Ohio governor Ted Strickland's hand-picked Ohio Public Safety Director Henry Guzman (2nd from the left) with Strickland himself sitting squarely in the middle of this picture
Some of you are going to think I’ve lost my mind (if you hadn’t already), but former State Public Safety Director Henry Guzman might be providing the dem equivalent of “Coingate” for Kasich & the GOP for the November 2010 elections.
If there is a full-fledged investigation I believe this will be as big or bigger than Coingate.
The MSM should be ALL over this because someone is going to potentially get the elusive Pulitzer which narrowly escaped Jim Drew’s grasp back in 2006 (The Blade's Coingate entry was not awarded a Pulitzer Prize but was one of three finalists in the public service category, considered the highest Pulitzer honor).
There are a LOT of angles to be watching on this so I’ll go slow and use small words for my readers who might be a little slow on the draw:
*Guzman delayed a crackdown for over a year (not weeks or months…a year!) after he met with people who benefitted financially from the Strickland Administration dragging their feet on this issue.
*The regulations were to take effect on 8/1/08, but after meeting with dozens of business owners the day before the regulations were to take effect Guzman decided not to begin the crackdown.
*Who specifically are the 60,000 people (in Ohio & elsewhere throughout the US) who utilized the Strickland Loophole to fraudulently drive the highways, roads, streets, boulevards & drives illegally amongst the citizens of the USA?
*Former BMV registrar Mike Rankin regularly pushed Guzman & his staff to put the stricter policy into effect, but what is the definition of “regularly” here (i.e. once a week? Once a month? More? Less?) and who else did Rankin, Guzman or Guzman’s staff tell about Rankin’s efforts to push Guzman? Is there a paper or electronic trail from Rankin to other people in & outside of state gov’t on this issue?
*Which specific out of state police departments were reporting in on this issue? Who did they report this issue to & how often did this go on?
*Did Rankin resign from the BMV willingly or was he nudged/pushed? If you read my post from yesterday “Modus Operandi” you have got to think that he might have been pushed out of BMV. If he was still in good graces with Strickland he would have gone anywhere on the planet other than Brunner’s office or Marilyn Brown’s office. That speaks volumes to me that Rankin found safe haven with Brunner…which then begs the question: Did Lee Fisher as Lieutenant Governor know about ANY of this stuff? When did he know? What actions did he or his staff take on the issue? Who did Lee or his staff speak to about it and is there a trail there?
*For the entire Strickland Administration the BMV investigators have considered Ohio a haven for this sort of illegal activity. How is it that nothing has been done about this sooner? That is a long time!
*Has there been any sort of cover up whatsoever & if there has who all is involved, who knows about it, when did it begin?
*Has anyone spoken with John Lang Jr (former Public Safety lobbyist) during the Guzman era? He is no longer there and my guess is that he might have a lot to add to the picture from who, what, when, where, why, how much, how often perspective.
There is no possible way on the planet that Guzman or someone who worked for Guzman did not know the names of the dozens of people who were in the meeting on 7/31/08. No way. Who were the car dealers? The finance company people? The insurance company people? The “runners”? Who else other than Enrique Robledo was in the room???
Is the public to believe that governor Strickland’s Department Director who he hand-picked to take this very important job regularly takes meetings with dozens of people who have an intense interest in a major regulatory decision less than 24 hours prior to the implementation of a significant policy change without knowing the names & businesses represented by the dozens of people he is meeting with?
Is that really what we are supposed to believe? Really? How dumb do you think we are???
Where was the meeting? Who scheduled the meeting? Which state employees attended the meeting? Time to check video tape from surveillance cameras to see who was entering & exiting the building before & after the meeting occurred. Time to subpoena emails & phone records of the state employees who had anything to do with scheduling the meeting or who attended the meeting.
Once we figure out who was there then let’s figure out which of these dozens of people, family members of the attendees &/or employees of the attendees have contributed to the Strickland re-election effort or to the Ohio dem Party’s various funds (i.e. is Strickland benefitting in any way from the 8/1/08 delay which everyone with a brain would agree was good public policy to move forward on the crackdown)???
The original “best public policy decision for the voters of Ohio” date was 8/1/08 and the “crackdown” didn’t occur until 8/24/09 so the question is what did 388 days cost the dozens of people in the room via the Strickland re-election effort and has Guzman personally benefitted in any way as well???
Was there a lobbyist(s) involved in any of this and what all has the lobbyist(s) done to make this happen? Which contributions did the lobbyist(s) facilitate?
One life has already been lost by this Strickland loophole (a pregnant illegal immigrant was killed in an illegally registered vehicle driven by her husband).
I am not in any way, shape or form saying the broad brush statement that all illegal immigrants are bad.
I am not saying that at all. I think that is asinine. I personally know some illegal immigrants and they are good people (I wish they wouldn’t kick my ass on the soccer field, but that does not make them bad people).
I am saying two things though that should keep Strickland, Chris “I am the Jordan of Lobbyists!” Redfern and the rest of the dems from getting a good night’s sleep for the next 13 months:
1) Whether one of these 60,000 illegal immigrants is “bad” or not is not the point. The point is that due to the Strickland loophole which Strickland is 100% responsible for there are 60,000 political ticking time bombs out there that could explode at any minute before 11/4/10. If an illegal immigrant who is a good human being has a few too many drinks and plows his car into & kills four pedestrians then those four deaths are on Strickland’s head. If an elderly illegal immigrant who is a great person falls asleep at the wheel, runs a red light and kills a family of five then that is on Strickland as well. Strickland has to hope that nothing really bad happens with 60,000 illegally driving in the US because of his policies.
Before I do #2 I want you to think about life in Columbus on a daily basis without a car. It is one thing to not have a car in San Fran or Chicago or DC where mass transit is clean, efficient and kicks ass, but entirely a different situation when you don’t have a car in Columbus (or other cities like Columbus that do not have good mass transit). It is a huge issue to not have a car.
2) With that as background I will try to word this as carefully as possible so I don’t get hate email. I believe that 60,000 people of any race, creed, religion, sexual orientation, etc. are not all going to be good people. If you set aside any group of 60,000 people even randomly I would argue that the odds of 25 out of 60,000 of those people being very bad would be extremely high odds (i.e. 59,975 good & 25 very bad). My assumption is that number holds true to this group of 60,000 people that Strickland’s Loophole is allowing to drive around the USA illegally. All it takes is one of those 25 people to go rent a van, put together the ingredients for a bomb(s), haul said ingredients back to their place in the van that Strickland’s Loophole has allowed them to drive, make the bomb(s), hop back into the van and park it in front of a building with a lot of Americans inside.
I hope and pray to God that does not happen, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t scare me that it only takes 1:60,000 for this scenario to occur.
I think it is great that Tom Charles is looking into this. I think Tom Charles does a great job and I tip my hat to him and the track record he has assembled over the years, but I think when this thing is all said and done Tom Charles is only going to end up being a bit player in all of this.
This Strickland Loophole potentially has major homeland security issues…think national agencies with recognizable acronyms on this investigation.
Yep, like I said before. I would not be sleeping very well if I were Ted Strickland, Lee Fisher or a dem on the statewide ticket in 2010.
Sweet dreams.
(Addendum: Interesting news clipping was brought to my attention after posting:
