Rep. Ney Hears No Evil
House Administration Committee Chairman Bob Ney (R-OH) is one of a handful of members of the House Republican caucus tangled up in the widening Jack Abramoff scandal. And earlier this month – though it got little attention outside his state of Ohio – three WKKX talk radio hosts accused him of threatening them with retribution after they read news stories on the air about his involvement with Abramoff, who is being investigated by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee for allegedly defrauding several Indian tribes.
George Kellas, Dave Blomquist and John Blackmore told the Cleveland Plain Dealer during a conference call organized by Campaign for a Cleaner Congress that “Ney’s attorney called their station owner to say he was reviewing tapes of their broadcasts, and Ney himself told a mutual friend he would investigate the hosts' families and personal lives.”
"I feel this is an abuse of power by the congressman," said Blomquist, who described himself as a conservative who previously voted for Ney. The hosts said they felt the intimidation was an effort to pressure local media not to report that Ney accepted campaign donations from the Tigua Indian Tribe and an golfing trip to Scotland sponsored by Jack Abramoff in exchange for promised (though undelivered) legislation that would have given the Tiguas legal authority to reopen their $60 million-a-year casino operation.
Brian Walsh, Rep. Ney’s Communication’s Director acknowledged that a lawyer had called WKKX, a West Virginia station that broadcasts in Ney’s district, but denied that the call represented an effort to intimidate. "The congressman doesn't spend a minute of his time worrying about this station and its four listeners," Walsh said. Walsh told the Hill, “This is outrageous and not even worth responding to.”
Comments (9)
Republican Party uber alles!
July 29, 2005 10:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Someone tell Ney-sayer Walsh that, obviously, the congressman does.
I wonder if stem cell research can find a cure for greed? Just wondering.
July 30, 2005 5:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
A cure for fascism is more important than a cure for greed---though that is also an admirable goal. Unfortunately, Ney is all too typical of the modern Republican Party, which is largely made up of proto-fascists and fundamentalist loons.
July 30, 2005 6:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
When we describe the Republican Party we have to realize that there are three types of Republicans: those who vote for Republicans, those being voted for and those who finance the Republicans being voted for. The first type is best characterized by their lack of common sense. The second by their similarity to other mobsters, and the third by their recognition of the profit to be made by careful investments.
July 30, 2005 7:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Someone please tell me why the corruption so pervasive among Republicans does not seem to register with the public. I know that public corruption is not exclusive to one party, but the numbers and scale of corruption among Republicans today would seem to merit more attention than it's getting.
July 30, 2005 9:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Threats and intimidation walk hand in hand with greed and corruption.
I love the indignation..."This is outrageous and not even worth responding to" as they responded, LOL!!!
July 30, 2005 10:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey that guys has ties to a man convicted of war crimes, and was his representative while elements he supported were firing upon our soldiers deployed in the field.
Big surprise that an ohio Republican was associated with him.
Ney,Ney,Ney,Ney
Ney,Ney,ney,Ney
Heah yeah hey
'Good-buy'...
July 30, 2005 10:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Damn I had a great answer, revolving around Columbo and the Italian-American Anti-Defamation league, and in Googling found out that Billmon got to it first. In January 2004. Damn you Billmon! Why do you get all the good stuff earlier and better?!
http://billmon.org/archives/000956.html
"Columbo was the leader of an eponymous New York crime family back in the early '70s. And like many of his fellow dons, he was having difficulties with the Justice Department. In fact his son, Joe Jr., had just been arrested by the FBI -- for illegally melting down coins to sell the silver therein.
Now Joe Sr. thought busting his son for a trivial crime like defacing the currency was a chicken shit move on the part of the Feds -- amounting to a form of persecution. So he created, more or less out of thin air, a protest group called the Italian American Anti-Defamation League, and staged a noisy rally in front of the FBI's headquarters in Manhattan.
This, of course, was back in the heyday of what many people-labeled-neocon like to call "identity politics." You had your black liberation; you had your women's liberation; you even had your gay liberation. Joe must have figured, why not wise guy liberation?
Why not indeed. For a time, Columbo's movement flourished. Joe did the usual press conferences and TV talk shows, explaining to anybody who would listen that the Mafia was just an ugly ethnic stereotype, invented by the establishment to justify the oppression of the toiling Italian American masses. Right on!"
Me again: How many reporters knew this was total bullshit? Lots. How many let him get away with this for months? All of them. And it can all be explained by fear. I doubt there are people in the Rove organization who would hang people on meat hooks and hack their legs off, after all G. Gordon Liddy is semi-retired. But they sucessfully drove the MSM into a fearful crouch after 9/11 using the Patriotism club, and the media are only slowly emerging.
(The whole Billmon piece is excellent (as usual damn him) and focused on the all out assault on people who were pointing out that there was little neo in neo-con but plenty of con.)
July 30, 2005 11:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
We in Texas know that the Tiguas were originally shut down by John Cornyn when he was Attorney General of Texas. Ever the pasty, shameless opportunist, Cornyn turned the process of shutting them down into a anti-gambling, family values crusade to keep his name on front pages and the evening news around Texas in his run up to a Senate race.
But the crusade of one amoral Republican is another's opportunity, so into this affair step honorable men of bedrock conservative values like the orthodox jew Abramoff, the orthodox protestant Tom Delay, the self-righteous Ralph Reed and this guy Ney promising to help the Tiguas reopen on the one hand and promising the Alabama Coushattas that the Tiguas would not reopen. Abramoff writes to his co-conspirators that they "need to get $ from those monkeys", that "these mofos [the Tiguas] are the stupidest idiots in the land".
Abramoff got millions from the monkeys and Ney got campaign donations and a golf trip to Scotland, all for nothing. What a deal.
So with your fine sense of justice and ethics firmly in mind, how would you describe or define Republican business and political practices anyway, Congressman Ney? And what about the language of commerce they use?
July 30, 2005 3:33 PM | Reply | Permalink