’s why state of Ohio Auditor Mary Taylor should have known better than to call the state “unauditable” last week.

The basis for her stretcher (that’s what we used to call lies in Southern Ohio) was the fact that an important end of fiscal year report was past due.  As the Auditor of State, her office has been kept abreast of the issues the state has had in transitioning to its new accounting system known as OAKS.  As the Auditor, she’s been treated professionally and her staff always have had a seat at the table.  In fact, the state auditor’s office was probably better prepared for the OAKS transition than some state agencies.

That’s why she should have known better than to nitpick an administrative hassle and turn it into a potentially financially harmful circumstance for her state. The state of Ohio is not unauditable.

What’s at the root of the current economic crisis?  The financial markets – they’re not working properly.  Every aspect of the financial markets are gummed up and there is a dearth of something even more important than money in these markets: trust.  Mary Taylor’s outrageous pronouncement that the state is “unauditable” was an overreach and could have harmed Ohio’s credit rating.

As a politician, Mary Taylor is living up to that which so many of us have grown sick and tired – grandstanding for purely political gain.  Today, the Ohio Democratic Party brought my attention to something I missed over the weekend.  Mary Taylor’s own end of year reporting was late as well.  I don’t remember her chastising herself on this point last week.

From the ODP:

COLUMBUS – Just days after State Auditor Mary Taylor stood before the entire Statehouse press corps to accuse Governor Strickland of delaying the state audit, it was revealed that the audit of Taylor’s own office was months late, raising questions about the sincerity of her accusations.

As reported by the Columbus Dispatch (“Audit of Taylor’s office also late,” 3/7/09), under Ohio law, the audit of Taylor’s office had to be completed by October 15.  It was not finished until December 8, nearly two months late.

While the Strickland administration acknowledged the delay in both cases is due to the complicated transition to the Taft-initiated Ohio Administrative Knowledge System, Taylor continues to use exaggerated partisan rhetoric even as she begins to backtrack.  Now Taylor admits she “knew there would be delays” months before last week’s press conference.

Let me just back one thing up contained in the paragraphs above from ODP.  In May of 2008, Taylor was informed that the end of year report she was expecting would be late, perhaps not ready until the Fall of 2009.  This was before the fiscal year was even up.  Again in August, Taylor was updated some weeks after the end of the fiscal year.  This time the news was better.  The report would be late, but she could expect it as early as March or by perhaps late Spring.

These are just two instances I have read about or heard about regarding communication between the Auditor’s office and the Strickland Administration.  I know there were more, a source tells me that the Auditor’s office is “copied on everything.”

Mary Taylor is getting ready to run for something.  This context for her reckless behavior as a public servant is not lost on anyone who follows events on Capitol Square.  Let’s hope that the public servants in the Capitol and the state office towers in Columbus can make up for her shameless act.

Proof That Columbus Tea Party Organizer Is Republican Drone

Out getting the garden ready for some spring lettuce and hit the record button on 610 WTVN when they began talking Columbus Tea Party next weekend.  If Russo’s video didn’t show what a bunch of drones these people are, listen to the clip below.  Here at Clips and Comment we have advanced audio electronics which can filter out the fake, human sounding voices of YAF’ers and Young Republicans to their soulless, pre-programmed core:

Click Here for Tea Party Drone

Go Here for More on the Columbus Tea Party

Joe the Plumber or Joe the Gold Digger?

Joe the Plumber, vice president of Rush Limbaugh’s Republican Party, is suing former Ohio Department of Job and Family Services director Helen Jones-Kelley and others in federal court.

We all know that Kelley’s staff took a peek at Joe’s entries in their databases, but correct me if I’m wrong — isn’t that information public?  Granted, they didn’t go about it the right way — they could have called a journalist and asked them to do a public records request – but what’s Joe stand to gain?

Oh, that’s right, money.  There he is, one of  Republicanland’s standard bearers engaging in frivolously lawsuiting.  Didn’t Joe get the Republican talking points on use of the legal system?  The legal system is only for large, multi-national corporations wishing to avoid paying taxes.  It’s not for regular Joes.

Here’s what the AP reported:

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — “Joe the Plumber” is suing three former state officials in Ohio, saying they violated his privacy when they gathered his personal information in a records search.

Samuel J. Wurzelbacher says in the federal lawsuit filed Thursday that he suffered emotional distress, harassment, humiliation and embarrassment as a result of their actions. He’s seeking unspecified punitive damages.

The lawsuit names Helen Jones-Kelley, who resigned in December as director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, and two assistants.

Ohio’s inspector general found that Jones-Kelley improperly used state computers to find personal information on Wurzelbacher, a Toledo-area man who rose to fame during the presidential campaign after asking Barack Obama about his tax plan.

LMAO: Michael Steele and Rush Limbaugh Fight Over Who’s In Charge of Republicanland

This is great.  Here’s where it starts, an exchange between D.L. Hughley during his show on CNN and Michael Steele, the trying to be hip new chairman of the Republican National Committee:

HUGHLEY: Rush Limbaugh, who is the de facto leader of the Republican Party –

STEELE: No, he’s not.

HUGHLEY: Well, I’ll tell you what, I’ve never –

STEELE: I’m the de facto leader of the Republican Party.

HUGHLEY: Then you know what? Then I can appreciate that, but no — no one will — will actually pry down some of the things he says, like when he comes out and says that he wants the president to fail, I understand he wants liberalism to fail.

STEELE: How is that any different than what was said about George Bush during his presidency? Let’s put it into context here. Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. Rush Limbaugh, the whole thing is entertainment. Yes, it’s incendiary, yes, it’s ugly –

Today, El Rushbo answered and then some.  They used to tell politicians, “Don’t pick a fight with a guy who buys ink by the barrel.”  Someone ought to tell Steele if you’re a Republican leader you don’t pick a fight with the only guy who brings 22 million drones to the culture war every day.  Here’s some of what Rush said:

RUSH: Okay, so I am an entertainer, and I have 20 million listeners, 22 million listeners because of my great song-and-dance routines here. Yes, said Michael Steele, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, I’m incendiary, and yes, it’s ugly. Michael Steele, you are head of the RNC. You are not head of the Republican Party. Tens of millions of conservatives and Republicans have nothing to do with the RNC and right now they want nothing to do with it, and when you call them asking them for money, they hang up on you. I hope that changes. I hope the RNC will get its act together. I hope the RNC chairman will realize he’s not a talking head pundit, that he is supposed to be working on the grassroots and rebuilding it, and maybe doing something about our open primary system and fixing it so that Democrats do not nominate our candidates. It’s time, Mr. Steele, for you to go behind the scenes and start doing the work that you were elected to do instead of trying to be some talking head media star, which you’re having a tough time pulling off. I hope you figure out how to run a primary system. But it seems to me that it’s Michael Steele who is off to a shaky start.

I can’t believe I’ve had two or three posts lately about Rush Limbaugh, but my Lord people, we’re seeing the further disintegration of the GOP before our very eyes.  The stupidity of Steele and the Republican appeal to the lowest common denominator is so out of step with today, it’s incredible.  Then you have Rush out there basically saying, “I’ll take my 22 million drones and we’ll go do our own thing.”

The difference in the once scary-organized Republicans from 2000 – 06 to today is breathtaking.

Jindal’s Failure Is That He’s Gotten Ahead of Himself In the Ambition Department

Bobby Jindal’s relative youth may give him a second chance later in life to mount the national stage; but at 37, the Louisiana governor is letting his ambition get in the way of acquiring the wisdom it will take to truly change the Republican Party.

Tonight, at about 30 seconds into a feature on Jindal on 60 Minutes, he said, “I think the Republican Party needs to stop thinking about who’s the next messenger, is they need to stop thinking about how do they fix their party. We need to start thinking about how do we help fix our country?”

I would call that wise.  That’s Jindal, unscripted, answering a question.

Then there’s the Jindal being handled – by God knows whom – who gave the Republican response the other night.  There’s also the Jindal who says he won’t take any of the federal government’s stimulus money for his state – Louisiana a state that needs it more than most. (I think his fingers are crossed behind his back … he knows damn well his state legislature won’t let someone ‘move their cheese.’)

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Watson on HuffPo Nails It on “Limbaugh in the Lead”

If you don’t go read Tom Watson’s entire post, at least bask in this bit of loveliness:

Looking for all the world like the sweating floor manager on the late afternoon shift at Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club in an unbuttoned shiny black shirt and undersized sport coat, Rush Limbaugh leaned his meaty hands on the lectern at the CPAC conference and slipped a greasy dollar bill into the G-string of the writhing conservative dead-enders packed into garishly lit Omni Shoreham in Washington DC.

Jowls rolling like thunder from the right via CNN’s unfortunate high-definition feed, Limbaugh took control of the sad and tattered remnants of the mainstream conservative movement, and urged continued allegiance to the noble Lost Cause of Reagan, metaphorically carrying his rebel-yelling followers into the hills like modern-day Quantrill’s Raiders standing firm against change.

If there’s any doubt that the GOP’s own Paulie Walnuts  is now firmly in command of the Party of Lincoln, the “breaking news” style coverage of Limbaugh’s bellow-cose rant dispelled the notion.

NYT Magazine: Matt Bai Writes on Newt Gingrich

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